- Home Secretary insisted Government plans to initiate the scheme were ‘robust’
James Cleverly slammed the ‘paternalistic’ attitude of opponents of the Rwanda plan today as the law facilitating deportation flights finally joined the statute book.
The Home Secretary said much of the resistance to the proposals was from critics who thought the country ‘must be horrible because it is in Africa’.
The brutal swipe, as Mr Cleverly answered questions from Parliamentary journalists, came after King Charles granted Royal Assent for the measures.
The Lord Speaker informed peers this morning that the passage of the legislation had been made official, drawing a line under months of wrangling in Parliament.
Rwanda removal flights will continue ‘indefinitely’ until migrants stop crossing the Channel by small boat, Home Secretary James Cleverly vowed while on a trip to Lampedusa, Italy
The Lord Speaker told the Upper House that King Charles has granted Royal Assent for the measures, meaning they have formally joined the statute book
The legislation is expected to receive Royal Assent from King Charles this morning, formally joining the statute book
He made his most detailed remarks yet about the impending launch of the Rwanda scheme during a visit to the tiny Italian island in the southern Mediterranean which lies on the front line of illegal migration from North Africa
Mr Cleverly pledged that the first deportation flight to Rwanda will leave in ‘ten to 12 weeks’
James Cleverly toured a police patrol boat in Lampedusa while discussing illegal migration
Mr Cleverly praised Kigali for ‘thinking creatively about how it can be part of the solution to a really serious global problem’ and earn commercial income rather than seeking aid handouts.
And he attacked critics who say Rwanda ‘must be horrible because it is in Africa’, saying it had been ‘revolutionised’ since the genocide in the 1990s.
‘We are entering a partnership with this country and as part of that partnership there is a transfer of money, he told reporters at a Westminster reception.
‘We are paying for services from the Rwandans. I have people telling me how distasteful it is that we are buying a service from the Rwandans. The same people who tell me that we should be increasing aid spending to countries like Rwanda.
‘So people who basically say we should not have a grown-up commercial relationship with African countries, that we should be seeing them exclusively through the prism of aid recipients.
‘I don’t buy that. What message is that sending to developing countries to say ‘we are not going to have a relationship of equals where we are transacting, where we are solving each other’s problems’?. ‘Know your place, African country, here is some aid money, now shut up and get with the programme’.
‘I don’t buy that and I find it really distasteful, some of the lazy criticism of Rwanda, which has revolutionised itself since the genocide.’
