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New UK Prime Minister Starmer Says Controversial Rwanda Deportation Plan Is ‘Dead And Buried’
LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Saturday that he is abandoning a contentious Conservative policy of deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda, promising to fulfill the voters’ mandate for reform, though he warned that it would take time.
“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer stated at his first press conference. “It has never functioned as a deterrent. “Almost the opposite.”
Starmer told reporters in a wood-paneled chamber at 10 Downing St. that he was “restless for change,” but refused to say when Britons would see changes in their standard of life or public services. His Labour Party inflicted the most devastating blow to the Conservatives in their two-century history on Friday, winning by a landslide on a program of change.
Starmer | AP news Image
New UK Prime Minister Starmer Says Controversial Rwanda Deportation Plan Is ‘Dead And Buried’
The 30-minute question-and-answer session came after his first Cabinet meeting. His new government faces the daunting task of addressing a slew of internal issues while also winning over a population weary of years of austerity, political upheaval, and a wounded economy.
“We have a huge amount of work to do, so let’s get started,” Starmer said as he welcomed the new ministers to the table at 10 Downing Street. He stated it had been the greatest honor of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially promoted him to prime minister.
“Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean that all of the problems that the Conservative government has faced have gone away,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.
In his first words as prime minister Friday after the “kissing of hands” ceremony with Charles at Buckingham Palace, Starmer said he would go to work right once but warned that results would take time.
“Changing a country is not as simple as flipping a switch,” he remarked as ecstatic fans cheered him outside his new official residence at 10 Downing Street. “It’ll take a while. But there is little doubt that the job of change begins immediately.”
Following the six-week campaign, he will have a hectic schedule, traveling to each of the four nations of the United Kingdom—England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland—that he claims voted for Labour.
He will next go to Washington for a NATO meeting on Tuesday before hosting the European Political Community conference on July 18, the day following Parliament’s official opening and the King’s Speech, which outlines the new government’s agenda.
Starmer singled out several major issues on Friday, including fixing the revered but crippled National Health Service and securing its borders, alluding to a larger global issue of absorbing an influx of migrants fleeing war, poverty, drought, heat waves, and floods caused by climate change.
Conservatives struggled to slow the flood of migrants crossing the English Channel, failing to keep ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s promise to “stop the boats” that led to the contentious Rwanda plan.
Starmer’s decision on what he dubbed the Rwanda “gimmick” was widely predicted given that he had previously stated that he would not carry out the plan, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars and had never taken flight.
It’s unclear what Starmer would do differently to address the same situation, which saw a record number of refugees arrive on shore in the first six months of the year.
“Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel,” Bale told the crowd. “It’s going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem.”
Starmer | AP News Image
New UK Prime Minister Starmer Says Controversial Rwanda Deportation Plan Is ‘Dead And Buried’
Suella Braverman, a Conservative hardliner on immigration who could replace Sunak as party leader, slammed Starmer’s decision to dissolve the Rwanda accord.
“Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she tweeted on Saturday. “There are big problems on the horizon which will be I’m afraid caused by Keir Starmer.”
Starmer’s Cabinet is also going to work.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy was to go on his first international trip Saturday, meeting counterparts in Germany, Poland, and Sweden to emphasise the importance of their partnership.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he would resume talks with NHS physicians at the start of their careers next week after they launched a series of multi-day strikes. The wage conflict has exacerbated the NHS’s high wait times, which have become a defining feature of its issues.
SOURCE – (AP)
