UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak: No deportation flights to Rwanda before the July 4 snap elections

London [UK], May 24: According to Al Jazeera, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said that there will be no deportation flights to Rwanda before the July 4 snap election.

On Thursday, the first full day of campaigning, Sunak made this declaration.

If the Labour Party wins control of the government, it will abandon the deportation plan since it now has a clear 20-point lead in public surveys.

Speaking on Thursday at a campaign rally, Sunak portrayed the policy as crucial to the outcome of the election, according to Al Jazeera.

Sunak said earlier in April that there will be no more delays in the flights to Rwanda, and he committed to beginning the process of transporting asylum seekers there in ten to twelve weeks.

As part of the new plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, British officials started holding them. The first aircraft were scheduled to leave as early as July.

“We’ve started detaining people… the flights are booked for July, airfields are on standby, the escorts are ready, the caseworkers are churning through everything, so all that is happening, and if I’m re-elected as your prime minister, those flights will go to Rwanda,” Sunak said.

Since taking power in October 2022, Sunak has made the deportation plan his signature policy.

Even when the UK Supreme Court declared the scheme illegal in November, citing Rwanda’s inability to qualify as a secure third nation, he persisted in supporting it, according to Al Jazeera.

To get around the decision, Sunak responded by entering into a new treaty with the nation of East Africa and passing new laws in June. However, there are still open legal issues.

Labour leader Keir Starmer promised earlier this month that, “straight away,” after gaining government, he would scrap the initiative, which has already cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

Nonetheless, the quantity of asylum seekers venturing into the perilous trek over the Channel in 2024 has surged to unprecedented levels so far.

In an effort to lower the quantity of people smuggling, Starmer also unveiled a different proposal to establish a new border police team and use counter-“terror” capabilities.

Notably, the economy and the National Health Service’s record waiting times are anticipated to play a major role in the election campaigns, with immigration likely to be one of the main topics, according to Al Jazeera.

After 14 years of sometimes tumultuous Conservative administration that left many disillusioned in the nation, the UK prime minister surprised several members of his party by calling the referendum months ahead of schedule.

Furthermore, since Liz Truss resigned after only 44 days in office to be replaced by Rishi Sunak as prime minister, the Conservative Party has trailed the Labour Party in public surveys.