“I do feel a slight sense of Groundhog Day here”
— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 15, 2024
Trevor Phillips challenges shadow home secretary @CPhilpOfficial claim that the Rwanda scheme was a deterrent, when 'it never actually happened'#TrevorPhillipshttps://t.co/fhIHlpTGAF
???? Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/mcI0tYaHdG
Trevor Phillips dropped a huge truth bomb on a senior Tory after he tried to claim the last government’s Rwanda scheme would have cut the number of small boats crossing the English Channel.
The Conservatives announced their plan to deport asylum seekers to the east African country in April 2022.
But despite spending £715 million on the policy, no migrants were ever forcibly removed there.
Labour scrapped the policy after winning the election on July 4.
On Sky News this morning, shadow home secretary Chris Philp said: “The reason those illegal and dangerous small boat crossings have gone up under Labour is they scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it had even started. The first flight was due to take off on July 24.
“The National Crime Agency have told us you need a deterrent to stop the boats. Law enforcement alone is not enough, and that’s why it was so foolish for Labour to scrap that deterrent before it even started.”
But Phillips told him: “I do feel a slight sense of groundhog day here. Are you really still saying that a deterrent that never got in place, which never hit the ground, has actually deterred anybody? The Rwanda scheme never actually happened, so how did it deter anybody?”
Philp: “The point I’m making is that had it started as planned ...”
The presenter then interrupted to tell him: “But it didn’t.”
The Tory MP hit back: “But had it started, by now it would have been having an effect and we would not have been seeing increases in numbers.”
Phillips told him again: “But it didn’t, and people from the previous government keep coming in and saying ‘the reason there are still people coming here is because they didn’t do Rwanda’. You never got Rwanda to happen. Nobody ever went to Rwanda. It never was a deterrent.”
Keir Starmer has insisted the only way to stop the small boat crossings is to “smash the gangs” carrying out the people smuggling.
But thousands of migrants are continuing to make the perilous crossing from France, including 609 on Thursday - a record for a winter’s day.
