TORY leadership favourite Robert Jenrick has vowed to resurrect the Rwanda plan if he becomes PM.
The former immigration minister said he wanted small boat arrivals “detained and removed within days”.
Labour axed the Rwanda deportation scheme immediately upon winning the election before any removal flights could take off.
Yet Mr Jenrick said yesterday: “I would hope to bring it back. But look, it is going to be four or five years away.
“But what is absolutely at the heart of my policy is that if you arrive in this country illegally, you will be detained and you will be removed within days.”
He also repeated previous pledges to leave the European Convention of Human Rights and impose an annual cap on net migration.
He said he was “open” to net migration being below 20,000 each year. Last year it was more than 600,000.
Mr Jenrick – who resigned from Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet in protest at “weak” immigration policies – said he would tell the party the “hard truths” of why they lost.
He is currently the bookies’ favourite to win the contest after leapfrogging Kemi Badenoch in the betting markets.
Speaking to 200 supporters in his Newark constituency earlier today, Mr Jenrick insisted the Tories could still beat Sir Keir Starmer in five years’ time.
In a “no notes” speech reminiscent of David Cameron’s memorable 2005 diatribe, he also took aim at people who “don’t know what a woman is”.
He said: “If we show that we are united again, as a broad church, but a broad church with a common creed, if above all else we show that we have changed, then we can win again.”
