Confirmed: Keir Starmer made it clear he still intends to scrap the Tory policy of sending planes full of ‘illegal migrants’ to Rwanda.

Take a look at the following – both the X post by Robert Jenrick and the interview clip on which it is based:

Jenrick’s claims are clearly false. Keir Starmer saying he doesn’t want to ship people who have migrated to the UK illegally off to Rwanda doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to stop the boats bringing them here in the first place.

Nor does it mean Starmer’s party (it isn’t Labour any more in anything but name) is ideologically opposed to border controls. We know that the last Labour government under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had better controls than the Tories who have been in power since 2010.

That system was scrapped – some say in order to create a crisis and a bogeyman for the public to fear.

Starmer is right to imply that the Rwanda policy will not stop the criminal gangs who prey on refugees and asylum-seekers. There is no evidence to say that it will; in fact, figures show that after the policy was approved, the number of people arriving in the UK increased.

But he is wrong to say the ambition is to stop those gangs from plying their trade.

The ambition must always be to stop refugees and asylum-seekers wanting to leave their own country in the first place.

Negotiation is a good start – and it’s worth noting that the Tories are working on more agreements by which they would be able to return people to the countries from which they come to the UK.

But the negotiations need to be with the migrants’ countries of origin – to stop their governments creating the conditions that uproot these people in the first place. It’s not rocket science and This Writer has made the point time and time again in the past.

A good leverage point would be all the weapons export licences the UK government grants to these places. If they don’t improve the quality of life in their countries, the UK could refuse to export weapons to them.

Or is that far too sensible for Mr Starmer or any other politician?

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