Germany is looking at taking advantage of the hundreds of millions spent by the British on the now scrapped Rwanda migrant scheme to send its own illegals to the East African nation.
In one of his first acts after coming into office in July, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced an end to the plan to send illegal boat migrants to asylum processing centres in Rwanda rather than allowing them to remain in Britain.
Although the previous Conservative governments had failed to get the scheme off the ground, after the plan was mired in legal challenges kicked off by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after it sensationally stepped in to block a migrant removal flight in the summer of 2022, the UK taxpayer had already sent £318 million to Kigali to construct asylum centres and economic development in the country.
This week, German migration commissioner Joachim Stamp proposed that Berlin take advantage of the investment by the British to send its own illegals to Rwanda as Germany seeks to increase removals in the wake of recent Islamist terror attacks in Solingen and Mannheim and growing anger among the public over the open borders agenda imposed upon the country.
Stamp suggested that the government use “the capacities available there that were originally prepared for this deal with the British,” broadcaster NTV reports.
The neo-liberal Free Democrat politician said that the scheme could be used to deter the use of “hybrid warfare” tactics by Russia and Belarus to send migrants towards the EU’s eastern border to destabilise the bloc. Stamp said that this could amount to removing around 10,000 migrants to Rwanda per year.
“This would mean that Putin and Lukashenko’s propaganda would no longer catch Iraqis, Syrians and Afghans saying: Come here to Minsk or to Moscow and we will take you to Europe,” he said.
“If we could find a third country in this place, that would be excellent. We currently don’t have anyone who has come forward, with the exception of Rwanda.”
Although the policy has not been agreed upon by the other parties of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ‘traffic light’ coalition government, namely the Social Democrats and the Greens, should Germany take advantage of hundreds of millions spent by the British taxpayer, it would likely represent a major political blow for the new left-wing Starmer government in London.
Former Tory Home Secretary Suella Braverman told The Telegraph: “Germany’s decision to adopt the Conservatives’ Rwanda scheme is more evidence of support within the EU of the need for a meaningful deterrence.
“That Starmer ditched the plan makes the UK look like a soft touch for illegal migrants, makes us now an outlier from other EU states grappling with the migration crisis, and is a waste of the vital work done to get the scheme up and running. A big mistake that Starmer will come to regret.”
Conservative Party leadership candidate Robert Jenrick added: “Labour’s decision to scrap, not strengthen, the Rwanda plan looks more foolish by the day. Across Europe, leaders can see that you need a deterrent to stop illegal migration. Sir Keir has squandered such a highly-prized partnership and is now completely powerless to stop the boats.”
The Labour government has argued that scrapping the Rwanda scheme allowed for investment into targeting the criminal people smuggling gangs operating on both sides of the English Channel, notably the creation of a new Border Security Command task force.
However, more than 7,000 illegals have crossed the Channel since Labour came into power in July, taking the total for the year to over 21,000, compared to 29,437 for the entirety of last year.
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