Ministers ‘being forced’ to send migrants to Rwanda, claims Oliver Dowden
The government “doesn’t relish” deporting migrants to Rwanda but is being “forced” to pursue the controversial policy because of the rise in Channel crossings, a cabinet minister has claimed.
Oliver Dowden was asked by Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday if he is “comfortable” with the idea of sending children and families to the east African nation if they arrive in the UK illegally.
He said: “I don’t relish any of this and I really wish we didn’t have to do it… we are being forced to do it.”
Listing the reasons why the government is being “forced” into the policy, Mr Dowden said: “With those children seeking to cross the Channel, I think of the danger that their lives are being put in, the evil people smugglers in whose hands they’re placed.
“And unless we are willing as a government and as a country to take tough action in relation to this, the numbers will keep on growing and more people’s lives will be put at risk, the lives of young children. And I’m simply not willing to allow that to happen.”
Labour’s Lisa Nandy asked what the government has been “forced to do” as she pointed out the £140m deportation scheme is yet to get off the ground since it was launched last April.
She said “everybody accepts” that the small boat crossings amount to a “crisis… but the question is what is the government actually doing so far?”
Ms Nandy said: “They’ve done several PR opportunities and photo ops. We’ve had £140m of cheques written to Rwanda in order to implement a scheme that hasn’t removed a single person. This is just more stunts from this government.”
The shadow housing secretary said the government should use the money that is being spent on the “unethical unworkable scheme” and put it into the National Crime Agency “to create a cross-border cell in order to disrupt the criminal gangs who are profiting from people’s misery”.
She insisted this was not a “magic wand solution”, saying “what it’s doing is the hard yards that this government hasn’t been prepared to do”.
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Lisa Nandy criticises Rwanda policy
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The Rwanda scheme has been stalled by legal challenges since it was launched almost a year ago by Priti Patel, the home secretary at the time, but a government source has told Sky News UK officials are working towards getting the flights started “by the summer”.
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, signed an update to the migrants agreement during a visit to the African country this weekend, expanding its scope to “all categories of people who pass through safe countries and make illegal and dangerous journeys to the UK”.
A Home Office statement said this would allow ministers to deliver on its new Illegal Migration Bill as it would mean those coming to the UK illegally, who “cannot be returned to their home country”, will be “in scope to be relocated to Rwanda”.
The government source said it would “seal off all the loopholes” for those arriving illegally, including those claiming to be victims of modern slavery.
Suella Braverman looked around housing for migrants in Rwanda and (below) toured a construction training academy
The home secretary tours a new construction training academy in Kigali during her visit to Rwanda
Dowden defends ‘tone-deaf’ comment
Ms Braverman’s trip has been shrouded in controversy after some members of the media were excluded from going along.
She has also faced criticism for joking about the interior design while touring potential accommodation for asylum seekers.
Looking inside one of the properties, she said: “These houses are really beautiful, great quality, really welcoming and I really like your interior designer.
“I need some advice for myself.”
Asked if that was “tone-deaf”, Mr Dowden told Ridge: “Contrary to some of this characterisation of the policy, this is about making sure there is somewhere safe and secure for people to go to and actually the purpose of the Home Secretary’s visit was to further strengthen our relationships with Rwanda.”
The UN and human rights campaigners have warned that Rwanda is not a safe country to send asylum seekers, particularly those who are LGBT+.
The first deportation flight was stopped at the eleventh hour in June last year after an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights – and none have taken off since.
The scheme is seen as central to the Rishi Sunak’s plan to “stop the boats” – a promise he has staked his premiership on.
Throughout 2022, some 45,728 people crossed to the UK via the Channel – up 60% on the previous year.
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Earlier this month, the prime minister announced a package that will see a new detention centre established in France as well as the deployment of more French personnel and enhanced technology to patrol beaches in a shared effort to drive down illegal migration.
However, the EU and UN are among those who have warned a new bill to ban asylum applications if people enter the UK through unauthorised means violates international law.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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