Rishi Sunak: Airfield on standby and planes booked for Rwanda deportations
The prime minister has said the first deportation flights to Rwanda will leave “in 10 to 12 weeks”, hours before MPs are due to vote on his emergency legislation.
Rishi Sunak said teams across the government were “working flat out to deliver this genuine game changer” – with an airfield on standby and booked commercial charter planes to get the first flights off to the African nation.
“No ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda,” the prime minister vowed.
Mr Sunak was speaking at a press conference in Downing Street just hours before MPs and peers vote on his emergency legislation, possibly well into the evening.
The controversial bill returns to the Commons following several rounds of parliamentary ping-pong, which has seen the Lords express their opposition to the proposals through a series of amendments the prime minister does not accept.
Politics latest: Rwanda deportations will start ‘come what may’
Mr Sunak vowed last week that today would be the day the bill finally got through parliament, telling reporters there would be “no more prevarication, no more delay”.
He repeated that assertion today, telling journalists: “Enough is enough”, adding: “Parliament will sit there tonight and vote no matter how late it goes.”
The prime minister described his plan – which will see asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via irregular means sent to Rwanda instead – as an “indispensable deterrent ” that removes the incentive for people to make the dangerous Channel crossing.
He declined to give operational details due to the “loud minority of people who will do absolutely anything and everything to disrupt this policy from succeeding” – but promised there would be a “regular rhythm” of “multiple flights a month through the summer and beyond”.
After promising that the first flight would take off in 10 to 12 weeks, which he said was later than he would have liked, he took aim at the Labour Party, whom he accused of blocking the bill in the Lords with their series of amendments.
Asked by Sky News political editor Beth Rigby whether the bill’s likely passage would be a “moment of success” for him, Mr Sunak replied: “Success is when the boats have been stopped. That’s what the country expects, that’s what the government and I are committed to delivering.”
While he refused to go into “sensitive” operations details, the prime minister did outline a number of measures the government was taking to prepare for the first flights to take off.
He said there were now 2,200 detention spaces and that 200 dedicated caseworkers had been trained to process claims quickly.
Around 25 courtrooms have been made available and 150 judges will provide 5,000 sitting days, he added.
Mr Sunak also said there were 500 “highly trained individuals ready to escort illegal migrants all the way to Rwanda, with 300 more trained in the coming week”.
Sunak is desperate to be heard – but is the public listening anymore?
Desperate to convince voters he and his party can still be trusted to “stop the boats”, the prime minister stood at the podium in Downing Street with that very slogan slapped on the front of it.
But is that slogan a reminder of a promise, or a reminder of a failure?
Calling a press conference to tell us all what you are going to do to get this policy off the ground may seem rather unnecessary, but it is a warning shot to the Lords who have continued to stop the bill becoming law due to their concerns around its legality and protection of vulnerable people.
Mr Sunak insists flights will take off in 10-12 weeks from now, and that lawyers, judges and even courtrooms have been prepared to deal with legal challenges and obstacles to getting flights off to Rwanda.
However, even if flights do take off, is the public even listening anymore?
Public apathy and loss of trust could be Mr Sunak’s biggest hurdle to climb even if this embattled prime minister can prove he can make Suella Braverman’s dream a reality.
“This is one of the most complex operational endeavours the Home Office has carried out,” Mr Sunak said. “But we are ready, plans are in place and these flights will go, come what may.”
And in a dig at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which blocked the first flight to Rwanda from taking off in the summer of 2022 with one of its rulings, the prime minister said: “No foreign court will stop us from getting flights off.”
Hinting that he could be prepared to leave the ECHR – a key demand of some on the right, including former home secretary Suella Braverman – Mr Sunak said he would prioritise “national security” over “membership of a foreign court”.
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PM adamant Rwanda flights will happen
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper branded the Rwanda scheme “extortionate” and denied Labour had blocked the bill in the Lords.
“The government has an overall majority in parliament and could have passed this bill a month ago if they had scheduled it then, but as we know Rishi Sunak always looks for someone else to blame,” she told broadcasters.
Read more:
Sunak set for week-long blitz of announcements
Rwanda enforcement officers told all leave is cancelled
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“This is costing the taxpayer half-a-billion pounds for a scheme that will only cover 1% of asylum seekers.
“This is an extortionate scheme. They should be putting that money into boosting our border security instead. That is what Labour would do.”
Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said following the press conference: “No amount of sound bites or spin can change the fact that the Conservative’s Rwanda scheme is a colossal failure.
“Millions of pounds and years of government attention have already been wasted, with absolutely nothing to show for it.
“It’s time for Rishi Sunak to get a grip, get to the palace and give this country the election it is crying out for.”
Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin, marks their 50th birthday amid a year of rising institutional and geopolitical adoption of the world’s first cryptocurrency.
The identity of Nakamoto remains one of the biggest mysteries in crypto, with speculation ranging from cryptographers like Adam Back and Nick Szabo to broader theories involving government intelligence agencies.
While Nakamoto’s identity remains anonymous, the Bitcoin (BTC) creator is believed to have turned 50 on April 5 based on details shared in the past.
According to archived data from his P2P Foundation profile, Nakamoto once claimed to be a 37-year-old man living in Japan and listed his birthdate as April 5, 1975.
Source: Web.archive.org
Nakamoto’s anonymity has played a vital role in maintaining the decentralized nature of the Bitcoin network, which has no central authority or leadership.
The Bitcoin wallet associated with Nakamoto, which holds over 1 million BTC, has laid dormant for more than 16 years despite BTC rising from $0 to an all-time high above $109,000 in January.
Satoshi Nakamoto statue in Lugano, Switzerland. Source: Cointelegraph
Nakamoto’s 50th birthday comes nearly a month after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a Digital Asset Stockpile, marking the first major step toward integrating Bitcoin into the US financial system.
Related: Bitcoin at 16: From experiment to trillion-dollar asset
Nakamoto’s legacy: a “cornerstone of economic sovereignty”
“At 50, Nakamoto’s legacy is no longer just code; it’s a cornerstone of economic sovereignty,” according to Anndy Lian, author and intergovernmental blockchain expert.
“Bitcoin’s reserve status signals trust in its scarcity and resilience,” Lian told Cointelegraph, adding:
“What’s fascinating is the timing. Fifty feels symbolic — half a century of life, mirrored by Bitcoin’s journey from a white paper to a trillion-dollar asset. Nakamoto’s vision of trustless, peer-to-peer money has outgrown its cypherpunk roots, entering the halls of power.”
However, lingering questions about Nakamoto remain unanswered, including whether they still hold the keys to their wallet, which is “a fortune now tied to US policy,” Lian said.
Related: Bitcoin’s next catalyst: End of $36T US debt ceiling suspension
Is Satoshi Nakamoto wealthier than Bill Gates?
In February, Arkham Intelligence published findings that attribute 1.096 million BTC — then valued at more than $108 billion — to Nakamoto. That would place him above Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on the global wealth rankings, according to data shared by Coinbase director Conor Grogan.
Satoshi’s new addresses. Source: Conor Grogan
If accurate, this would make Nakamoto the world’s 16th richest person.
Despite the growing interest in Nakamoto’s identity and holdings, his early decision to remain anonymous and inactive has helped preserve Bitcoin’s decentralized ethos — a principle that continues to define the cryptocurrency to this day.
Magazine: 10 crypto theories that missed as badly as ‘Peter Todd is Satoshi’
The United States stock market lost more in value over the April 4 trading day than the entire cryptocurrency market is worth, as fears over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs continue to ramp up.
On April 4, the US stock market lost $3.25 trillion — around $570 billion more than the entire crypto market’s $2.68 trillion valuation at the time of publication.
Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market”
Among the Magnificent-7 stocks, Tesla (TSLA) led the losses on the day with a 10.42% drop, followed by Nvidia (NVDA) down 7.36% and Apple (AAPL) falling 7.29%, according to TradingView data.
The significant decline across the board signals that the Nasdaq 100 is now “in a bear market” after falling 6% across the trading day, trading resource account The Kobeissi Letter said in an April 4 X post. This is the largest daily decline since March 16, 2020.
“US stocks have now erased a massive -$11 TRILLION since February 19 with recession odds ABOVE 60%,” it added. The Kobessi Letter said Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement was “historic” and if the tariffs continue, a recession will be “impossible to avoid.”
Source: Anthony Scaramucci
On April 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing reciprocal tariffs on trading partners and a 10% baseline tariff on all imports from all countries.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will be roughly half the rate US trading partners impose on American goods.
Related: Bitcoin bulls defend $80K support as ‘World War 3 of trade wars’ crushes US stocks
Meanwhile, the crypto industry has pointed out that while the stock market continues to decline, Bitcoin (BTC) remains stronger than most expected.
Crypto trader Plan Markus pointed out in an April 4 X post that while the entire stock market “is tanking,” Bitcoin is holding.
Source: Jeff Dorman
Even some crypto skeptics have pointed out the contrast between Bitcoin’s performance and the US stock market during the recent period of macro uncertainty.
Stock market commentator Dividend Hero told his 203,200 X followers that he has “hated on Bitcoin in the past, but seeing it not tank while the stock market does is very interesting to me.”
Meanwhile, technical trader Urkel said Bitcoin “doesn’t appear to care one bit about tariff wars and markets tanking.” Bitcoin is trading at $83,749 at the time of publication, down 0.16% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap data.
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