New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called a controversial plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda "dead and buried" Saturday during his first news conference since his Labour Party won a landslide election victory
Starmer said he was scrapping the policy announced by Conservative Party predecessor Rishi Sunak in 2022 but never acted upon due to court challenges.
"The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started," Starmer told reporters, according to the Associated Press. "It's never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite."
Sunak claimed his plan would "stop the boats" that carry migrants across the English Channel from France and Britain by giving the Rwandan government hundreds of millions of dollars to house deportees and hire officials to process their asylum claims.
But Britain's Supreme Court ruled against the agreement in November, saying that Rwanda, in East Africa, couldn't be considered a safe third country, Reuters reportted.
During a 30-minute a question-and-answer session at the prime minister's office and residence at 10 Downing Street. in London, Starmer said Sunak's plan wouldn't have worked because only about 1% of Britain's migrants would have been affected.
"I'm not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don't act as a deterrent," he said.
Starmer became prime minister Friday after his Labour Party crushed Sunak's Conservative Party in parliamentary elections Thursday, winning 412 of 650 seats in the House of Commons.
The voting ended 14 years of Tory rule that was marked by the country's "Brexit" withdrawal from the European Union and former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's resignation over parties he secretly held in 10 Downing Street while the country was locked down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnson's successor, Liz Truss, only lasted 49 days, with voters ousting her from Parliament after her plan for deep, unfunded tax cuts and deregulation rattled the economy.
