London: The Rwanda Bill is the “best bill” to address the issue of small boat crossings in the English Channel, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has said in remarks aimed at those unhappy with the legislation.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak managed to avoid a major rebellion by Right-wing Conservative MPs earlier this month when they abstained on his controversial Rwanda bill, saying it was a “partial and incomplete solution” to the problem of sending back illegal asylum seekers from Britain.
For the moment, they refrained from pulling the rug on Sunak on the basis that he had indicated to them that he was willing to accept amendments that would tighten the Bill.
Asserting that it is “best bill to get the job done,” Cameron said that failure to tackle the issue of small boat crossings in the English Channel would be destructive to people’s faith in the government, The Guardian reported.
“It’s the best bill to get the job done, and I think it’s a mistake to think in terms of ‘Ooh, is it full fat or half fat?’ It’s designed to deliver the policy,” he added, referring to some of the terms that some Conservative MPs used to describe the Bill.
The former Conservative leader, who was brought back into government last month, said he believed the Foreign Office could be more involved in helping to deliver the Bill, which forms the core of Sunak’s policy to stop the boats — one of five key priorities, which he set out at the start of the year.
Cameron said it could “get migration dialogues going with countries where some of their citizens are coming in small boats to Britain, and we should help”.
“Having very visible illegal migration is incredibly destructive to a country’s legal migration and immigration system, and it’s also destructive to people’s view of the ability of politicians and governments to act on their behalf,” he added.
Since Brexit, net immigration has continued to mount, touching a record of 606,000 in 2022.
Last year, a record 45,775 people were detected arriving without permission in Britain in small boats. So far this year, more than 27,000 have arrived this way.
Launched in April 2022 by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Rwanda plan aims to discourage asylum seekers from making the perilous journey of about 20 miles across the Channel from Europe in small boats or inflatable dinghies to England’s southern beaches.
Under the plan, anyone who arrived in Britain illegally after January 1 last year faced deportation to Rwanda.
Following a last minute injunction from the European Court of Human Rights, the first deportation flight in June 2022 was blocked.
According to media reports, UK is presently spending more than three billion pounds per year on dealing with asylum applications, and the cost of housing migrants as their claims are processed runs at about six million pounds per day.
–IANS