Rwanda president: efforts to implement asylum plan cannot ‘drag on’ | Immigration and asylum

Rwanda’s president has said there are limits to how long attempts to implement an asylum deal with Britain can “drag on”, adding that he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped.

Paul Kagame’s comments to the Guardian in Davos on Wednesday came before Rishi Sunak faced a potentially leadership-ending rebellion by Conservative MPs threatening to vote down his Rwanda deportation bill on Wednesday night.

Asked if he was following the debate in London, Kagame said: “It is the UK’s problem, not ours.”

But in comments that are likely to set alarm bells ringing in London, Kagame went on to express frustration at the drawn-out debate about whether asylum seekers would be processed in Rwanda. “There are limits for how long this can drag on,” he said.

Asked if the UK deal was working, he replied: “Ask the UK. It is the UK’s problem, not Rwanda’s problem.”

When asked about the money the UK had spent on the scheme, he said: “The money is going to be used on those people who will come. If they don’t come we can return the money.”

About £240m had been paid to Rwanda so far as part of the deal, the UK government said last year, while a further payment of £50m was expected in the 2024-25 financial year.

Tory rightwingers have seized on Kagame’s words as evidence that the Rwanda scheme must block international law to satisfy the Rwandan president.

A rebel source said: “As [illegal migration minister] Michael Tomlinson explained this morning, the government’s plan is going to need hundreds of judges to clear thousands of claims which will take months and months at a bare minimum.

“Rwanda want a plan that works quickly, not one that satisfies the whims of our attorney general. The government should therefore back our plan. At this rate it will be Labour having to pay back the money.”

MPs will vote on Wednesday evening on the third reading of the Rwanda bill and about a dozen Tories have said they are prepared to vote against it. Only 29 rebel Tories are needed for the bill to fall.

Sunak came under fire over Rwanda at prime minister’s questions, where he was asked three times by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, about what had happened to 4,250 people who had been “earmarked” for removal to the central African country but whom the government was said to have lost contact with.

The prime minister replied: “What I can tell [Starmer] is that in spite of him blocking every single attempt that we have taken we have managed now because of our actions to reduce the number of people coming here by over a third last year, remove over 20,000 people from this country back to their home countries, carried out 70% more illegal enforcement raids, arrested hundreds of people, closed down thousands of bank accounts and processed over 100,000 cases, the biggest number in over 20 years.”

But Sunak was also admonished by the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, after he brandished a copy of a document, Human Rights Law, which the prime minister said Starmer had written.

“He has always been more interested in what lefty lawyers have to say,” said the prime minister, saying that the Labour leader had authored “their textbook”.

Hoyle stopped Sunak, telling him: “Can I just say that we don’t use props in this house?”