The government’s latest refugee scheme won’t work – and it doesn’t deserve to

Editorial: This is a way of paying a poor country to accept helpless refugees, forgetting about them, and offshoring Britain’s national conscience

15 April 2022 (Dave Brown)

Cruel, expensive and shameful as it is, the main problem with the government’s new Rwanda plan is that it actually can’t succeed in its unspoken aim of deterring refugees and others from trying to get to the UK.

The calculation remains broadly the same – people will remain so desperate to get to Britain they will still get into a boat or the back of a lorry or some new route in order to make a new life for themselves.

Even with the armed forces involved (who have better things to do) the people crossing the channel still have a chance of making it into the UK undetected, and therefore they will continue to risk their lives.