Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan for asylum seekers wastes millions and lacks public support. So why is she doing it?

While government supporters claim refugees should claim asylum in the first safe country reached, this view is based on a mistake, writes Thom Brooks

The government’s Rwanda policy has not removed a single individual and might never do (PA Wire)

The Home Office’s most senior civil servant had nothing good to say about home secretary Priti Patel’s stalled efforts at deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. In alarming evidence yesterday to the home affairs select committee, permanent secretary Mark Rycroft acknowledged that Patel’s plans will likely make a bad situation worse.

The government’s policy aims to send refugees seeking asylum in the UK to Rwanda to be processed in Rwanda under Rwandan laws for potential settlement there. Whether anyone receives asylum or is removed elsewhere will be a matter for Rwanda to decide.

Patel has repeatedly said in parliament that the policy will provide an effective deterrent to those making dangerous small boat journeys across the English Channel. However, Patel’s top mandarin confirmed in a published letter that any “evidence of a deterrent is highly uncertain and cannot be quantified”.