The Rwanda scheme is dead. Long live hostility! 

Guest post by Sylvie Da Lomba. Sylvie Da Lomba is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Strathclyde Law School. She researches in the field of human mobility, migration and the law. Her work challenges the state-centred baseline of migration laws and policies. 

Upon winning the July 2024 general elections, Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed that the Rwanda scheme was ‘dead and buried’. However, most spontaneous arrivals of asylum seekers and refugees at UK borders remain illegalised and liable to removal. The UK government has indeed proposed a Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill designed to ensure ‘fast-track returns for individuals coming from safe countries’. The new Labour government did not scrap the Rwanda scheme because it was inhumane and illegal (see work by Mayblin and others), but because it had failed to stop ‘small boats’ reaching the UK. In response to this ‘failure’, the present government has elected to securitise asylum. 

In March 2021, the UK government (then under Boris Johnson’s Premiership) announced its plan to ‘overhaul’ the country’s asylum system. This plan consisted in making spontaneous arrivals of asylum-seekers and refugees at UK borders illegal with a view to deterring and, failing to do so, punishing ‘small boat’ crossings in the English Channel. What ensued was a descent into illegality as successive Conservative governments remained committed to this plan notwithstanding mounting evidence that it could not ‘stop the boats’ . 

The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and subsequently the Illegal Migration Act 2023  (the former having failed to ‘stop the boats’) illegalised asylum-seekers and refugees who are considered not to have come ‘directly’ to the UK from an unsafe country. What was put in place was ‘a near-ban on asylum and humanitarian protection’ (Joint Committee on Human Rights 2023, para 107): the UK is indeed surrounded by safe countries, which means that most asylum seekers and refugees cannot arrive at its borders ‘directly’. It is also the case that international law (1951 Refugee Convention, Article 31) does not require that asylum be sought in the first safe country (see work by Gower).  

To effect its rejection of spontaneous arrivals, the UK government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Rwandan Government in April 2022 (see work by Collyer and Shahani). The Rwanda scheme became the linchpin of successive Conservative governments’ ‘stop the boats’ policy - perhaps unsurprisingly, as Rwanda was the only country to have agreed to accept the UK’s ‘illegalised’. Under this scheme, individuals who were deemed to have transited through a safe country en route to the UK would be removed to Rwanda to have their asylum claims examined under Rwanda’s asylum system, notwithstanding this system’s deficiencies. In what was an unprecedented escalation in the violence exerted by forced removals and, more generally, externalisation policies (see work by Collyer and Shahani, and Freedman), those granted international protection status would be denied any prospect of settling in the UK. 

In November 2023, the UK Supreme Court found the Rwanda scheme illegal, having assessed that Rwanda was unsafe for asylum seekers and refugees. Rather than do away with its Rwanda scheme in line with the Supreme Court’s ruling, the UK government (then under the Premiership of Rishi Sunak) sank further into illegality and hastily concluded a Treaty with Rwanda that claimed to render this country ‘safe’. On the back of this Treaty, the government then passed legislation that declared Rwanda ‘safe’  (Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024).  

The demise of the Rwanda scheme following Labour’s victory in the 2024 general elections has not signalled a reversal - or even a ‘softening’- of the UK’s hostile environment. The new government’s goal is to ‘succeed’ where the Rwanda scheme has failed: deter small boats crossings and punish the ‘illegalised’ who have reached UK borders (‘only’ four volunteers were transferred to Rwanda). The proposed Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill clearly shows that the present UK government has embarked on a securitisation agenda, with ‘effective’ border control and return enforcement at its core. The government has amended the Illegal Migration Act 2023 to allow the processing of asylum claims lodged by individuals who could not be removed to Rwanda under the now defunct scheme. However, the government has not repealed the Illegal Migration Act, which means that the Home Secretary’s duty to remove illegalised spontaneous arrivals could still be implemented.  

The current UK government’s securitisation agenda is also at play in the September 2024 UK-Italy joint statement. The latter aims to enhance cross-border cooperation, notably though the Border Security Command to be established by the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. This statement was signed against the backdrop of sustained criticism levelled at Italy’s policies towards asylum seekers and refugees at its borders (see work by Giuffré and Rocca), including Italy’s 2023 Agreement with Albania which provides for the transfer of asylum seekers rescued or interdicted at sea to Albania (see work by Broerse) - a model Prime Minister Keir Starmer has expressed interest in exploring.  

The demise of the Rwanda is a relief, but it is also a missed opportunity - an opportunity for the UK government to end the violence inflicted on asylum seekers and refugees who reach its shores. Instead, what the new UK government’s securitisation agenda signals is continuity in the UK’s rejection of spontaneous arrivals at its borders.    

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