Kemi Badenoch Undermines Central 'Deterrent' Point Of Rwanda Policy With Just 1 Sentence
Kemi Badenoch appeared to undermine the whole point of the government’s Rwanda plan after saying she knows someone “having a very lovely gap year” there.
The business secretary was responding to the news that ministers have paid a failed asylum seeker £3,000 to move to the east African country.
However, the arrangement is completely different to the government’s controversial plan to forcibly deport migrants to Rwanda.
On LBC this morning, Badenoch said: “This is somebody who has actually volunteered to go to Rwanda, which puts to bed this nonsensical myth that Rwanda was not a safe place. It is.
“People go on holiday there, I know somebody who is having a very lovely gap year there and we need to move past a lot of the myths, which are actually just disparaging about an African country.”
"I know someone who's having a very lovely gap year there."
— LBC (@LBC) May 1, 2024
A failed asylum seeker voluntarily being sent to Rwanda 'puts to bed the myth that it is an unsafe place,' Kemi Badenoch tells @NickFerrariLBC. pic.twitter.com/e0CwRjYZnG
But many social media users pointed out that her comments appeared to contradict the whole point of the government’s Rwanda policy.
Rishi Sunak has insisted that sending migrants there will act as a deterrent and stop more asylum seekers from trying to get to the UK in small boats across the Channel from France.
Then why are they saying it’s a deterrent?!
— Anna Turley ???????????????????? (@annaturley) May 1, 2024
So it's not a deterrent then?
— Rootless Cosmopolitan (@brendannickg) May 1, 2024
So Rwanda isn’t the deterrent they said it would be, is it?
— Avallon (@Avallon107) May 1, 2024