Rwanda scheme belongs in the dustbin of history, along with Rishi Sunak

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‘So far, the government have spent £140m on the camp itself and £1.3m defending the plan in the UK courts’ (PA)

Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda scheme was declared illegal by five independent UK judges. Yet he dismissed their judgement as one by “foreign courts” and promised to pass emergency legislation which would label Rwanda a “safe country”, despite objective fact. He hopes this will allow the UK to send asylum seekers to Rwanda in defiance of the ECHR and the UK’s international treaty obligations.

Both the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office – and the UK high commissioner to Rwanda – have repeatedly warned successive governments that Rwanda has a bloody record of extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances, torture and repression of dissidents. It is not a “safe” country and no law passed in the UK will make it safe.

Signing off on a new treaty with Rwanda in a desperate attempt to revive the government’s illegal plan to traffic asylum-seekers to their concentration camp there, home secretary James Cleverly insisted that the government wasn’t pursuing the inhuman scheme to win “cheap and quick popularity”. In this, at least, there might be a grain of truth given the Rwanda deportation scheme is neither “cheap” nor is it “popular”.

So far, the government have spent £140m on the camp itself and £1.3m defending the plan in the UK courts. Ministers are also hiding the mounting costs of the scheme from the public and will not reveal extra costs associated with it until next summer. But it is probable they have recently handed over another £15m to the Rwandan government to keep the plan alive. The government that says it has “no money” to pay junior doctors a living wage has unlimited money to fund the Rwanda scheme, which even Cleverly reportedly once privately described as “batshit”.

Nor is the plan popular. No public poll over the Rwanda scheme has shown a majority in favour of it. It has polled a majority in favour among Tory voters, which might explain why Cleverly and Sunak are pursuing it with such fanaticism. Sunak cannot drop the Rwanda scheme because he has nothing else to offer beyond anti-refugee racism. But the truth is that for all the money he is squandering on it, the Rwanda scheme is where Sunak will be in just a few months – in the dustbin of history.

Sasha Simic

London

The great Christmas market scandal

As the Lincoln Christmas market is cancelled, apparently due to health and safety concerns over its popularity, I’m left wondering about the arbitrary nature of this policy.

Everything from stadiums to theatres, restaurants, pubs and coaches sensibly have a health and safety capacity – but not trains, which allow you to pack in like sardines blocking the doors.

If an outdoor Christmas market is a safety risk due to numbers, why not towns, cities and countries?

Richard Whiteside

Halifax

Disturbing news on Hillsborough

It is most disappointing that the government has decided not to proceed with the so-called “Hillsborough Law”. There has to be a concern that this is just another occasion of people in high places trying to squash legitimate concerns.

Andrew McLuskey

Ashford

We should be happy for the future of opera...

In 1968, I made a film for the BBC called A New Home for the Wells, narrated by John Gielgud, telling the story of the transfer of Sadler’s Wells Opera to the Coliseum in London. Since then, I’ve been a regular at the Coliseum till recently, when I have no longer been able to make the journey. Unfortunately for me, all attempts to find a copy have failed. There are obviously mixed feelings about the current move, but without getting into the controversies about government and arts council funding priorities, I do feel glad for Manchester and have no doubt it will be very welcome and make a major contribution to cultural life in that city, when so much of our cultural life, and especially in music, is under threat. Perhaps someone will now make a film, working title: The Wells Moves On Again?

David Buckton

Cambridge

A message to the prime minister on the BBC

That prisoner of his own ideology, Sunak, needs to know that there are five reasons to adequately fund the BBC:

1. Free of crass advertising, now running up to slots of five minutes a time, which destroys any interest in the programmes

2. Sport on commercial TV is being dominated by gambling companies, with feeble reminders to be gambling aware

3. The BBC is as neutral as any broadcaster can be. Consider the pro-Tory channel GB News

4. The BBC is respected worldwide with a network unmatched anywhere

5. It is always the BBC the public turns to in a time of crisis, such as the death of Queen Elizabeth

I know viewing options are changing, but none possess the proven stature of the BBC, and an increase of – say – 10 per cent on the licence fee is little in comparison to what is paid out to subscription services of low quality.

Collin Rossini

Essex