UK's New PM Gets Right to Work, Scraps Contentious Plan

Keir Starmer says of Rwanda deportation 'scheme': 'Dead and buried before it started'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jul 6, 2024 11:30 AM CDT
UK's New PM Gets Right to Work, Scraps Contentious Plan
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a speech in London on Saturday.   (Claudia Greco, Pool Photo via AP)

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that he's scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda as he vowed to deliver on voters' mandate for change, though he warned it won't happen quickly. "The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started," Starmer said in his first news conference, per the AP. "It's never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite." Starmer told reporters at 10 Downing St. that he was "restless for change" but wouldn' commit to how soon Britons would feel improvements in their standards of living or public services. His Labour Party delivered the biggest blow to the Conservatives in their two-century history Friday in a landslide victory on a platform of change.

Conservatives struggled to stem the flow of migrants arriving across the English Channel, failing to live up to ex-Prime Minister's Rishi Sunak's pledge to "stop the boats" that led to the controversial Rwanda plan. Starmer's decision on what he called the Rwanda "gimmick" was widely expected because he'd said he wouldn't follow through with the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars and never taken flight. It's unclear what Starmer will do differently to tackle the same crisis with a record number of people coming ashore in the first six months of this year. "Labour is going to need to find a solution to the small boats coming across the channel," said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London. "It's going to have to come up with other solutions to deal with that particular problem."

The 30-minute Q&A session followed his first Cabinet meeting as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos, and a battered economy. "We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work," Starmer said as he welcomed the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St. Among a raft of problems they face are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing a broken health-care system, and restoring trust in government. "Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn't mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced [have] gone away," said Bale. More here.

(More Keir Starmer stories.)

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