So far £140million has been spent without a single deportation to Rwanda – the Conservatives are using anti-asylum seeker rhetoric simply to win votes
The Conservatives have cynically calculated that there are votes to be won making life worse for people who risk their lives crossing the Channel in small boats. All this shows is that they are more interested in PR than in a workable asylum system.
The Bibby Stockholm barge is a floating symbol of their failure to halt the sailings. Instead they have created a near-record backlog of cases awaiting decisions.
Suggesting Ascension Island could be used as an asylum centre is another attempt at spin. If £140million has so far resulted in not a single deportation to Rwanda, why would a scheme to send asylum-seekers 4,000 miles to a tiny South Atlantic island fare any better?
Even the Home Office Minister charged with pumping out propaganda, hapless Sarah Dines, couldn’t get her numbers right and had to be corrected by Downing Street. Nobody should pretend that there are simple answers to asylum and migration but the Tories are just playing dirty games with the issues, and with the people caught up in them. Britain needs a system that works.