Downing Street was forced to deny it had been racist towards Rwanda yesterday amid a row over the scrapping of the deportation scheme.
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, had said the way the plan was abandoned showed a ‘disdainful attitude’ to the central African nation.
He said a ‘European country’ would not have been treated in the same way as Rwanda, which was paid hundreds of millions of pounds to take asylum seekers.
Downing Street rejected Mr Cleverly’s claims, saying the scheme was scrapped because it was ineffective.
Fewer than half a dozen people were sent to Rwanda before then-Prime Minister Mr Sunak paused the programme in May in the run-up to the general election – some way short of the tens of thousands expected to potentially end up being flown there.
Mr Cleverly told Times Radio that the Labour Government cancelled the agreement with the Rwandan government ‘without even having the good grace to contact them directly to inform them’.
Asked if he was saying the decision was racist, Mr Cleverly said: ‘You and I both know that this would never have happened like this had it been with a European country.
‘It’s because there is a below-the-salt disdainful attitude to African countries and the Rwandan government.’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said on Monday that the Rwanda scheme was the ‘most shocking waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen’.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman rejected the suggestion that racism was at play in the decision to scrap the policy.
He told reporters: ‘The decision to scrap the scheme was based on the scheme being a completely ineffective policy.
‘You’ve seen the situation where small boat crossings are at a record high this year. Clearly, the current system is not working.
‘Our border security is being undermined by criminal gangs, the asylum system is in chaos, we’ve inherited weak security enforcement arrangements, we’ve got tens of thousands of asylum seekers stuck in an endless backlog, housed in hotels without their claims ever being looked at.
‘So that was why the Home Secretary laid out the next steps to clear the backlog and protect our border.’