Candidates both vow migrant crackdown
THE UK will crack down further on illegal migration in the coming months regardless of who enters Downing Street, after both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak pledged fresh measures to tighten British borders.
On a weekend in which the two rival camps traded blows over tax cuts and economic credibility, the Foreign Secretary and the former chancellor appeared united on the need to toughen up UK policy on migrants.
Ms Truss promised an expanded Border Force and Mr Sunak committed to an annual cap on the number of refugees coming to Britain.
The leadership campaign has so far seen both candidates re-commit to the Government’s controversial Rwanda asylum scheme, over which Britain currently stands to lose the £120m it has paid to Rwanda if the plan to deport migrants is ruled unlawful by the courts.
Both candidates defended the policy, despite officials from the east African nation’s government confirming this week it had received the entire initial payment for the agreement signed in April and that the funds are already “committed”, with some money spent on preparations for arrivals.
The first deportation flight was grounded in June after a series of legal challenges, and another attempt is yet to be scheduled.
Ms Truss told the Mail On Sunday that the Rwanda scheme is the “right” policy, and said it could be expanded to include other countries.
Expanding on comments made in an interview with the newspaper, the Truss campaign also said that as prime minister she would increase the UK’s frontline Border Force by 20% and double the Border Force Maritime staffing levels.
Mr Sunak made a similar pledge on Rwanda, promising to do “whatever it takes” for the scheme to succeed.
Illegal migration has so far played a less significant role in the campaign, with inflation and the cost-of-living dominating the clashes between the candidates.
On the first weekend since Tory MPs whittled down the candidates to the final two, Mr Sunak travelled to Margaret Thatcher’s birthplace of Grantham in Lincolnshire where he stressed his “common sense”
Thatcherite credentials and labelled the tax plans of Ms Truss “immoral”.
Ms Truss, during a visit to party members in Kent, once again defended her plans for potentially £30 billion of tax cuts, saying: “I think it is wrong to be taking money from people that we don’t need to take, when people across the country are struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.”
Ms Truss said her plan to tackle illegal migration would be given a strong legal foundation by the new UK Bill of Rights, adding: “We need to break the cycle of these appalling gangs and stop people taking dangerous journeys across the Channel.”
But both candidates’ plans have already faced criticism, with Oxfam labelling as “cruel” any plan to link UK aid payments to countries’ co-operation with immigration removals.