Even Blair knew it could work

LABOUR MPs have condemned the Government for sending migrants to Rwanda as immoral and unworkable.

But when their party was in power 18 years ago it had a very similar policy. Under a plan backed by Tony Blair, asylum seekers fleeing Somalia would have had claims handled in Tanzania.

‘I honestly cannot understand the objection to seeing whether it is possible, if people are going to make asylum claims and begin their asylum journey close to the country of origin, to try to process some of those claims there,’ he told the Commons in 2004. ‘That is what we are negotiating with the Tanzanian government.’ He said it was ‘absurd’ to suggest it would lead to ‘a trade of displaced people’.

Home Office officials visited Tanzania and the country was offered £4million in aid if it took failed UK asylum seekers, including those who had falsely claimed they were Somalian.

In the event, the Tanzanian government said it already had too many refugees. The year before, then-home secretary David Blunkett had tried to convince EU leaders to set up ‘transit processing centres’ outside the EU.