Sunak admits Rwanda flights will only take off if he is re-elected

Flights carrying migrants to Rwanda will take off “after the election”, Rishi Sunak has conceded, as he urged voters to back him at the polls if they want to see this happen.

The prime minister made the admission as he toured the broadcast studios ahead of a two-day trip across the UK to mark the start of the campaign.

Mr Sunak called the election on Wednesday night in a rain-soaked press statement in Downing Street, with the date set for July 4.

He and his ministers have repeatedly marked early July for when the first one-way deportation flight for migrants to east African nation Rwanda will take place.

Speaking to LBC, the prime minister conceded these will now take off “after the election”.

“If I’m elected, we will get the flights off,” he said.

Pressed further on timing, Mr Sunak said: “No, after the election. The preparation work has already gone on.”

The PM denied that the real reason for calling a summer election is that inflation is expected to rise again and there is likely to be a spike in small boat arrivals over the summer.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, the he said: “No, that’s not the real reason.

“And when it comes to the economy, of course I know there’s more work to do. I know that people are only just starting to feel the benefits of the changes that we’ve brought.

“And for some people when they look at their bank balance at the end of every month it will still be difficult, but we have undeniably made progress and stability has returned.”

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Mr Sunak embarked on a whistlestop tour of all four UK nations on Friday.

His Labour rival Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is kicking off his election campaign with a visit to south-east England, in a sign he wants to make inroads in Tory areas.

Sir Keir accused the PM of never believing the Rwanda deportation plan would work, and calling and early election to avoid being tested over the policy.

Speaking on a visit to Gillingham in Kent, a traditional Conservative heartland, Sir Keir said: “I don’t think he’s ever believed that plan is going to work, and so he has called an election early enough to have it not tested before the election.

“We have to deal with the terrible loss of control of the border under this government, we have to tackle the small boats that are coming across but nobody should be making that journey.”

Sir Keir has said Labour’s plan to curb small boat crossings would involve a new “border command” that would work with other countries to coordinate in tackling people-smuggling gangs.

Preparations for Rwanda deportation flights persist, Downing Street said, as Whitehall “continues to deliver existing Government policies”.

Mr Sunak’s official spokesman said the timetable “hasn’t changed” and that “we’ve always said those early weeks of July.”

The spokesman denied timings had been affected by a recent court ruling in Belfast that provisions of the UK’s Illegal Migration Act should be disapplied in Northern Ireland.

The government's Rwanda Bill finally passed through Parliament in April after multiple hurdles from the Lords.

The plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda to have their claims processed had also been beset by legal challenges, with the Supreme Court ruling the scheme was unlawful in November 2023.

The prime minister had previously committed to flights taking off in spring.

Rishi Sunak introduced the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill in December 2023, after the Rwanda policy was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court said that under the Rwanda plan asylum seekers would be at risk of being sent back to countries where they could face persecution.

The government came up with a two-pronged solution to the legal challenge, a new treaty with Rwanda and the "emergency" Rwanda Bill to declare Rwanda is a safe country.

The new Bill gives ministers the power to disregard sections of the Human Rights Act - it sparked discontent from both wings of the Conservative Party earlier this year, as right-wing Tories felt the Bill was too lenient, while others raised concerns it could risk breaching international law.

Meanwhile, net migration – the difference between the number of people legally arriving in the UK and leaving – dropped by 10% last year after hitting a record-breaking 764,000 in 2022, official estimates show.

Those figures are likely to further fuel the immigration debate – a key campaign battleground.

Number 10 said they did not take into account the recent tightening of visa rules imposed by the Home Office, which the Government hopes will cut arrivals by 300,000 a year, while Labour said they represented “total Tory chaos and failure” on immigration.

Mr Sunak surprised many in Westminster who had expected an autumn poll when he fired the starting gun for the summer election.

The news caused disquiet among Tory MPs fearful of losing their jobs, and those who have already said they will not stand and are having to say goodbye to Parliament sooner than expected.

Despite speculation at Westminster about a Tory rebel effort to oust Mr Sunak and call off the election, one prominent critic of the Prime Minister said it was “too late” to get rid of him.

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