A Liberal Democrat MP has condemned the debate around the Rwanda plan as he said the UK should be proud to admit refugees.
Appearing as a guest on the BBC Question Time panel, Tim Farron used three facts to take down the Tories’ failed plan to send migrants to Rwanda. The MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale noted that 85% of refugees settle in the country closest to where they come from, that the French accept three times more refugees than the UK, and that the Germans take four times more refugees than our country.
The Question Time audience broke into applause as Mr Farron said the Rwanda plan was a “waste of money” and the best deterrent to ineligible refugees coming to Britain was “competence”. He said genuine refugees should be processed, while those who are not should be returned to their country in a humane way – and that this would work as a deterrent.
Speaking during Thursday night’s debate on whether the Rwanda deportation plan should have been scrapped by Labour, Mr Farron said: “The unpleasantness about this debate is matched only by the complete lack of proper information. The reality is, 85% of refugees settle in the country next to where they come from.
“The French take three – ignore the ones who come through France on the way to here – the French take three times more refugees than we do. The Germans take four times more refugees than we do. If you put us back in the European Union, just for a snapshot, we are that we are 19th in a league take when it comes to the number of refugees we take per capita. So is it a problem? Yes, but fundamentally, it’s a problem for refugees.
“And do we need deterrence? Yes, I’ll tell you what is the best deterrent, competence. That’s the best deterrent. If you assess people, when they arrive here, and they’re not illegal immigrants, there are people seeking asylum. And when you go through and you look people are from Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, 90% plus of these people turn out to be genuine refugees. If we have a competent government, and we haven’t had a competent government – let’s wait and see about this one – if we have a competent government, and you assess them quickly and you return the ones that are not refugees, that is your deterrent.
“Rwanda was a waste of money. if they’d spent that money on caseworkers we could have processed these people, returned the ones who weren’t refugees in a humane way and that the one to a genuine refugees, become British, pay their taxes, be part of our country as we should be proud to admit them.”
According to the Migration Observatory, in 2023 the UK received around 84,000 in-country asylum applicants, the fifth highest when compared with the EU+ (the EU-27 plus Switzerland and the three EEA countries, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway). But when adjusted by population size, it received the 20th highest number of applications: 12.5 per 10,000 residents.