Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet, in its entirety, knew that the Rwanda Bill would not work, Robert Jenrick has said, but they all turned a blind eye, leading him to quit as Immigration Minister. The Telegraph has the story.
The Tory leadership hopeful said on Tuesday night that every Minister “turned a blind eye” to weaknesses in the Bill, which was intended to deport asylum seekers to the east African country.
No one was ever deported under the scheme apart from four migrants who went to Rwanda voluntarily.
Mr. Jenrick resigned as Immigration Minister in December last year because measures he had proposed to strengthen the Bill were rejected by Mr. Sunak.
He told Sky News: “There was a choice for me at the time: take a Bill through Parliament which I knew didn’t work and which, frankly, everyone in Cabinet knew didn’t work; or leave the Government and make the case in Parliament, where I was honest with myself and with the public.”
Mr. Jenrick was then asked to clarify whether everyone in the Cabinet, which included Mr. Sunak and then-Home Secretary James Cleverly, believed it would fail.
“I think everybody involved in that decision knew perfectly well that that policy was not going to succeed, but they turned a blind eye to it,” he said.
“I wasn’t willing to be a minister like that.”
Worth reading in full.
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