UK Escapes £100m Rwanda Bill
Last update: June 1, 2026
Disclaimer: This website may contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click on the link and make a purchase. We only recommend products or services that we personally use and believe will add value to our readers. Your support is appreciated!
Remember that controversial Rwanda plan? Well, a court just said Britain doesn’t owe Kigali a penny — and Labour’s scrapping of the deal was perfectly “logical”.
So, turns out the UK won’t be forking out millions to Rwanda after all. An international court has just ruled that Britain doesn’t have to pay up over the scrapped asylum deal that Keir Starmer binned as soon as he walked into No.10, cbinewstv reports.
Rwanda had taken the UK to court in The Hague, arguing we breached the agreement and demanding more than £100m. Their justice minister, Emmanuel Ugirashebuja, told the Permanent Court of Arbitration that Rwanda had racked up “significant costs” getting ready to host asylum seekers, only for the UK to “walk away” without so much as a heads-up. Apparently, they found out the deal was dead from the media. Awkward.
But the UK’s lawyers weren’t having it. They argued it was “entirely logical” Labour would ditch the plan and “simple common sense” that no more cash was due once the scheme was scrapped. The court agreed — ruling Rwanda isn’t entitled to any payout.
Quick rewind: the deal was cooked up by the Tories back in 2022 under Boris Johnson, then pushed hard by Rishi Sunak. The idea was to send people who arrived in the UK “illegally” on small boats to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. If successful, they’d stay there. Not here.
It never really got off the ground though. The first flight in 2022 was grounded at the last minute thanks to the ECHR, and the whole thing got bogged down in legal challenges. In the end, only four people went to Rwanda voluntarily — tempted by a £3,000 offer under a separate scheme in 2024.
Labour promised to scrap it during the 2024 election campaign, and Starmer declared it “dead and buried” on day one. A government spokesperson said the UK had “robustly” defended its position and is now focused on “restoring order and control to our borders”.
Imran Hussain from the Refugee Council reckons the scheme just caused “chaos” by leaving people stuck in limbo. His take? “The best way to get value for money is to build a fair and functioning asylum system that makes quick, accurate decisions.”
All in all, that’s a pricey headache the UK has just avoided.
Attribution: cbinews.tv
#UKPolitics #RwandaDeal #AsylumSeekers #KeirStarmer #ImmigrationUK #RishiSunak #CourtRuling #BritishPolitics #HomeOffice #CbinewsTv
