The vast majority of Rwandan houses earmarked for asylum seekers by former home secretary Suella Braverman have been sold off to locals, according to reports in The Times.
Rishi Sunak has recently threatened to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in a last-ditch desperate attempt to force through the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill currently making its way through Parliament.
Progress on the Bill was stalled ahead of the Easter recess amid concerns from peers that it includes provisions that would allow ministers to ignore international law.
But in a sign that the government truly has hit rock bottom, the PM said controlling immigration is more important than “membership of a foreign court” in the surest sign yet that he could be considering leaving the ECHR.
Sunak told told The Sun’s Never Mind The Ballots programme: “I believe that all plans are compliant with all of our international obligations including the ECHR, but I do believe that border security and making sure that we can control illegal migration is more important than membership of a foreign court because it’s fundamental to our sovereignty as a country.”
But even if the PM overcomes legal hurdles, practical snags to the plan also threaten to ground flights.
It was recently reported that the Home Office is still struggling to find an airline to take people to Rwanda, with even the Ministry of Defense reluctant to get its planes involved.
And now it has been revealed that 70 per cent of the properties in Rwanda earmarked for asylum seekers have been sold to locals.
The Kigali estate, which was approved by Suella Braverman as home secretary during a well-documented tour last year, has mostly been snapped up by people in the area.
Of the 163 affordable homes, 70 per cent are taken, the developer ADHI-Rwanda said.
A manager at the estate in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, said they had gone to “private people who want to live in them”, leaving space for only a few dozen migrants if flights ever take off.
on a new housing estate in Rwanda that were earmarked for migrants deported from the UK have been sold to local buyers, the developer has said.
“Sold” signs have sprung up in the neat terraces of the Bwiza Riverside estate, which was described as “beautiful” by Braverman when she last visited.
As Peter Stafanovic wrote on social media, “just when you thought you heard of everything”, this happens!
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