British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday on his first full day in office that he is scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda as he vowed to get change in motion, though he warned it will take time.
“The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.”
The announcement was widely expected because Starmer said he would ditch the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars but never taken flight.
The news conference followed his first Cabinet meeting as the new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy.
Starmer welcomed the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St., saying it had been the honor of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially elevated him to prime minister.
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