Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick has claimed that the scrapping of the Rwanda deportation scheme has made Britain more vulnerable to terrorism, revealing
for the first time that dozens of terror suspects have crossed the Channel in small boats. Jenrick, who is now a Conservative leadership candidate, said individuals linked to extremist groups such as Islamic State and Al-Qaeda were among those who had entered the country posing as refugees.
Jenrick’s comments come in response to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to end the Rwanda plan, which would have deported small boat arrivals to the African nation. In an article for The Telegraph, Jenrick warned that cancelling the scheme has heightened the risk of future terror attacks in the UK.
"In the year before I was immigration minister, more than a dozen known terror suspects crossed the Channel on small boats. By now, that figure is well into the dozens," he wrote. "These are individuals identified by our security services as threats, with links to Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, yet they entered the country unchecked."
Jenrick, who had access to sensitive security information during his time in the Home Office, also claimed that up to 1,000 people arriving on small boats by the end of 2022 were "connected to criminality of all kinds." He argued that the growing number of suspected criminals and extremists is overwhelming the country’s police and security services.
While some government sources dismissed his statements and criticized the Rwanda plan as ineffective, Jenrick insisted that his experience in charge of immigration policy revealed serious gaps in the country's ability to safeguard its borders. He argued that legal constraints have made it difficult to deport individuals known to be threats to national security.
"The British state was powerless as people it knew to be terrorists broke into the country and failed to remove them because of our current legal regime," he wrote, calling for tougher measures and advocating for Britain to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which he blamed for hindering deportation efforts.
Jenrick’s remarks follow Starmer’s pledge that the UK would remain a part of the European Convention and its court in Strasbourg. Starmer’s decision to scrap the Rwanda plan was one of his first actions as Prime Minister, which Jenrick condemned as “irresponsible” and dangerous. He warned that without stronger measures, Britain is at greater risk of illegal migration and terrorist activity.
Government sources, however, refuted Jenrick’s claims, highlighting that under Labour, border security has been strengthened and small boat crossings have dropped by 20% this summer. They labeled the Rwanda plan as a "hopeless gimmick" that failed to deter illegal migration despite significant spending. Photo by SteveRwanda, Wikimedia commons.