Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan will end the migrant crisis, says former foreign minister

AN architect of Australia’s successful blueprint to stop illegal boat crossings has told Rishi Sunak the Rwanda plan will work.

Alexander Downer, the former foreign minister, said sending migrants to a third country was a silver bullet that would end the Channel crisis.

In government, he led efforts to begin offshore asylum processing on the tiny island of Nauru which “destroyed” the smuggling gangs and virtually eliminated arrivals.

Meanwhile, another 111 migrants arrived in Kent from France packed into just two boats on Monday.

Speaking to Trending In The News, Mr Downer said: “Offshore processing is the best thing to do.

“It’s got to be comprehensive, everybody has to go.

“There can’t be any carve-outs for women or children. They all go to the offshore processing site — all of them.

“And you don’t have to do it for long before the potential customers — the would-be migrants — won’t pay money to the organised crime gangs because they won’t be able to deliver them to the UK.”

Mr Downer, an ex-High Commissioner to Britain who now chairs the Policy Exchange think tank, added that Rwanda is a “much nicer place” than Nauru.

The Rwanda plan is currently on ice pending a crunch Supreme Court battle in the autumn.

Yesterday, the PM said he was “determined to fix this problem” of illegal migration.

At the height of Australia’s migrant crisis around 20,000 people flocked to the country each year.

That figure is now virtually zero.

While the government in Canberra did start turning some boats around, Mr Downer said offshore processing was the primary deterrent.