• Sunak and Starmer had a disagreement about the government’s new refugee policy.
• Which aims to prevent migrants from travelling across the Channel to the UK.
• Labor’s plans to send UK asylum seekers to Rwanda are illegal under international law.

The British people consider stopping the entrance of tiny boats to be a “priority,” according to Rishi Sunak, who was defending the government’s new refugee policy.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr. Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer of Labour had a disagreement about the strategy to address immigration.

To prevent migrants from travelling across the Channel to the UK, new legislation was unveiled on Tuesday.

If the PM was sincere, Sir Keir claimed, he would borrow Labour’s strategy and “smash” the people-smuggling gangs.

He claimed that Mr. Sunak was “deluded” to believe that the new regulation would lessen the number of small boats because there were no returns agreements in place with other nations.

The Labour leader said that applications from less than 1% of those arriving on small boats have been handled, and said the asylum system was “broken”.

“On his watch, processing of those boat cases has gone from unacceptable to almost non-existent,” he said.

But, Mr. Sunak claimed that Mr. Starmer had “never, ever voted for stronger asylum rules,” accusing Labour of being unwilling to address the issue.

“Stopping the boats is not just my priority, it’s the people’s priority,” Mr Sunak told the Commons.

According to a government announcement made on Tuesday, anyone discovered to have entered the UK unlawfully will not only be expelled from the nation within 28 days but also be barred from ever doing so again or applying to become a British citizen.

Small boat passengers would either be sent back home or to another “safe third nation,” such as Rwanda.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, previously told the media that the British people “had had enough” of immigrants arriving in small boats.

When asked about the viability of the new strategy and where the migrants would go on the Today programme, Ms. Braverman predicted that 40,000 or more individuals would cross the Channel this year, though she allowed that 80,000 was a possibility.

Those who enter the UK by boat are claimed to have “jumped the queue,” according to Ms. Braverman. Nevertheless, their claims are not processed any more quickly than those of other asylum seekers, and they frequently have to wait more than six months for a judgement.

She claimed that the agreement between the government and Rwanda to deport migrants who arrive in the UK was “uncapped” and could potentially take thousands of individuals.

However, no one has yet been sent to Rwanda since the proposals to send some UK asylum seekers there were made public in April, and the plans are still being legally contested by human rights organisations.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper said the plans would make “the problems even worse, and make it more chaotic” and “more lives put at risk”.

She outlined Labour’s strategy, saying that while they agreed with the goal of “stopping the boats,” they would approach the issue differently by creating a new cross-border police unit to pursue the gangs, overhauling the asylum process, and also looking to Europe for new agreements to return people.

She claimed in an interview with Today that because there are no return arrangements in place, there will be tens of thousands of people staying in hotels and refugee facilities.

The actions are “extremely alarming,” according to the UN organisation for refugees, and even individuals with strong claims would be rejected.

According to Vicky Tennant, the UNHCR’s representative in the UK, the action would be illegal under international law.

“We believe it’s a clear breach of the Refugee Convention, and remember even people with very compelling claims will simply not have the opportunity to put these forward.”

The 1951 Refugee Convention is a global agreement that defines who is considered a refugee and outlines the responsibility of signatory parties to protect them.

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