New UK PM Starmer confirms end of Rwanda migration plan
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00:00So, the first full press conference on the first full day of government for Mr. Starmer,
00:07he seemed, it has to be said, quite relaxed. He's often been accused of being robotic.
00:13But clearly the media training, amongst other things, is paying off. So, importantly, although
00:18this was dominated by the issue of prisons, Rwanda was a very important part of this press
00:27conference. The Prime Minister was asked by a British journalist about the Rwanda scheme.
00:32That is the scheme about processing and sending back people who have come here illegally across
00:40from France, northern shores of France, in small embarkations, made it to Britain, and
00:46who then would be processed and sent on deportation flights to Rwanda. It's important to point
00:52out that nobody, except one person who did it voluntarily, has been sent, but it's cost
00:57really millions of pounds already being paid by the British government to Rwanda. So, what
01:02the Prime Minister was asked is, is it dead and buried now that you've been elected? Keir
01:08Starmer said, and I quote, the scheme was dead and buried before it started. He said
01:14that it never acted as a deterrent, and he pointed, in fact, to the record number of
01:19small boat arrivals this year and in previous years. So, a very clear message that that
01:26policy, very much wanted, originally wanted by Boris Johnson, the former Prime Minister,
01:32and very much tried to be carried out by Rishi Sunak, and as I said, not one single person
01:37being sent out on a deportation flight because of all kinds of legal appeals, that is dead
01:43and buried, and it was never a deterrent, says this Labour Prime Minister, Keir Starmer.
01:48So, a clear message about that Rwanda asylum plan. What else have we been hearing from
01:52Keir Starmer?
01:56Well, this was a press conference that was really dominated by the terrible state in
02:03which British prisons are. They are overcrowded. There is very little space for any new prisoners
02:10to go into them, and interestingly, Mr. Starmer, when he was asked about taking tough decisions,
02:17was he ready to make them and make them early in this first news conference at Downing Street,
02:22the PM said prisons are, quote, broken, but added there was no overnight solution to a shortage of
02:28prison spaces in the UK. So, this is clearly something that he is going to be working on
02:35very carefully. Of course, he will be flying off to NATO, which he was talking about. He
02:39was mentioning the many international phone calls and exchanges that he has had. He has had one,
02:44for example, with the French President Emmanuel Macron, who rang to congratulate him on winning
02:48the election and becoming the new UK Prime Minister. He has had a conversation with
02:53certainly Joe Biden, the American President, with President Zelensky of Ukraine, with the
02:58European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and others, and clearly he mentioned
03:04that he was going to be, he was looking forward to meeting other leaders in Washington. I asked
03:09then after the press conference his senior press spokesperson whether there were going to be
03:15bilaterals. We are going to get information about that, but we haven't got it yet. Interestingly,
03:20let me come back to that. Here we are, an international news channel broadcasting in
03:24French, English, Arabic and Spanish around the world, France 24. I was seated in the front row,
03:29right in front of Mr Starmer, who I met a few years ago. He actually stuck to the list of names
03:35from the British press. Just as he was about to go, I said an international question. He turned
03:41around, hesitated, and then actually didn't take the question. But I have good hope that at his
03:48next press conference he will take a question from an international journalist, the way it
03:52is done in France, for example, at presidential press conferences by the British press.