London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 19, 2025

Top church cleric criticises UK plan to send migrants to Rwanda

Top church cleric criticises UK plan to send migrants to Rwanda

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby says the United Kingdom’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda goes against God.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church of England’s highest cleric, has criticised the British government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda to process their claims for refuge.

In his Easter Day sermon, Justin Welby added his voice to the widespread criticism the scheme has sparked, saying “subcontracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God who himself took responsibility for our failures”.

Speaking at Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England, Welby said that while “the details are for politics and politicians, the principle must stand the judgement of God — and it cannot”.

Welby said that sending asylum seekers overseas posed “serious ethical questions”.

Such a move “is the opposite of the nature of God”, the church leader said.

On Tuesday, the United Kingdom and Rwanda announced that they had reached an agreement to send some people who arrive in the UK as stowaways on trucks, or in small boats, to the East African country, where their asylum claims will be processed and, if successful, they will stay.

The deal — for which the UK has paid Rwanda $158m — leaves many questions unanswered, including the final cost and how asylum seekers will be chosen. The UK says children, and families with children, will not be sent to Rwanda.

“Egregious breach of international law”


The scheme has sparked outrage and widespread criticism from refugee and human rights organisations, which called the plan inhumane, unworkable and a waste of taxpayers’ money.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) condemned the scheme as an “egregious breach of international law” and “contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention”.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party government says the plan will discourage people from making dangerous attempts to cross the English Channel, and it will put people-smuggling gangs out of business.

More than 28,000 migrants entered the UK across the Channel last year, up from 8,500 in 2020.

Dozens have died, including 27 people in November when a single boat capsized.

Unveiling the controversial plan last week, Johnson acknowledged there could be legal challenges by what he called “politically motivated lawyers” out to “frustrate the government”.

He also pledged to do “whatever it takes” to ensure the plan works.


Political opponents accuse Johnson of using the headline-grabbing policy to distract attention from his political troubles.

Johnson is resisting calls to resign after being fined by police for attending a party in his office in 2020 that broke his own government’s coronavirus lockdown rules.

The Home Office, which is in charge of implementing the Rwanda transfer policy, said that Britain had settled hundreds of thousands of refugees from around the world. But it argues that Britain’s current system of resettlement is “broken” and pointed to unprecedented global migratory pressures.

Senior civil servants at the Home Office had raised concerns about the policy but were overruled by Home Secretary Priti Patel, who said that it would be “imprudent” to delay a measure that “we believe will reduce illegal migration, save lives, and ultimately break the business model of the smuggling gangs”.

Alf Dubs, a Labour Party member of the House of Lords who came to Britain as a child refugee in 1939, said the plan was likely “a breach of the 1951 Geneva conventions on refugees”.

He said the Lords, the British Parliament’s upper chamber, would challenge the move.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
DeepSeek Claims R1 Model Trained for only $294,000, Sparking Global Debate Over China’s AI Capabilities
SoftBank Vision Fund to Cut Nearly Twenty Percent of Staff in Bold AI Strategy Shift
Intel’s Next-Gen Manufacturing Gets a Lifeline from Nvidia’s Strategic $5B Deal
Erika Kirk Elected CEO of Turning Point USA After Husband Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
×