New UK Prime Minister Starmer says controversial Rwanda deportation plan is ‘dead and buried’.

The move was one of Starmer’s first acts in office, though it was widely expected. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Saturday that he is scrapping a controversial Conservative policy to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda. “The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started,” Starmer said in his first news conference. “It’s never acted as a deterrent. Almost the opposite.” The move was one of Starmer’s first acts in office, though it was widely expected. He had said during his campaign that he would ditch the plan that has cost hundreds of millions of dollars, but never taken flight. Starmer made the announcement after holding his first Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing St., the day after his Labour Party’s landslide victory overturned 14 years of Conservative rule. The Rwanda plan was one of the showcase policies of former Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to try to curb migrants from making dangerous English Channel crossings. But it was beset with challenges over human rights issues and never managed to deport a single person despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars in a pact with the east African nation. Suella Braverman, a Conservative hard liner on immigration who is a possible contender to replace Sunak as party leader, was critical of Starmer’s anticipated plan to end the Rwanda deal. “Years of hard work, acts of Parliament, millions of pounds been spent on a scheme which had it been delivered properly would have worked,” she said Saturday before he made the announcement. Prime Minister Keir Starmer held his first Cabinet meeting Saturday as his new government takes on the massive challenge of fixing a heap of domestic woes and winning over a public weary from years of austerity, political chaos and a battered economy. Starmer welcomed the new ministers around the table at 10 Downing St., saying it had been the honour of his life to be asked by King Charles III to form a government in a ceremony that officially elevated him to prime minister. “We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work,” he said. Starmer’s Labour Party delivered the biggest blow to the Conservatives in their two-century history Friday in a landslide victory on a platform of change. Among a raft of problems they face are boosting a sluggish economy, fixing a broken health care system, and restoring trust in government. “Just because Labour won a big landslide doesn’t mean all the problems that the Conservative government has faced has gone away,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.