Britain will not owe Kigali a payout over the collapsed migrant-relocation plan after an international court sided with the UK, shutting down Rwanda’s bid for more than £100 million. Rwanda had claimed London breached its agreement when Prime Minister Keir Starmer axed the scheme shortly after taking office in 2024.
First unveiled by Boris Johnson and later pushed by Rishi Sunak, the policy sought to fly asylum seekers who arrived in the UK illegally to Rwanda for processing and potential resettlement. The proposal became a lightning rod in the immigration debate, running aground amid a succession of legal challenges, including a freeze by the European Court of Human Rights, before Labour fulfilled a campaign pledge to scrap it.
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Rwanda maintained it had invested significant resources to prepare for the partnership and said London failed to give adequate notice before pulling the plug. But the Hague tribunal dismissed those arguments. After the decision, both governments said they considered the dispute closed, even as arguments over the scheme’s merits and its broader implications for migration policy continued to rage.
