Is the Rwanda plan already working?

It is fashionable within Westminster to criticise the Rwanda plan. The likes of Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and Reform on the right can often be found echoing Labour’s criticisms on the left that the current scheme is both flawed and unworkable. Yet one place where Rwanda is credited with having a deterrent effect is across the Irish Sea.

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, is now explicitly blaming the scheme for an increase in asylum seekers entering his country from Northern Ireland. ‘I believe the Rwanda effect is impacting on Ireland’, he said on Wednesday night. ‘It is having real impact on Ireland now in terms of people being fearful in the UK.’ Helen McEntee, the justice minister, estimates that more than 80 per cent of asylum seekers in Ireland have crossed the open border.

Such comments have been seized upon in London as proof that the scheme is working. Rishi Sunak proudly told Trevor Phillips on Sunday that Martin’s comments showed that the ‘deterrent is already having an impact because people are worried about coming here’.