Rishi Sunak hits back at Suella Braverman as Tory civil war spirals over Rwanda plan
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00:00 Well, it's incredibly important to me that we stop the boats.
00:02 That's why at the beginning of this year,
00:03 when I set out my five priorities, one of them
00:06 was clearly to stop the boats.
00:07 The first thing to say is we're making progress.
00:09 People may not know this, that this year, because of all
00:11 the things that we've done, the number of illegal migrants
00:14 crossing to the UK is down by a third.
00:16 Everyone told me that wasn't possible.
00:18 But because we worked really hard,
00:19 we're returning thousands of people to places like Albania.
00:22 We've got the numbers down by a third already.
00:24 But we're not going to stop there.
00:25 That's progress.
00:26 But I want to finish the job.
00:27 And that means getting Rwanda up and running.
00:30 I'm determined to do everything it takes to make that happen.
00:33 And that means bringing forward emergency legislation that
00:36 will declare that Rwanda is safe for these purposes.
00:38 We've negotiated a new treaty with them.
00:40 And we will make sure that domestic courts cannot block
00:44 systemically our flights to Rwanda.
00:46 And I've been also very clear that I
00:47 won't let a foreign court stop us getting a flight off.
00:50 That's my plan.
00:51 And I'm going to work night and day to make it happen.
00:53 Aren't you just tinkering, though, with plan A?
00:56 And you don't really have a serious alternative.
01:00 No, as I said, the progress we've
01:01 made this year on tackling this issue is meaningful.
01:04 The number of crossings are down by a third
01:06 this year because we're cooperating
01:08 with working with other countries
01:10 to crack down on the criminal gangs.
01:11 We've returned 20,000 people to places like Albania.
01:15 And that's why the numbers are down by a third.
01:17 But I don't want to stop there.
01:18 In order to finish the job, we've
01:19 got to get the Rwanda plan up and running.
01:21 I will do whatever it takes to make that happen.
01:24 People are sick of this merry-go-round.
01:26 I want to end it.
01:27 My patience is wearing thin, like everyone else's.
01:30 That's why our emergency legislation
01:32 will make it crystal clear that Rwanda
01:34 is safe for these purposes.
01:36 It meets all the concerns that people
01:37 have raised because of our new arrangement with them.
01:40 And we want to stop any more domestic challenges
01:43 to this program.
01:44 And I've also been clear that we won't
01:45 let a foreign court stand in the way of us
01:47 getting a flight off to Rwanda.
01:50 [BLANK_AUDIO]