A former Tory prime minister has launched an outspoken attack on his party’s policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Sir John Major said the scheme was “un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, and unconscionable”.
He also hit out at the Tories’ claim that the prospect of being sent to the east African country would act as a deterrent to anyone thinking of crossing the Channel from France in a small boat.
One of Sir John’s successors as PM, Boris Johnson, first announced the Rwanda plan in 2022.
However, not a single asylum seeker was ever forcibly deported to the country before the Tories were booted out of power at the general election in July.
Asked for his views on the policy by the BBC’s Amol Rajan, Sir John said: “I thought it was un-Conservative, un-British, if one dare say in a secular society, un-Christian, and unconscionable and I thought that this is really not the way to treat people.”
Comparing it to when the UK used to deport criminals to Australia, he added: “We used to transport people nearly 300 years ago from our country.
“Felons, who at least have had a trial, and been found guilty of something, albeit that the trial might have been cursory.
“I don’t think transportation, for that is what it is, is a policy suitable for the 21st century.”
On the suggestion that the scheme would deter migrants from trying to make it to the UK, he said: “Are they seriously saying to me that somewhere in the back woods of some North Africa country, they actually know what the British parliament has legislated for? I think not. I absolutely think that it is not the case.”
Sir John succeeded Margaret Thatcher as prime minister in 1990 and remained in power until losing the 1997 election to Tony Blair’s New Labour.
Elsewhere in the interview, he also urged the Conservatives not to try to mimic Reform UK, and hit out at suggestions that its leader, Nigel Farage, could join his party.
He said: “The only party that can legitimately appeal to the centre right is the Conservative Party. And that is what we have to do.
“We have to decide where our natural support really lies and appeal to them. People may have made a misjudgement about the last election. We lost five votes to Reform UK and people are jumping up and down, and some rather reckless people are saying, well we must merge with them.
“Well, that will be fatal. We lost 50 to the Liberals, and we lost a huge amount to Labour. We lost the vote on the left, more than on the right. And we have to focus on that centre right position, and we’re not an ideological party.
“I do think traditionally we have been a common sense party. And I’m optimistic. I think we have had such a bad defeat, we have got a base upon which we can build, in a wholly new and, I think, potentially effective way.”
On Farage, he said: “I don’t think he’s a Conservative, and he’s spent most of his time in the last few years telling people how much he dislikes the Conservative Party and would like to destroy it.
“I don’t think that’s a terribly good background for bringing someone into the party.”