Kemi Badenoch appeared to undermine the whole point of the government’s Rwanda plan after saying she knows someone “having a very lovely gap year” there.
The business secretary was responding to the news that ministers have paid a failed asylum seeker £3,000 to move to the east African country.
However, the arrangement is completely different to the government’s controversial plan to forcibly deport migrants to Rwanda.
On LBC this morning, Badenoch said: “This is somebody who has actually volunteered to go to Rwanda, which puts to bed this nonsensical myth that Rwanda was not a safe place. It is.
“People go on holiday there, I know somebody who is having a very lovely gap year there and we need to move past a lot of the myths, which are actually just disparaging about an African country.”
But many social media users pointed out that her comments appeared to contradict the whole point of the government’s Rwanda policy.
Rishi Sunak has insisted that sending migrants there will act as a deterrent and stop more asylum seekers from trying to get to the UK in small boats across the Channel from France.