Labour failed to exit the Tories’ doomed Rwanda deal when it took office, leaving taxpayers on the hook for a £100m bill, an international court has heard.
Sir Keir Starmer boldly pledged on his first day in office in July 2024 that the Rwanda scheme was “dead and buried”, but the government failed to quit the deal until December 2025, the Court of Arbitration in the Hague, Netherlands, has heard.
Rwanda says this means it is owed £100m in payments promised under the deal and is also seeking a further £6m in compensation for the UK’s failure to receive vulnerable refugees under the terms of the agreement, court submissions revealed.
Rwanda is arguing that Britain should have taken in 300 refugees, likening the approach to the one-in, one-out deal with France.
The UK’s deal with Rwanda was agreed in April 2022 under then-prime minister Boris Johnson, with a formal treaty between the countries then signed under Rishi Sunak’s premiership.
The arrangement allowed the UK to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the UK providing hundreds of millions of pounds to get the deal up and running. Only four migrants were ever sent to the country from the UK, and they did so voluntarily.
Under the terms of the deal, the UK agreed to receive vulnerable refugees from Rwanda in exchange, the court heard; however, there was no number given on how many.
The Rwandan government argued in the Court of Arbitration on Wednesday that the UK had not only failed in its obligation to continue with payments under the deal, but had also failed to arrange to take hundreds of refugees from the East African country.
They argue that, given the UK was planning to deport 300 migrants to Rwanda in the first year of the deal, a “reciprocal” number of refugees should have been received by Britain. This would “accord” with the UK-France deal, which “is premised on the UK accepting a migrant from France for every migrant it returns to France”, Rwanda said.
They are asking for £6m in compensation for this perceived failure. This is in addition to two £50m payments that the Rwandans say the UK had committed to in a 2024 financial note, which were due to be paid in April 2025 and April 2026.
Dr Emmanuel Uorahsherja, representing Rwanda, told the court: “Rwanda’s case is straightforward. The UK may wish Rwanda to forgo significant sums of money; the parties may well have had discussions on this matter, but Rwanda ultimately chose not to provide its consent to the UK’s proposal. It did so in very clear terms by refusing to accept the language of agreement in the UK’s draft initiating note.”
He added: “The simple fact remains that the UK did not give notice to terminate the treaty until December 2025. Actually, the termination took effect only two days ago on Monday.”
Dr Uorahsherja pointed out that while the agreement was in force for two months under the Tory government, and the financial note for just over two weeks, “both of these binding legal instruments have been in force for over 18 months under the British government that won the elections in 2024”. He said the “obligations under which they have chosen to remain bound must be honoured”.
He said that the Rwandans only heard that the deal had been scrapped when Sir Keir Starmer told the media.
Lord Verdirame KC, a member of the House of Lords acting for Rwanda, explained to the court that there were discussions between the UK and Rwanda on forgoing the payments in October 2025. The UK had offered Rwanda a diplomatic visa waiver in exchange for Rwanda not seeking the additional funds, the court heard.
However, Rwanda wanted more in exchange for agreeing not to pursue the funds, with one minister pushing for further visa concessions and noting that the UK harboured suspects wanted for alleged roles in the 1994 genocide.
Discussions then broke down, the court heard, with reconciliation abandoned in November last year.
In their submissions, Rwanda said that £120m-worth of funds received from the UK for economic development under the deal had been spent on education, health, agriculture and IT sectors. This included a school construction project and buying health equipment, they said.
Rwanda “relied” on the payments “to support a specific plan of public expenditure”, the court heard. The UK had paid £270m to Rwanda before Labour took power, documents showed.
The UK government is due to make its case to the Court of Arbitration on Thursday.
