The Home Secretary’s top aide only said the Rwanda scheme was ‘crap’ for dramatic effect, James Cleverly has insisted.
James Sunderland, the Tory MP for Bracknell, only criticised the government’s flagship immigration policy to ‘shock and grab the attention of the audience’, he said.
Mr Sunderland, speaking at a private event in April, twice said the policy was ‘crap’ – but later in the conversation defended it as an effective deterrent.
Mr Cleverly told the BBC yesterday: ‘I’ve had a conversation with him and I’ve also heard the recording. And it’s clear what he’s doing is he’s putting forward a very counter-intuitive statement to grab the attention of the audience.
‘If you actually listen to what he then went on to say, he was saying that the impact, the effect, is what matters.’
‘He did it clearly for dramatic effect to grab the attention of the audience.
‘But he is – and it’s clear in the recording – completely supportive of the deterrent effect that the Rwanda policy has.’
Talking to a group of Young Conservatives in April, Mr Sunderland said the plan – which the Prime Minister has hailed as a dividing line between the Tories and Labour this election – was not necessarily ‘about the policy’.
He added: ‘It’s about the effect of the policy. It’s the second- or third-order effects.
‘There is no doubt at all that when those first flights take off that it will send such a shockwave across the Channel that the gangs will stop.’
When confronted over the comments, Mr Sunderland insisted: ‘I was talking about the response to the policy. The policy itself is not the be all and end all but part of a wider response.’
Last year, Mr Cleverly himself declined to explicitly deny reports suggesting he privately described the Rwanda policy as ‘batshit’.
When questioned, Mr Cleverly said he did not remember using the term. He added: ‘Where I’ve expressed frustration about the policy is, at times, I felt there was a focus on that to the exclusion of everything else.
‘The Rwanda policy is important but it’s part of a toolkit of responses to this, including the returns agreements we have, including with Albania, including the creation of a small boats operation command.’
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: ‘The Tories’ Rwanda scheme has been completely exposed as an extortionate and failing gimmick.’
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