Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson landed in Rwanda on Thursday for a Commonwealth trade push in danger of being overshadowed by domestic politics.
Mr Johnson will use a summit in Kigali to push for deeper trade ties between the Commonwealth countries, recommending them as opportunities for post-Brexit Britain to grow its way out of economic problems.
But his presence in Rwanda, where migrants are to be deported from Britain, and two parliamentary by-elections on Thursday, mean he is unlikely to escape his domestic political troubles on the trip.
The six-day Commonwealth summit, the first such meeting since the coronavirus pandemic, is meant to spur members of the 54-member club into action on trade, environmental protection and other issues.
Mr Johnson was expected to call for investment in green technology at a Commonwealth business forum and welcome new trade ties between Britain and India in the healthcare sector.
“It is an underappreciated fact that our unique union of nations is buzzing with economic activity,” he said before taking off for Rwanda. “Trade and commerce ties criss-cross continents, greased by shared language and legal systems.”
He said he hoped his trip to Rwanda would push critics of his immigration policy to “shed some of their condescending attitudes” to the African country, which has agreed to take in asylum seekers deported from Britain.
The policy has been criticised as inhumane and ineffective by many politicians and activists, and is entangled in legal battles, but ministers insist it will deter people from making dangerous journeys across the English Channel in small boats.
The visit to Rwanda is particularly sensitive because it will bring Mr Johnson face to face with Britain’s Prince Charles, who is representing Queen Elizabeth II in Kigali and was reported to have privately denounced the deportation policy.
Mr Johnson declined to say whether he would try to win over the prince, who is often outspoken despite his official neutrality. He was quoted by newspapers as saying the Rwanda policy was “appalling”.
The trip also takes Mr Johnson out of Britain at a moment of political peril, with two constituencies electing new MPs on Thursday in votes that could intensify pressure on his government.
Almost 150 of Mr Johnson’s own Conservative MPs voted to oust him in a confidence vote this month, which he only narrowly survived after months of scandals and growing concerns about his leadership.
Defeat for his party in Wakefield, one of a swathe of working-class seats seized from the Labour Party at the last election, and in Tiverton and Honiton, a rural Conservative stronghold, would show Mr Johnson losing ground on multiple flanks.
But he will be far away from his critics for the next seven days as he follows up his Rwanda visit with a G7 summit in Germany at the weekend and an annual Nato meeting in Madrid next week.
UK Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) Initiative:
- PM will launch plans for landmark Developing Countries Trading Scheme as well as new Platinum Partnership trade alliances and financial Centres of Expertise.
- Investment highlights include new £124 million ($152m) UK Export Finance loan to help British businesses improve healthcare in Guyana and UK health tech export wins worth almost £40m in India.
- The UK has done 33 trade deals with Commonwealth countries to far and is aiming to conclude an FTA with India later this year.
- UK-Commonwealth trade in 2021 was worth more than £12 billion, accounting for 9.4 per cent of UK trade.
- Member states represent a quarter of the G20, 30 per cent of WTO membership and more than a quarter of UN membership.
