The Labour leader said he would scrap the scheme even if it brings down the number of small boat crossings because it is “wrong”.
Supreme Court judges will today begin hearing the Government’s appeal against a legal ruling that the policy is unlawful.
As the Labour Party’s autumn conference began in Liverpool, Sir Keir said he would reverse the deportation plan if it is up and running and he wins the election.
He told the BBC: “It’s the wrong policy, it’s hugely expensive. It’s a tiny number of individuals who would go to Rwanda and the real problem is at source.
“You’re putting this to me on the basis that it’s working, we’ve been told by the Government time and again that even saying they’ve got a Rwanda scheme will reduce the numbers – that hasn’t happened.”
Instead Sir Keir said he would work with other countries to “smash the criminal gangs who are running this vile trade” of people smuggling.
He added: “As a pragmatist I want a pragmatic plan that is actually going to fix this problem, not rhetoric which has got this Government absolutely nowhere.”
Senior Conservatives said the admission showed Labour was opposed to stopping illegal entrants. Immigration minister Robert Jenrick said: “Proof, if it were needed, that Labour don’t even want to stop the boats.
“They are ideologically opposed to border controls. Their solution is to force British communities to tolerate flagrant criminality.”
Conservative MP James Daly, a member of the Home Affairs select committee, said: “Keir Starmer has finally admitted what we suspected all along, that he will open the door to illegal migrants.
“Reversing the Rwanda policy even if it is working shows he doesn’t care about protecting Britain’s borders.
“It is a betrayal of the ordinary voters who want small boats stopped.”
A Government source said: “He plans to go cap in hand to Brussels to beg for an EU quota scheme to potentially allow hundreds of thousands more migrants in.” Britain paid Rwanda £140million under an asylum partnership struck in April last year, but
flights have been grounded following legal challenges by campaigners.
The first deportations were due on June 14 last year but the plane could not take off after objections against individual removals and the policy as a whole.
Eight asylum seekers, along with charities and the PCS union, brought legal action against the plans to give people one-way tickets to Rwanda.
In June, Court of Appeal judges overturned a High Court ruling that found Rwanda could be considered a “safe third country”.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman claimed the system was “rigged against the British people” after the ruling.
Court of Appeal judges said Rwanda had not provided enough safeguards to prove it was a “safe third country”.
But the panel of three was split, with the most senior judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, backing the Government. Sir Geoffrey Vos and Lord Justice Underhill decided assurances from the Rwandan government were not “sufficient to ensure there is no real risk asylum seekers relocated under the policy will be wrongly returned to countries where they face persecution or other inhumane treatment”.
The Labour conference was disrupted yesterday as a protester stormed the stage moments before Angela Rayner’s speech.
The man attempted to address the packed audience in the main hall but the microphone was switched off.
He was protesting about a lack of NHS funding and continued to shout as he was approached by security before being escorted from the stage as members booed.
