The UK Rwanda deportation plan had a precedent

The previous Conservative government under Rishi Sunak had a procedure in place to deal with asylum seekers: it intended to deport them to Rwanda.  This scheme did not come out of thin air.  It bears great resemblance to the (not-so-great) acts of transporting vagrants to the colonies, said to originate with Sir John Popham (1531-1607), Lord Chief Justice of England, who, apparently, was preoccupied by vagabondage.[1] Sir John’s brother, George Popham, incidentally, set out with a group of 120 colonists for Maine, and established the first ever settlement there.  But he soon died, and it quickly collapsed.[2]

My thanks go out to Labour Leader Keir Starmer – and to the UK electorate of today!

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[1] Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 14.

[2] Louis B. Wright, The Atlantic Frontier: Colonial American Civilization, 1607 – 1763 (Ithaca, NY: Great Seal Books, 1963), pp.101,102.