His comments come as he announces 50 “illegal entrants” will be sent to Rwanda within a fortnight
Working from home is mostly spent making coffee and eating small pieces of cheese, according to Boris Johnson.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, the Prime Minister urged Brits to return to the office, as he believes workers are “more productive, more energetic, more full of ideas” when with colleagues. It comes amid the row over Whitehall’s working from home culture which has seen ministers ordered to get staff back into the office.
The PM said: “My experience of working from home is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.
“I believe in the workplace environment. And I think that will help to drive up productivity, it will get our city centres moving in the weekdays and it will be good for mass transit. And a lot of businesses that have been having a tough time will benefit from that.”
The interview also saw the PM confirm that the first 50 illegal migrants will be sent to Rwanda within the next two weeks, under the government’s new and controversial immigration plans. Johnson said the first “illegal entrants into this country” have been served notice and will be relocated to the East African country 4,000 miles away.
Under the new deal, which was signed by Home Secretary Priti Patel in April, single men found to have arrived “illegally” in the UK since January 1 will be flown to Rwanda to process their asylum application. This means potentially tens of thousands of people who have arrived on small boats from the Channel, or stowed in a refrigerated lorry, will be deemed “inadmissible” to claim asylum in Britain.
Legal claims against the initiative have already been lodged at the High Court by a number of charities, who have labelled the plan “cruel and nasty” questioned the government’s safety assessment of Rwanda. While the country has been deemed “safe”, LGBTQI+ migrants could be “at risk of discrimination,” the assessment found.
But the Prime Minister said he was ready to fight “leftie lawyers” who try and challenge it.
He said: “There’s going to be a lot of legal opposition from the types of firms that for a long time have been taking taxpayers’ money to mount these sorts of cases, and to thwart the will of the people, the will of Parliament. We’re ready for that.
“We will dig in for the fight and you know, we will make it work. We’ve got a huge flowchart of things we have to do to deal with it, with the leftie lawyers.”
