New emergency legislation will save the perpetually humiliating ‘Rwanda Plan’ from total failure, Rishi Sunak has announced. But the Tory leader is still unable to say when the deportation of illegal migrants will begin.
Sunak updated the country on Wednesday evening after the Supreme Court ruled that the plan to fly illegal migrants to the African nation was unlawful. Judges unanimously agreed that the flagship policy could not go ahead in its current form because it would put asylum seekers at “real risk” of being sent back to their country of origin, where they could face injustice, and because it is in breach of both national and international law.
The prime minister responded that he was taking the “extraordinary step” of rushing emergency legislation through parliament, which would designate Rwanda as a safe country for deportation. This, he said, would prevent lawyers from raising “systematic challenges” and bringing flights to a halt.
But the government’s next steps to “end the merry-go-round” have done little to reassure even its own backbenchers. One ally of former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who was sacked on Monday, described Sunak’s emergency legislation as “just another version of Plan A. He’ll be stuck in the courts again. More magic tricks from Rishi’s magical thinking.” This was after Braverman herself criticised the prime minister for failing to prepare a Plan B in the event that the Rwanda Plan was shot down by the courts, as expected.
She later argued that passing legislation designating Rwanda as a safe country, which will itself take at least 42 days, does not go far enough and that the government must instead introduce legislation that blocks off the European Convention on Human Rights. Others say Britain should leave the convention altogether, though senior Tories have been quick to dismiss this path. Sunak has simply said that he will “revisit” this question should it become necessary to do so. David Cameron’s appointment to cabinet, said George Osbourne, who served under the former PM as chancellor, meant that leaving the ECHR was “off the table.” Reports say “several” other cabinet ministers would also step down from their positions if Sunak were to pursue an exit.
Even if his plan is successful, it is not at all clear that deportations will begin any time soon. In fact, Sunak failed three times to guarantee that this would happen before the next general election, due next autumn.
If the prime minister does manage to persuade the courts that the scheme is fit to go ahead, the government will have spent £140 million (€160 million) to send no more than 200 illegal migrants—out of the tens of thousands who arrive here each year—to Rwanda, which will, in turn, send some of its most vulnerable refugees to Britain.
On Thursday evening, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt confirmed that the government “can’t guarantee” any flights taking off next year. Given how unlikely it is the Tories will even be in power after next year, this is essentially an admission that the Rwanda ‘Plan’ will never be enacted.
