Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan—to deter Channel crossings by sending illegal migrants to the African nation for asylum processing—cannot apply to Northern Ireland, a Belfast High Court judge has ruled.
The official said that migrants cannot be deported to Rwanda from Northern Ireland, which is a province of the United Kingdom, because this would be in breach of the UK-EU post-Brexit Windsor Framework, which says there can be no reduction of the rights enshrined within the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. They added that aspects of the Act are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Robert Bates, who is research director at the Centre for Migration Control think tank, said that the decision should come as no surprise. He told The European Conservative:
Yet again we hear that the Rwanda plan is rubbing up against Britain’s so-called human rights obligations. The prime minister was warned by many, including his former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, that his legislation simply would not work if we remained within the ECHR—and sadly they have been shown to be correct.
Sunak has publicly toyed with the idea of Britain breaking away from the ECHR in order to get Rwanda deportation flights off the ground, but insider reports have revealed these ‘considerations’ to be phoney.
Ministers now fear that illegal migrants will move to Northern Ireland to protect themselves from the (already negligible) threat of deportation. One Home Office source is quoted in The Times as saying: “If word gets out then people will move to Northern Ireland to avoid being sent to Rwanda.”
After a quiet week or so in the Rwanda Plan Möbius loop—punctuated by the brief suggestion that the plan could even be starting to work—the whole scheme looks again to be in the air (unlike the proposed deportation flights).
Bates told this publication that “since the plan was first announced in 2021, it has experienced death by a thousand cuts. Headline after headline has shown that the chances of the Home Office actually stopping the small boats are as remote as the Tories’ electoral prospects. The deterrent effect simply does not exist.” He added:
The Brexit referendum was a clear demand from the British public to take back control of our borders, yet this prospect has never looked more remote. Those entering the UK illegally are protected by an army of left-wing lawyers and a cacophony of international agreements, organisations and legislation.
The problem is that those meant to be looking after the British public—Rishi Sunak and the Conservative government—have shown themselves to be inept and unwilling to take decisive action.
Sunak’s government will appeal the Belfast High Court decision, and insists that flights will still take off to Rwanda in July.
