Rwanda Scheme Ruled Unlawful by Supreme Court in Major Blow to Sunak
The Supreme Court has ruled against Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda migrants scheme in a major blow to the Prime Minister after Suella Braverman warned he has no credible Plan B stop the boats. The Mail has more.
Justices at the U.K.’s highest court unanimously upheld an earlier High Court judgment on legislation announced 18 months ago to send asylum seekers who arrive in the U.K. by unauthorised means to Kigali to have their claims heard there.
The defeat will further frustrate what Downing Street admits is a “crucial” part of his plans to halt Channel crossings and inflame the row with Mrs Braverman, who was sacked Home Secretary on Monday.
It will also revive demands by Tory Right-wingers to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ministers had vowed to press on with the scheme regardless of the result today, with options including elevating the Rwanda deal to a treaty ratified in Parliament – making it harder for the courts to block – and passing emergency legislation to disapply human rights laws.
In a summary of the judgment, President of the Supreme Court Lord Reed said there would be a risk of genuine asylum seekers being returned by Rwanda to the home country they fled from.
Lord Reed said the “legal test” in the case was whether there were “substantial grounds” for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at “real risk” of being sent back to the countries they came from where they could face “ill treatment”.
He said: “In the light of the evidence which I have summarised, the Court of Appeal concluded that there were such grounds.
“We are unanimously of the view that they were entitled to reach that conclusion. Indeed, having been taken through the evidence ourselves, we agree with their conclusion.” …
In an excoriating letter to the Prime Minister yesterday, Mrs Braverman warned he has no “credible Plan B” if an earlier High Court ruling that the policy is unlawful is upheld.
As of November 12th, 27,284 people had crossed the Channel.
Meanwhile, the “legacy” backlog of U.K. asylum applications stood at 33,253 as of October 29th, down nearly a half (47%) from 62,157 on July 30th, according to new figures from the Home Office.
Mrs Braverman’s replacement, James Cleverly, outlined the possible outcomes during the first meeting of the Prime Minister’s new-look Cabinet after the dramatic reshuffle that saw Mrs Braverman shown the door.
Senior ministers had wargamed responses to a defeat, but Mrs Braverman warned of a “betrayal” of Mr. Sunak’s promise to do “whatever it takes” to stop the crossings regardless.
Worth reading in full.
This means that the one plan anyone had come up with that might – despite being watered down – possibly prevent mass illegal immigration has been ruled unlawful by the country’s top court.
The problem it appears is that under existing law it is not permitted to have policies which, in the opinion of the judiciary, create a “real risk” of returning genuine asylum seekers to their own countries. To escape this trap, which seems to rule out all available and effective means of securing the country’s borders, it will be necessary for the Government either to establish a different, weaker test in law (which will mean disapplying the ECHR, perhaps removing the test altogether), or to insist that Parliament’s assessment of the risk should take precedence over that of the judiciary. Alternatively, since the court has suggested the problem is specifically with the current state of Rwanda’s asylum system, the Government could try to find a different third country with an asylum system that meets with the judiciary’s approval.
The Government will now likely conclude that if the law does not permit any practical way of preventing mass illegal immigration then there is something wrong with the law. But will the PM have the gumption to do “whatever it takes” to change the law and secure the U.K.’s borders?
Stop Press: Rishi Sunak has released a statement in response to the ruling.
We have seen today’s judgment and will now consider next steps.
This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats.
Crucially, the Supreme Court – like the Court of Appeal and the High Court before it – has confirmed that the principle of sending illegal migrants to a safe third country for processing is lawful. This confirms the Government’s clear view from the outset.
Illegal migration destroys lives and costs British taxpayers millions of pounds a year. We need to end it and we will do whatever it takes to do so.
Because when people know that if they come here illegally, they won’t get to stay then they will stop coming altogether, and we will stop the boats.
Does the Government have a different third country in mind? If so, it has never mentioned it. Or is the plan to sort out the Rwandan asylum system in double time? That would seem unrealistic.
All eyes on Sunak’s next move.
Stop Press 2: The Rwandan Government has objected to the decision, saying: “We do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe third country for asylum seekers and refugees.”
Stop Press 3: At Prime Minster’s Questions Sunak has said that the Government will finalise a new treaty with Rwanda to pave the way for deportations. At a later press conference he said:
I do not agree with this decision but I respect it and accept it. The rule of law is fundamental to our democracy. We have prepared for all outcomes of this case. And so we have been working on a new international treaty with Rwanda.
This will provide a guarantee in law that those who are relocated from the U.K. to Rwanda will be protected against removal from Rwanda and it will make clear that we will bring back anyone if ordered to do so by a court.
We will finalise this treaty in light of today’s judgment and ratify it without delay.
But we need to end the merry-go-round. I said I was going to fundamentally change our country, and I meant it. So I’m also announcing today that we will take the extraordinary step of introducing emergency legislation. This will enable Parliament to confirm that with our new treaty, Rwanda is safe.
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has said Sunak should ask Parliament to change the law to designate Rwanda a “safe” country under the Asylum and Immigration Act 2004. Law specialist Richard Ekins, on the other hand, argues that the Government should “abandon a policy of outsourcing asylum claims to Rwanda and instead to adopt a policy of offshoring, whereby U.K. officials process claims outside the U.K., whether in Rwanda or in a British overseas territory, with genuine refugees then settled in safe third countries”.
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Why does the headline assume this is not what Sunak wanted all along? It solves a lot of problems for him. Appearing to believe in the “right” things to please his dinner party guests or whichever shadowy figures have their hands up his backside seems much more important that winning the next election. If he really wanted to win the next election at all costs he would be adopting a very different set of policies.
Yep, we’re on the same page tof.
JHB on Talk TV — “just who is he trying to please”.
His future employers – globalist jobs are better paid, more prestigious (to him) and much much less demanding and a pain in the arse than being PM of the UK. No accountability.
This decision is no “major blow” to Fishy or the WEF, they knew this plan was a non-starter but it legitimises keeping the damned immigrants. And obviously no Plan B means “suck it up UK.”
Trebles all round I imagine.
The solution to the boats was simply returning them to France on arrival, and prosecution of NGOs assisting boats as ppl smugglers. The RNLI CEO would not have enjoyed handcuffs.
I wonder how many illegal immigrants are housed in the vicinity of where these high court judges live? Not many is my guess. Perhaps if we change that they might suddenly reconsider their verdict.
That would be zilch.
The Day of the Sceptics. But yes, Rishi is skilled at being selective with the truth in his output. Another sceptical view is that even if it was legal, it wouldn’t work. It might be interesting to see if any other country in Europe succeeds with similar schemes of deportation to Rwanda, or similar third party states. The sticking point seems to be that, according to Rishi’s statement, the principle of sending them to a “safe third country” is legal – but how can they prove that anywhere is safe re. Immigrants?
The strange thing to me was that the ‘Rishuffle’ took place before today’s Supreme Court publication .
The EU ofcourse started this off because they are the UN’s star pupil at destroying National Identities to clear the way for Global Government and mass immigration helps in this regard so that we all just feel like citizens of the world rather than of Individual Nations. Despite supposedly leaving the EU we still have not got to grips with this invasion of peoples and the asylum racket because of having no political will to stop it and the only people with that will (like Suella Braverman) get dragged out by the scruff of their necks.
It was never intended to work.
Theatre.
Nothing is easier than stopping the boats.
Adopt a policy of sinking all boats. Spend a month spreading the word in Calais. When, inevitably, a boat tries to make it across, give them a warning, then a second warning, then if they don’t turn back you sink the ship.
You would only have to do it once or twice before the message would be got.
Perhaps someone could invent floating caltrops.
That’s not going to work in practice as nobody will be able to find these boats while they’re afloat and as there’s no way to know that such a vessel is meant to deliver illegal immigrants to England until this has happened. A coastal defence system that’s sufficiently dense to prevent smuggling by fishing boats would need to be created for this. This may be theoretically possible, but the cost would be huge (would need to employ many people) and such a feat has never been accomplished in the past.
Well the RNLI seem pretty good at finding them!
Not really. They get called if somebody else happens to find them sufficiently close to the coast. It’s not like the situation in Germany where these ‘charities’ all have fairly large ships constantly cruising in roughly known areas of the Mediterranean would-be immigrants just need to seek out.
The ocean is huge, even a small area of it like the English channel, and all non-coastal parts of it look like all other non-coastal parts of it. Spotting something small with some sort of spyglass at a distance of more then 1 – 2 miles is next to impossible at most times (I had to do this for the German navy in the past) and radar isn’t of much more use, either, when that something doesn’t raise significantly above the waves.
…erm…”That’s not going to work in practice as nobody will be able to find these boats while they’re afloat”
There doesn’t seem to be a problem finding them at the moment.
The amount of people arriving in their own transports by far outstrips those being ‘rescued’ close to the coast (and probably, the amount of them simply vanishing without a trace outstrips them, too). The idea that these boats can be stopped at see is wishful thinking by landlubbers.
Correct….Immigration is a Free for All, and hand wringing parasite politicians actually have no problem with that. It was laughable to see Sunak stand at a podium the other day with a “STOP THE BOATS” on the front of it.
Well I never ! Who would have thought !
Then there is this little gem from the DT, adding a little perspective to the problems we face. A Home Office civil servant speaking anonymously:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/11/15/home-office-rwanda-ruling-braverman-civil-service/
I would say the article perfectly sums up the Civil Service. It is politicised to a ridiculous degree and always so far left it’s nearly falling off the planet. Crammed full of lazy sods who are ready to throw any charge at people who disagree with their treasonous approach to doing a job. For those such as this person speaking out going to work must seem like a bloody prison sentence.
Seventy-five percent plus of civil servants could not hold a job anywhere in the private sector. Ten percent could hold a job but only on much lower equivalent grades and the top fifteen percent would thrive anywhere although they rarely achieve anything like their rightful position in the Civil Service ground down as they are by the seventy-five percent.
The whole lot need sacking.
Drain the Blob. One for Reclaim to campaign on.
Good piece by this Home Office official here. It’s like we all know, they’ve got no intention of stopping immigration. It’s all cobblers and meaningless platitudes, as anyone with half a brain should be able to see by now. Lengthy one so here’s an excerpt; “Despite our change in boss, when it comes to controlling Britain’s borders nothing will change. I know this because I have worked for some time as a civil servant on immigration policy, and – in my experience – no priority is further from the Home Office in 2023 than stopping the boats or cutting net migration. If I were to walk into a meeting and suggest reducing migration or ask how we could immediately deport small boat arrivals or foreign criminals, my colleagues might think to ring the many mental health services we are provided to check in on my sanity. Even the most moderate attempts to do anything about migration are met internally as either unreasonable or not legally possible, with discussion being stopped dead by allusion to “international law”. Instead of dealing with the national crises facing Britain, including record legal and illegal migration, endless time is wasted. Senior staff hold events on… Read more »
As for international law, it seems they were not so worried about the Nuremberg Code in 2021. Also, just how many would we be able to deport to Rwanda — according to UK Column, 200 was the max in an article they shared, that can’t be right?
The simple reason for this is that there is no such thing as international law. There are treaties between souvereign states whose government adhere to them when they want and don’t adhere to them when they don’t want this. There’s no way to force a sovereign government to do anything short of making war on the corresponding country until it does. Hence, when said treaties happen to be useful for the agenda of some sufficiently powerful entity, they’re called international law (with the implication that this law most not be broken or else …) and when they’re aren’t useful, they’re just ignored.
Yup just like Prison votes I guess.
Correct.
Don’t forget the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, when it is rubber stamped by Fishy next year, will be ‘binding’ under international law. As I have stated many times on DS international law is only binding when it suits as we have seen in recent years.
Dear Norman Wisdom (Sunak). You said you will do what it takes to stop illegal immigration. But you were asked if you would be prepared to leave the ECHR. You replied “We may need to revisit that”——-You meant NO didn’t you? ——–Whenever people like you are asked a question you always reply by announcing your achievements eg “We have seen a decline in the boat crossings, we have reduced that by 20% and some other thing by 30% and we have done more than previous governments on this that and the next thing”——-This is like my wife asking me why I have not fixed the garden fence, and I tell her I have fixed more fences in the last 10 years than other husbands in the street and my record on fixing fences is up by 20 % since 2019.———-But the truth is that the garden fence remains unfixed. Dear Norman, illegal immigration remains UNFIXED, and you just sacked a woman that wanted to fix it.
You paid your neighbour to fix it, but they just pocketed the cash!