Major setback for Rishi Sunak govt as UK Supreme Court rejects Rwanda migration plan
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces major setback as Supreme Court deems government plan to send migrants to Rwanda unlawful. A five-judge panel upheld a lower court ruling and cited risk to asylum seekers' rights under international law.
The Rishi Sunak-led government suffered a fresh blow on Wednesday as the UK Supreme Court rejected plans to send migrants to Rwanda. A five-judge panel said asylum-seekers would be “at real risk of ill-treatment” after their relocation. The development comes mere hours after former Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused the PM of having no “Plan B” if the government lost the Supreme Court case.
“The court of appeal was entitled to conclude that there were substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would be at real risk of ill treatment,” the five judge panel ruled unanimously.
The UK had signed an agreement with Rwanda in April 2022 for the relocation of some migrants. The government argues that this policy will deter people from risking their lives crossing one of the world's busiest shipping lanes, and break the business model of people-smuggling gangs.
Anyone who arrived in Britain illegally after January 1 last year faces deporation under this scheme. Their claims would then be assessed in Rwanda — some 6,400 km away. However, the first deportation flight was stopped at the last minute in June 2022 when the European Court of Human Rights intervened.
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“If we lose in the Supreme Court — an outcome that I have consistently argued we must be prepared for — you will have wasted a year and an Act of Parliament only to arrive back at square one. Worse than this, your magical thinking — believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion — has meant you have failed to prepare any sort of credible 'Plan B'. I wrote to you on multiple occasions setting out what a credible Plan B would entail and making clear that unless you pursue these proposals, in the event of defeat, there is no hope of flights this side of an election. I received no reply from you,” Braverman wrote in an excoriating resignation letter to Sunak last night.
A Reuters report quoting government officials say that there are options, including negotiating a new deal with Rwanda, upgrading the agreement from a memorandum of understanding and including new safeguards. A new treaty passed by parliament could make it harder for the courts to intervene.
(With inputs from agencies)
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