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17-11-2023
LONDON: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would pass an emergency law and warned Britain could quit the European human rights’ convention after the UK’s top judges dealt him a major blow by ruling his scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful.
After the UK Supreme Court said his flagship immigration policy could not proceed as it was, Sunak said he was working on a new treaty with Rwanda, and would bring in an urgent law to declare the East African nation a safe destination for migrants.
“My patience has run thin, as I do believe the country’s patience has run thin, and that’s why we’ll take all the necessary steps to ensure that we can remove any further blockages toward getting this policy executed,” Sunak told reporters.
Under the scheme, Britain intended to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers who arrived on its shores without permission to Rwanda in a bid to deter large numbers of migrants crossing the Channel from Europe in small boats.
But the top court on Wednesday ruled that Rwanda could not be considered a safe third country, delighting opponents who said the policy was unworkable and cruel, and infuriating those on the right wing of Sunak’s Conservative Party.
The first planned flight to Rwanda was blocked last June after the European Court of Human Rights granted a temporary injunction to a small number of asylum seekers.
Sunak signalled to his angry lawmakers that Britain could potentially leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and other such treaties as some have demanded, saying he would do what was necessary to allow the deportation flights to start in the spring of next year.
“I told parliament earlier today that I’m prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships to remove the obstacles in our way. So let me tell everybody now, I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights,” he said.
“I fundamentally do not believe that anyone thinks the founding aims of the European Convention on Human Rights was to stop a sovereign parliament removing illegal migrants to a country deemed to be safe in parliamentary statute and binding international law.”
The Rwanda scheme, originally drawn up by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in an initial 140 million pound deal, is the central plank of Sunak’s immigration policy as he prepares to face an election next year, amid rising concern among some voters about the numbers of asylum seekers from Europe.
The ruling had taken on even greater political significance after Sunak on Monday sacked Interior Minister Suella Braverman, a popular figure on his party’s right whose remit included dealing with immigration. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
