Sunak tries to rescue doomed Rwanda policy

Rishi Sunak has vowed to introduce emergency legislation asserting that Rwanda is a safe country, as he attempted to claw back some authority, after the government’s flagship policy to “stop the small boats” was left in tatters.

This morning, the Supreme Court ruled that the government’s plan to put asylum seekers who have entered Britain illegally on a one-way plane to Rwanda is unlawful. The unanimous ruling ends 18 months of legal battles in UK courts over a scheme which has already cost the taxpayer £140 million, despite not one asylum seeker actually leaving the UK under it. 

But Sunak is not giving up just yet. The government is already working on a new treaty with Rwanda, he insisted, and one which will provide the binding assurance the Supreme Court is asking for: that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda will not later be returned to their home country if that would endanger them. 

Once this new treaty is agreed and emergency legislation is passed, “I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights,” declared Sunak, in a reference to the European Court of Human Rights much loathed by the Tory right. 

Will Sunak’s reworked plans make any difference? 

The Rwanda scheme is not offshore processing. Rather, the plan is that migrants sent from Britain to the East African nation will be able to claim asylum there and may be granted refugee status. If not, they can apply to settle on other grounds, return home, or seek asylum in a “safe third country”.

Crucially, the scheme was deemed unlawful because, in the words of the court’s president, Lord Reed, there are “substantial grounds to believe asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulement”. In other words, refugees sent there would be at risk of being returned to their home countries, where they could be subject to persecution. According to the Court, this happened under a similar deal the Rwandan government made with Israel between 2013 and 2018.  And even after the UK signed its own deal, the justices say there is evidence of the East African state sending asylum seekers to the countries from which they fled.

Sunak is yet to elaborate on how his new treaty will convincingly eliminate the risk of refoulement. 

As for his swipe at a “foreign court”, this is likely an attempt to pre-empt a Tory rebellion. But it may well miss the point. 

Today’s ruling will renew calls from the likes of sacked former home Secretary Suella Braverman for Britain to hold a referendum on leaving the ECHR. Yet the details of today’s judgement suggest that even leaving the ECHR may not solve anything. 

Crucially, Lord Reed stated today that the principle of not sending refugees back to their home countries if they would be subject to a real risk of abuse, isn’t just enshrined in the ECHR – it is embedded in various British laws and many other international treaties and conventions. 

Without its Rwanda scheme, the government’s Illegal Migration Act is unworkable. It no longer makes sense without somewhere to send those arriving in small boats – the majority of whom cannot be sent back to their home countries.

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