First migrant flight to Rwanda ‘leaves today’
...but it may have only 11 on board
This isn’t just unworkable, unethical and expensive, it is also profoundly un-British YVETTE COOPER SHADOW HOME SECRETARY ON FLIGHTS POLICY
A DEPORTATION flight taking Channel migrants to Rwanda was cleared for take-off last night but legal challenges mean there could be as few as 11 on board.
Originally, 31 people were expected to travel but legal objections prevented 20 from flying.
Last-ditch attempts to block the flight altogether failed last night.
High Court judge Mr Justice Swift said the arguments put forward by Asylum Aid were “thin”.
The charity had asked him to block ministers from enforcing the removal of “any asylum seeker” to the country until a full hearing next month on whether the policy is even legal. Raza Husain QC told the Court of Appeal that one of those due to fly to Rwanda, who had left Syria, said he would rather die than go there.
But three CoA judges backed last week’s ruling, also by Mr Justice Swift, that the flight should go ahead.
Delivering last night’s judgment, Lord Justice Singh said Mr Justice Swift had “conducted the balancing exercise properly”.
He added: “He weighed all the factors and reached a conclusion which he was reasonably entitled to reach on the material before him.
“This court cannot therefore interfere with that conclusion.”
The judges also refused permission for an appeal to be made to the Supreme Court.
A Home Office source earlier insisted: “We will operate the flight even if there is just one person on it, but there is a real prospect that even that might not be possible.”
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said he was “not aware” of a minimum number of passengers needed for the plane to take off.
Care4Calais said the 11 still due to fly include four Iranians, two Iraqis, two Albanians and one Syrian.
Supporters of the deal with Kigali hope it will help deter desperate migrants from attempting the voyage through the perilous Dover Strait.
Thousands have arrived on UK shores this year already after journeys in small inflatables.
Border Force officials yesterday intercepted at least 35 in Dover, Kent. The mostly male group could be seen at the port being led away by soldiers for processing. Defending the policy, Boris Johnson said on a visit to Cornwall: “I always said that it will begin with a lot of teething problems and you will have a lot of legal action against it and they will try and delay it.
“But what we’re trying to do is stop the business model of criminal gangs who are preying on people moving them across the Channel in unseaworthy vessels, risking their lives.”
Speaking in the Commons, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said of the policy: “This isn’t just unworkable, unethical and expensive, it is also profoundly un-British and ignores our British values of decency and common sense. It is time to think again.”