THE COURT OF COMMON SENSE

To their credit, judges have THREE TIMES rejected Left-wing activists’ demands to ground migrant flight... so what a farce only a handful out of 130 are still on passenger list

PRITI Patel’s Rwanda asylum plan had a huge boost last night after judges refused to block today’s first removal flight.

Tory MPs cheered in the Commons as the Court of Appeal backed a ruling in the Home Secretary’s favour last week, giving the policy the green light.

A separate High Court bid to block the flight also failed yesterday when the charity Asylum Aid was denied an injunction.

The Home Secretary has now won three victories in cases brought against the Government by Left-wing groups. But there is still only a slim chance that any migrants, including those who crossed the Channel in small boats, will be on today’s flight to Rwanda.

Just seven names remained of the 130 on the original passenger list last night after lawyers submitted a series of challenges.

Further individual appeals by these seven, who include Iranians, Iraqis and Albanians, were expected in the hours before the flight.

At least six further cases are due to be heard at the High Court today under the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and other legal measures. But the

Court of Appeal’s decision means Miss Patel’s scheme to hand Channel migrants and other ‘irregular arrivals’ a one-way ticket to the east African nation has avoided falling at the first hurdle.

The Home Secretary insists the policy is necessary to avoid further drownings in the Channel. ‘People will see this as a good result for the Home Office, but now the policy is not facing a blanket ban, well-resourced lawyers will try to get their clients pulled off the flight individually,’ a government source said.

‘They will try every tactic and exploit every loophole, probably waiting until the very last minute.’

The leadership of the Church of England yesterday condemned the Rwanda operation as an ‘immoral policy that shames Britain’. In a letter to The Times, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and 24 other bishops said: ‘Whether or not the first deportation flight leaves Britain today for Rwanda, this policy should shame us as a nation.’

Lord Justice Singh, chairing a panel of three judges in the Court of Appeal yesterday, declined to ‘interfere with the conclusions’ made by a High Court judge on Friday. He said Mr Justice Swift ‘did not err in principle’ when he refused to grant an interim injunction that would have stopped the flight taking off.

Lord Justice Singh was a leading human rights barrister and founded Matrix Chambers with Cherie Blair.

The appeal was brought by the Public and Commercial Services union, which represents a majority of UK Border Force staff, and charities Care 4 Calais and Detention Action. They were refused permission to appeal to the Supreme Court, although the applicants may lodge a further bid directly.

Raza Husain QC, for the applicants, told the court the Rwanda policy featured ‘a serious interference with basic dignity’ and the High Court had wrongly assessed the strength of their claim. He added that if migrants were to be sent to Rwanda and a judicial review – due in July – rules the policy unlawful the Home Office would be required to return them to the UK.

Migrants could then have ‘ significant claims’ for damages, the QC suggested.

But Rory Dunlop QC, for the Home Office, said: ‘ The flight tomorrow is important. This is a policy which is intended to deter dangerous and unnecessary journeys, journeys from safe third countries by people who do not need to make that journey to be safe, they can claim in France or wherever it is.

‘This is a policy that – if it works – could save lives as well as disrupt the model of traffickers.’

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has implicitly rejected Prince Charles’s reported criticisms of the Rwanda plan.

Mr Johnson declined to comment directly on whether the prince was wrong to call it ‘appalling’, but added: ‘This is about making sure that we break the business model of criminal gangs who are not only risking people’s lives but undermining public confidence in legal migration.’

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the scheme was ‘shameful’ and ‘ completely unworkable, deeply unethical and extortionately expensive’.

‘Try to exploit every loophole’