EURO COURT GROUNDS JET TO RWANDA
Another day... and another boat arrives
THE first Rwanda asylum flight was grounded last night after a dramatic 11th-hour intervention by a European court.
Seven Channel migrants selected for the flight had already arrived at a military airbase in Wiltshire – ready to be sent 4,000 miles to east Africa.
But an out- of-hours judge at the European Court of human Rights ruled that one of the men, a 54-yearold Iraqi who came to Britain by small boat less than a month ago, could not be sent to Rwanda until further hearings had taken place. Sources said the move meant none of the remaining six migrants could be put on the Boeing 767 waiting to take off from Boscombe Down near Salisbury.
A Whitehall source said: ‘It’s an abomination that after domestic courts have repeatedly ruled in the Government’s favour, that an out-of-hours judge in the European Court has intervened to block the removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda.’
It is understood the Government
did not get a chance to appear at a full hearing. The development sets ministers on collision course with the Strasbourg court, which is part of the Council of Europe and separate from the European Union.
Boris Johnson indicated yesterday the UK may pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the court interprets. ‘The legal world is very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the Government from upholding
‘We think it is a sensible law’
what we think is a sensible law,’ the Prime Minister said.
‘Will it be necessary to change some rules to help us as we go along? It very well may be. All these option are under constant review.’
The court said it was effectively barring the man, identified only as KN, from being sent to Rwanda under its rules which apply when there is an ‘imminent risk of irreparable harm’.
It added that the UK Government must not remove KN until three weeks after a full judicial review by the UK High Court has taken place into the legality of the Rwanda policy.
That case is not due to be heard until the end of next month.
The ruling effectively overturned a series of decisions by British courts – including the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court – that had allowed the Rwanda flight to go ahead. Left-wing activists and lawyers had launched a string of legal challenges against the Home Office. Some had prevented individuals being placed on the passenger list, but attempts to win an injunction blocking the whole policy resoundingly failed.
At that stage, lawyers for KN
went to Strasbourg. As the complex series of last-minute legal wrangles unfolded, hundreds of migrants crossed the Channel on small boats yesterday. An estimated 400 people – including a heavily-pregnant woman, babies and small children – risked their lives to reach Dover in the perilous crossing from northern France. Yesterday’s unconfirmed number of arrivals is thought to have brought the total since the start of the year to more than 10,600.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has insisted the Rwanda policy is vital to prevent a repeat of tragedies such as the drowning of 27 men, women and children on November 24 last year.
In another main development yesterday, Mr Johnson blasted lawyers attempting to block the Rwanda scheme for ‘abetting the work of the criminal gangs’.
In remarks made at Cabinet and released by No 10, he said: ‘ We have to work within the scope of common humanity and compassion, that’s the right thing to do.
‘But we have to interrupt the business model of the gangs and what we see now is our policy, the economic and migration partnership with Rwanda, that we have engaged upon under a huge amount of attack, not least from lawyers.
‘What the criminal gangs are doing and what ... those who effectively are abetting the work of the criminal gangs are doing, is undermining people’s confidence in the safe and legal system, undermining people’s general acceptance of immigration.
‘So my message to everybody today is that we are not going to be in any way deterred or abashed by some of the criticism that is being directed upon this policy, some of it from slightly unexpected quarters.’
His comments came after the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and other bishops criticised the Rwanda policy as ‘immoral’,
‘Asylum system costs £1.5bn a year’
and Prince Charles described it as ‘appalling’.
The Rwanda charter aircraft is thought to have cost to the taxpayer up to £500,000.
The PM’s spokesman pointed out the asylum system already costs £1.5billion a year, and £5million a day is being spent on hotel accommodation for asylum seekers.
‘So this is about finding a longterm solution to a longstanding problem,’ they added.
The inaugural flight’s original passenger list of 131 people – most of whom arrived here in small boats since the start of May – had been whittled down to just seven by the series of legal challenges.