What next after courts rejected Sunak’s Rwanda asylum policy – again

Good morning.

580 days after the government pledged to send some asylum seekers thousands of miles away to Rwanda for processing and settlement, the UK supreme court has rejected the plans, undermining Rishi Sunak’s key pledge to reduce migration. It is a crushing blow for the prime minister, who is now facing a rightwing rebellion from his MPs while also dealing with a huge, costly policy failure.

Five justices of the supreme court upheld an appeal court ruling, which found that there was a real risk of “refoulement”, meaning that deported refugees could have their claims wrongly assessed and therefore be returned to their country of origin, where they may face violence and persecution.

The news comes after a turbulent few days in Downing Street, with former home secretary Suella Braverman publishing an inflammatory letter where she accused Sunak of “betrayal” over his promise to stop the boats.

During a press conference in the hours after the judges unanimously rejected the plans, Rishi Sunak announced emergency legislation that would end the “merry-go-round” of legal challenges by setting out in law that Rwanda is a safe country. Standing at a lectern that had “stop the boats” emblazoned on the front, Sunak said he was “prepared to do what is necessary to get flights off”. Unfortunately for him, Whitehall sources have said that it could take more than a year to get this plan over the line and it would likely still be challenged in the courts. Charities and campaign groups, meanwhile, have welcomed the ruling, calling it a “victory for humanity”.

For today’s newsletter, I spoke to journalist and author Daniel Trilling, who has reported extensively on the Rwanda policy, about what this ruling means and how it will affect the asylum system. That’s right after the headlines.

Five big stories

In depth: ‘There were repeated warnings – the impression left is that the government is incompetent’

The Rwanda deportation plan was initially drawn up by Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, but two prime ministers and three home secretaries later (remember Grant Shapps’s six-day stint?) it is still a central plank of the government’s agenda. Both Sunak and Braverman insisted that they would be executing this plan in order to reduce the number of migrants getting to the UK by “irregular means”, particularly those crossing the English Channel on small boats, by sending them on a plane to Kigali to be processed there. The government had already sunk a lot of political and financial capital into the plan, including paying Rwanda £140m, so the stakes could not have been higher for the prime minister.

The gamble did not pay off.

Why did the supreme court rule against the government?

The central reason given was that refugees would be at risk of “refoulement”, the legal term for when a refugee is returned to their country of origin. This belief was based on Rwanda’s poor human rights record and its past behaviour. “Its asylum system is unreliable”, says Daniel. “There is evidence from the UN’s refugee agency that the Rwandan asylum system frequently makes mistakes and wrongly rejects applications, which puts people at risk of being sent back to countries where their lives are in danger”.

Rwanda has also brokered a deal like this before, with dire consequences. In 2013, the east African nation signed a similar agreement with Israel which saw 4,000 asylum seekers “voluntarily” removed from the country to Rwanda and Uganda between 2014 and 2017 before the secretive deal was abandoned. A report by the International Refugee Rights Initiative suggested that “the majority, if not all” of the asylum seekers were smuggled out of Rwanda within days of arriving in Kigali: “They are not given an opportunity to apply for asylum, and even if they wish to stay in Rwanda, their refugee claims cannot be assessed as the national refugee status determination committee has not yet been established”, the report said.

There have also been other troubling reports, including an incident where Rwandan police opened fire on refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 12 people. The UK government has nonetheless insisted that Rwanda is an appropriate place for refugees, adding that it takes issue with “the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe third country for asylum seekers and refugees”. Sunak has pledged to push ahead with a formal treaty with Rwanda in an attempt to satisfy the court’s concerns.

The European question

Braverman’s letter, and reports about the feeling of rightwing Tories, had indicated a loss in court would be used as a framing to campaign for Britain to withdraw from the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which has long been a bugbear of the right. However, attempts to draw that as a dividing line between the government and Labour were made harder by the court’s ruling, says Daniel: “One of the most striking things from the judgment itself was that they were at pains to stress that this isn’t only about the European convention on human rights and the UK Human Rights Act”.

There are provisions in other treaties that the UK is part of which have the same effect as the ECHR, like the UN’s 1951 refugee convention, the UN convention against torture, the UN international covenant on civil and political rights, as well as a series of domestic British laws on asylum and immigration.

The principle that a government does not send refugees back to countries where they are in danger is “very strongly embedded in the law in Britain both domestically and internationally. And that’s something that has been decided on by democratically elected governments over quite a long period of time”, Daniel adds.

Where does this leave the Rwanda plan?

For the moment, things are at a standstill because the government cannot lawfully send people to Rwanda. There are a few routes the government can take in response, the most blunt of which would be to send people anyway. While it is unlikely that any government would actually go through with this option (and acting unlawfully has been ruled out by the new home secretary, James Cleverly), the deputy leader of the Conservative party, Lee Anderson, has said that they should go ahead and “put planes in the air” to Rwanda regardless. There were also briefings, before the ruling, that the government was considering it as an option.

If this were to happen, any individual that the government was trying to deport would be able to appeal against it in UK courts, “but the government might calculate that it can deal with whatever sanctions are imposed on it at a later stage and the price is worth it just to see a flight take off”, Daniel says.

The other option for the government is to try to make the plan lawful, either by withdrawing from the ECHR and other international treaties or making a new law altogether that creates an exception within human rights law for this deal, where the normal protections don’t have to apply to certain asylum seekers. That is the option Suella Braverman was alluding to in her explosive resignation letter, and also what Sunak purports to be attempting with plans for a new treaty with Rwanda.

The final option, Daniel says, is that the government could allow the policy to remain suspended and turn the situation into a bigger political battle as part of the next general election campaign, “where the government promises to withdraw from human rights protections if re-elected and give the policy another go”. And even if Sunak does pursue a new relationship with Rwanda and rewrites existing laws to allow the Rwanda plan to happen, the chances of that being successful in the 12 months before a general election must be called are slim. Whenever that election does take place, we can be sure flights to Rwanda will be part of the conversation.

The political fallout

This is a bad situation for Rishi Sunak. The ruling means that Sunak has presided over a failed asylum policy and allowed his ministers to stoke “inflammatory, populist, xenophobic rhetoric”, Daniel says, but at the same time has angered that same rightwing faction of the party.

Sunak quickly faced backlash from the hard-right faction of the party yesterday. The former minister Simon Clarke warned of a new “confidence issue” with at least six MPs submitting letters of no confidence in the prime minister.

“There were repeated warnings from the government’s own officials, its own experts that Rwanda was not a suitable country to sign a deal with for all the reasons that the supreme court has articulated today,” Daniel says, “so the impression that has been left is that the government is incompetent.”

While it is a disaster for Sunak, for Braverman and her allies this was always going to be a win-win situation. The supreme court ruling going in their favour would have given them what they wanted, but the failure of the policy has allowed them to kick up a fuss about the perceived restrictiveness of human rights law, and Sunak’s inability to act tough on immigration.

What does it mean for asylum seekers?

While the ruling has been welcomed by refugee charities and legal organisations that represent asylum seekers as the threat of immediate deportation has gone, for now, the focus in resource and time on this currently defunct policy has meant that the asylum backlog has grown significantly. More than 100,000 people have been waiting for over a year for a decision on their initial asylum claim. “The asylum system has been collapsing and all of these people are being held in limbo and that situation will continue until politicians change the course and genuinely try to fix the system”, Daniel says.

Even though the government’s plans are legally in tatters, it is unlikely that they will stop talking about the policy, so the idea of managing asylum by offshoring people is not going away any time soon. Daniel points out that a number of other countries in the west are exploring their own versions of these deals.

The danger is that if policies like this become more common it could “potentially undermine the entire system we have at the moment for protecting refugee rights”.

What else we’ve been reading

In her new disinformation book, Doppelganger, Naomi Klein discusses several topics, one being how the wellness industry became entwined with the far right. In this interview with Katherine Rowland, she discusses the phenomenon, and what can be done to avoid it. Nyima

When Mean Girls hit the screens 19 years ago it became an instant classic because of its commentary on the casual misogyny of the early 2000s. The reboot however does not look like its set to make a similar splash – Zing Tsjeng takes a look at why. Nimo

Shirley Thompson has become the first woman in Europe to compose and conduct a symphony in four decades. Speaking to Tobi Thomas, she reveals how she broke through to excel in a career that at times shut her out. Nyima

JJ Guest’s art exhibition at the Spurs’ stadium takes a look at the homoerotic side of football, turning some old tropes on their heads. Tim Jonze spoke to Guest about what informed his art and the reception it could receive from fans. Nimo

The cassette was pivotal in the growth of music genres from thrash metal to hip-hop. Michael Hann investigates why it still has relevance today. Nyima

Sport

Cricket | Kane Williamson described India’s one-day international World Cup juggernaut as the best team in the world after a thrilling semi-final in Mumbai, where New Zealand pressed hard but ultimately fell well short of India’s 397 batting first. Victory made it 10 wins in succession for India before the final on Sunday.

Tennis | Carlos Alcaraz got back on track at the ATP Finals with victory over Andrey Rublev on Wednesday, easing to 7-5, 6-2 to revive his hopes in Red Group.

Athletics | A leading British ultra-marathon runner has been banned for 12 months for using a car during a 50-mile race and then accepting a trophy for third place. Joasia Zakrzewski admitted she jumped into her friend’s vehicle during the 2023 GB Ultras Manchester to Liverpool race in April, but claimed she only did so after telling marshals she was injured and no longer competing.

The front pages

“PM vows to push through Rwanda plan after court rules it unlawful” is the front-page lead in the Guardian. Not much getting away from that topic this morning, I’m afraid. The Daily Telegraph says “PM will use emergency law to start Rwanda flights” and the Times has “Sunak: Emergency law can save Rwanda policy”. The Daily Mail’s furniture on this is quite extraordinary. “‘We are a reasonable government, a reasonable country, but the British people’s patience can only be stretched so thin’” – that is what Sunak “thundered” as his eyes “blazed like hot coals”, it says. “Fed up Rishi? No bloody Rwanda!” – that’s the Sun while the Daily Express goes with “PM fights back: we WILL deport migrants”. The Financial Times words it as “Defiant Sunak vows to change law as top court strikes down Rwanda policy”. It’s a more mild treatment in the i – “Sunak vs the supreme court” – which is not the lead story, this is: “Pensions boost at double UK inflation”. The Metro goes for freebie lightness: “Rishi: I have a new flight plan!”. The Daily Mirror asks “Is nothing sacred?” for its top story, adding: “Outrage as Harry & Meg book reveals details around Queen’s death”.

Today in Focus

Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

The European Union has struck the first law that will force the fossil fuel industry to rein in dangerous methane pollution. The new measures will require coal, oil and gas companies to report their methane emissions and take steps to avoid them, like finding and fixing leaks, and limiting wasteful practices such as venting and flaring gas by 2027.

Jutta Paulus, a German MEP with the Green grouping who worked on the proposal, said: “Finally, the EU tackles the second most important greenhouse gas with ambitious measures. Less methane emissions mean more climate protection and more energy sovereignty.”

Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday

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