Rishi Sunak says Rwanda deportation flights WILL stop Channel migrant boats as he vows to do ‘whatever it takes’ to deal with crisis – including quitting human rights convention – ahead of legal battle to get planes off the ground
- PM hinted he was open to UK leaving European Convention on Human Rights
Rishi Sunak warned he would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop Channel migrant boats today as he insisted Rwanda deportation flights would stop them coming to Britain.
The Prime Minister hinted he was open to withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights if judges in Strasbourg continue to block attempts to send failed asylum seekers to East Africa.
His vow in his conference speech came at the end of a Conservative Party Conference where stemming immigration has been in the spotlight.
Last night Home Secretary Suella Braverman – like the PM the daughter of first generation immigrants – said the UK faced a ‘hurricane’ that could bring million to the UK.
The Prime Minister told the Tory Party conference: ‘Our new law will ensure that if you come here illegally, you will be detained and swiftly removed. Now I’m confident that once flights start going regularly to Rwanda, the boats will stop coming.’
He added: ‘I am confident that our approach complies with our international obligations. But know this: I will do whatever is necessary to stop the boats.’
The Prime Minister hinted he was open to withdrawing the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights if judges in Strasbourg continue to block attempts to send failed asylum seekers to East Africa.
Last night Home Secretary Suella Braverman – like the PM the daughter of first generation immigrants – said the UK faced a ‘hurricane’ that could bring million to the UK.
The Government is preparing for a three-day Supreme Court hearing over the Rwanda plan early next month, which will determine whether the scheme is lawful.
The showdown in the UK’s top court comes after the Court of Appeal ruled in June that the policy did not comply with Britain’s obligations under the ECHR.
Judges at the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights, which oversees the convention, dramatically blocked migrant flights to Rwanda at the 11th hour last summer.
Last week the Home Secretary used a major speech in Washington DC to demand a shake-up of international rules on refugees. She also spoke of reform of the ECHR.
Mrs Braverman, whose parents came to the UK from Kenya and Mauritius in the 1960s, used her Tory conference speech yesterday to say ‘unprecedented’ migration is ‘one of the most powerful forces reshaping our world’.
Addressing delegates on Tuesday, Mrs Braverman had said: ‘The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming.
‘Because today, the option of moving from a poorer country to a richer one is not just a dream for billions of people. It’s an entirely realistic prospect.’
Following the speech, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch told a Spectator conference event that politicians should be careful about how immigration policies are discussed ‘so that people aren’t getting echoes of things that were less palatable’.
Fellow Cabinet minister Michelle Donelan later declined to repeat the rhetoric used by the Home Secretary, telling BBC Newsnight: ‘I would say it’s a problem, my language is different to her language.’
Former justice secretary Robert Buckland said it was important to consider the reality of global migration, but urged senior politicians to ‘analyse in a mature way why these things are happening’.
‘We know because climate change is making it more difficult to live in these places, we have war and conflict – people are trying to escape that for a better life,’ he told Sky News on Wednesday.
‘I think it would be better for a home secretary to reflect about the language that they use.’
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