After protracted legal challenges and a marathon session of parliamentary ‘ping-pong’ between the Lords and Commons, the highly contentious Safety of Rwanda Bill was finally passed in the early hours of 23 April.
Two years ago, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to send “tens of thousands” of asylum seekers to Rwanda, in a bid to stop the flow of refugees crossing the Channel in small boats. Fast forward to 2024 and no one has yet been sent to Rwanda, despite PM Rishi Sunak’s desperate attempts to ‘stop the boats’ before the next election.
Because of determined opposition to the Bill, and ongoing problems with it, Sunak has missed his preferred spring deadline. The earliest possible date for a deportation flight will now be July, he admitted in a press conference before the parliamentary debate.
Is the Rwanda Bill lawful and will it override international law?
I’ve been following this “utterly despicable” scheme, as SNP’s Alison Thewliss called it, from the outset, through three PMs and four Home Secretaries. In November 2023, the Supreme Court judged that the Rwanda deportation scheme was unlawful. This should have been the end of the line for the plans. Instead, Sunak pressed ahead with a Bill to show that Rwanda is a safe country.
The scene in Alice in Wonderland when gardeners frantically paint white roses red comes to mind. No wonder cross-bench peer Lord Anderson called it a “post-truth” Bill. On the Today programme on 22 April, another cross-bench peer Lord Carlile, also a vociferous opponent of the Bill, called it “ill-judged, badly drafted, inappropriate…and illegal in current UK and international law.”
It is extremely concerning that the Bill seeks to put parliamentary legislation above international law. For instance, it states (section 1.4): “International law does not override acts of the Parliament.” It also seeks to “prohibit legal challenges” (section 2) and to disapply many provisions of the 1998 Human Rights Act. Presumably, this is an attempt to pre-empt an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which prevented a flight to Rwanda from leaving in June 2022.
Refugee charities have responded with condemnation and vowed to oppose the legislation. The Refugee Council said: “By contradicting the Supreme Court to declare Rwanda safe, this Orwellian Act will simply exacerbate the chaos in the asylum system at huge cost to the taxpayer.”
Rwanda scheme: an ‘extortionately expensive gimmick’
The National Audit Office recently revealed that the Rwanda scheme will cost taxpayers £1.8m for each of the first asylum seekers sent to Rwanda. The UK government has already paid £240m to Rwanda and the overall cost of the scheme will be at least £370m over five years. Home Secretary James Cleverly spent over £165,000 on just one visit to Kigali to sign a new treaty in December 2023.
These staggering amounts were condemned by Diana Johnson, chair of the home affairs select committee. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called it an “extortionately expensive gimmick” and vowed that Labour would repeal the legislation if it wins the next election.
Such huge sums would be far better invested in improving current processing arrangements for asylum seekers, which are heavily delayed, causing great distress to those awaiting decisions.
Unresolved problems: lack of housing, transport and union support
There are a huge number of unresolved issues: for instance, it is not clear where asylum seekers will be housed if and when any are deported. In March last year, there was a great fanfare when the then Home Secretary Suella Braverman inspected the potential housing for migrants in Kigali. But it is now alleged that 70% of the accommodation has now been sold off, leaving few spaces available.
It is also unclear whether any airline has agreed to transport refugees. Charter company AirTanker is in talks with the government but has refused to confirm or deny claims of a contract. In the House of Lords final debate, Lord Carlile said he had serious doubts about the truth of it, “given the fictions…at the root of the Bill”.
UN experts have warned that airlines “could be complicit in violating internationally protected human rights…by facilitating removals to Rwanda”. In addition, the FDA union representing civil servants has threatened legal action, claiming that Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the new Act.
The Rwanda scheme is “performative cruelty” and will be opposed
The deaths of five people, including a child, in the Channel on 23 April are “tragic”, said Sunak, and “a reminder of why my plan is so important because there’s a certain element of compassion about everything we’re doing.”
Such pious comments do not ring true when the rhetoric around small boat crossings has always been to cast the refugees, incorrectly, as “illegal” migrants. A senior civil servant recently reported that Cabinet Office officials carry on shockingly inhumane conversations, referring to people arriving in small boats as “bloody migrants” and “didn’t care if these people would die”.
Illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson said the government is prepared for a “whole range of legal challenges” to the policy. But Nicholas Hughes, a lawyer representing some asylum seekers likely to be deported to Rwanda, said they would only be given seven days’ notice if they were chosen, leaving very little time to prepare defence cases.
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants said the Bill was “shameful” and “puts performative cruelty above people’s lives. We must oppose the Act and we’ll continue to fight for people seeking sanctuary.” The Bill has also been condemned by the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, who called it “a matter of national disgrace”.
There is little evidence that the newly passed legislation will deter desperate refugees from attempting the Channel crossing. Further delays to the government’s implementation of the policy will inevitably follow and, sadly, more lives will probably be lost that could be saved through more humane approaches to asylum-seeking.
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