The government’s failure to drive their pivotal Rwanda asylum policy through the courts has been welcomed by immigration and asylum lawyers, refugee charities and rights groups.
The controversial policy was ruled unlawful by a unanimous decision in the Supreme Court yesterday.
Over 130 civil society organisations have jointly welcomed the judgment including the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants, Asylum Aid, Refugee Action, Safe Passage, the Muslim Council of Britain and the Red Cross.
In a statement they said they were ‘relieved’ that the Supreme Court had made ‘the right decision’. Their statement continued: ‘The Rwanda plan was always cruel and immoral. We urge the government to immediately abandon such plans with Rwanda or with any other country, and instead protect the rights of people who have come to our country in search of sanctuary.’
They remain ‘concerned’ by the government’s overall treatment of refugees, and ‘alarmed’ by efforts to forcibly remove people from the country especially where it puts them at risk of human rights violations.
Many groups have referred to the UK’s international obligations to refugees in the wake of the verdict that the policy not only breached the European Convention on Human Rights, but other international laws to which the UK is subject.
Speculation about which way the judgment would go fueled calls among some conservative MPs that they should, as has been variously suggested, take the country out of the European human rights framework. The judgment has proven that this wouldn’t make the policy in its current form any more likely to weather similar legal challenges.
The UNHCR welcomed the court’s decision saying they have consistently conveyed their ‘deep concern’ about the ‘externalisation’ of asylum obligations and the ‘serious risks’ it poses to refugees.
The Refugee Council said on X: ‘With Rwanda off the table today there is no so-called safe third country to remove people to’. They also urged the government to scrap its ‘unworkable and inhumane’ plans uphold the right to asylum.
Immigration lawyer Colin Yeo said on X: ‘The government should abandon the plan. It risks collapse of the international system of protection and it was always impossible to implement in practice anyway.’
Other groups have referred to the language and rhetoric around the proposed scheme, identifying it as part of a marked right-ward shift in Tory policy-making.
HOPE not Hate said the verdict proves the policy was used ‘as an act of performative cruelty’ and that it ‘whipped up anti-migrant hatred that harms our communities and fueled the far right’.
The Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party Lee Anderson has invited criticism by saying in response to the judgment: ‘I think we should ignore the laws and send them straight back the same day’.
During a press conference on Wednesday the Prime Minister said he supported but did not agree with the court’s decision and announced a piece of ‘emergency legislation’ that will rework the Rwanda policy. This new law aims to override the decision of the judges and declares Rwanda is, in fact, a safe country.
Sunak said he ‘will not allow foreign courts to block these flights’.
