LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – After a series of last-minute legal arguments, the first deportation flight scheduled to bring asylum seekers to Rwanda has been cancelled, according to the Home Office.
The plane, which had been waiting to take off on a Ministry of Defence runway at Boscombe Down in Amesbury, will not take off owing to “last-minute interventions from the European Court of Human Rights,” according to a source.
Despite the first trip to Rwanda being cancelled, Home Secretary Priti Patel stated the government would not be discouraged from doing the right thing and fulfilling their plans to secure the borders of their nation.
Earlier that year, she had signed a world-leading Migration Partnership with Rwanda to see those who came to the UK illegally, dangerously or unnecessarily relocated to establish a life there. That would help to disrupt the people smugglers’ model of business and avoid deaths, while also ensuring that the truly vulnerable were protected, she said in a statement released by the Home Office last night.
Access to the United Kingdom’s asylum system should be based on need, not on the means to pay people traffickers. The demands on the current system were growing, as were the costs to taxpayers and the flagrant abuses, and the British people had had enough, she added.
She had always stated that policy would be difficult to implement, and she was saddened that a legal challenge and last-minute claims had prevented this day’s flight from taking off.
Despite previous success in their local courts, the European Court of Human Rights had interfered, which was really surprising to her. Those repeated legal roadblocks were similar to those they had seen on previous removal flights, and many of them who were removed from that one would be placed on the next.
They would not be deterred from doing what was right and delivering their measures to secure their country’s borders. Every choice made on that flight was being reviewed by their legal staff, and planning for the next flight was already underway, she continued.
According to the minister, the Home Office is currently arranging for a new deportation flight to Rwanda
Therese Coffey, Work and Pensions Secretary, was recently on Sky News Breakfast with Niall Paterson.
When asked about the first Rwanda deportation flight being cancelled last night as a result of a judgement by the European Court of Human Rights, Ms Coffey said:
The administration anticipated a barrage of legal challenges, so they went through the British courts, which approved the flight.
To be honest, the government was dissatisfied with the decision. She had never seen an ECHR intervenor make such a rapid judgement, and she believes the public would be startled that European courts were overruling British judges, she said.
However, she was aware that the Home Office was already preparing for the next flight, and the UK would continue to prepare and attempt to overcome any future legal hurdles, she added.
When asked if the government’s decision could lead to preparations to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights, Ms Coffey said:
The most crucial thing was that they were currently addressing that issue. They would undoubtedly return to the ECHR to appeal that initial verdict, since, as she previously stated, British judges had decided that those flights would go ahead and she would continue to believe that that was the best thing that could happen.
