Britain’s immigration minister resigned on Wednesday, December 6, claiming he was “deeply at odds” with the policy of sending migrants to Rwanda, which he said did not go “far enough.” Robert Jenrick, a supporter of a hard line in the fight against the illegal arrival of migrants across the English Channel, announced his decision after the publication of the bill that would allow them to be sent to Rwanda.
“I cannot remain in office as long as I strongly disagree with the direction of the government’s immigration policy,” this long-time ally of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, wrote on XM. Sunak responded to him in a letter saying his departure was “disappointing” and that it also “seemed to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation”.
This resounding resignation comes at a time when the party’s far-right conservatives are demanding freedom from international conventions to realize the project, at the risk of it leading to a withdrawal from Kigali.
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Previously, former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman warned Rishi Sunak that the Tories would be “forgotten” in the general election in a matter of months if he introduced new laws that were “doomed to fail”.
Call to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights
The emergency bill submitted to Parliament on Thursday aims to “clearly exclude the possibility for the courts” to challenge the fact that Rwanda is a “safe country” after the British Supreme Court suffered a setback in November. The judges blocked this project out of fear for the safety of migrants expelled from the African country.
This new text proposes not to apply certain sections of the UK Human Rights Act to expulsions and reiterates that “ministers retain the discretion as to whether or not to comply with the measures of the European Court of Human Rights”. However, he did not go so far as to sign London’s withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights as demanded by Suella Braverman and her allies.
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There is “too much at stake for us not to seek the strongest protections necessary to end the merry-go-round of legal challenges that could paralyze the system and undermine the deterrent effect,” said Robert Jenrick . “If we abolish the courts completely, the whole system would collapse,” Rishi Sunak replied in his letter to the minister.
Almost 39,000 arrivals aboard small boats in 2023
At the same time, Rwanda warned on Wednesday that it would withdraw from the bilateral agreement signed with the United Kingdom the previous day if London did not respect international law. Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta warned that “without lawful behavior from the UK, Rwanda would not be able to continue the immigration partnership”. “It would make no sense to pass a law that would no longer give us a place to send these migrants,” Rishi wanted to reassure Sunak. The government hopes that the first planes will take off in April 2024.
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A first plane was scheduled to bring migrants to Kigali in June 2022, but the flight was canceled at the last minute following a last-minute injunction from a judge at the European Court of Human Rights. More than 29,700 people have arrived in the UK on small boats this year, compared to 45,700 in 2022.
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