Government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda are lawful, high court rules – UK politics live | Politics

Rishi Sunak has joined other senior Tories who have criticised the football pundit and former England player Gary Neville for his attack on the government’s nurses’ pay policy yesterday.

During his World Cup commentary, Neville suggested there were similarities between the government’s approach to nurses and the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar. He accused ministers of “demonising rail workers, ambulance workers and terrifyingly, nurses”.

In an interview with the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves, who was invited to accompany Sunak on his trip to Latvia, Sunak was asked about Neville’s comments. He replied:

I think when most people are tuning in to watch Gary Neville they want to hear about the football and watch the football. They don’t want to discuss politics.

Sunak also said that he came from an NHS family and that as chancellor and PM he had prioritised the health service. “During Covid when there was a pay freeze in the rest of the public sector, the one area that got special treatment was the NHS. I did that as chancellor,” he said.

Other Tories have been more blunt. This is from Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary.

Charities that work with refugees have reacted with alarm to the high court judgment on the Rwanda policy.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said:

This bitterly disappointing decision draws attention to the limitations of domestic law when it comes to the UK meeting its obligations under international law.

We remain gravely concerned that the government’s Rwanda deal seriously undermines international refugee law and rides roughshod over the rights of people seeking asylum in the UK.

Katy Chakrabortty, head of policy and advocacy at Oxfam, said:

The high court’s ruling is deeply disappointing. But just because something is legal, does not make it humane.

The government’s plans to offshore our asylum responsibilities to Rwanda are cruel and immoral, and will do nothing to tackle the issue of dangerous small boat crossings. We need a reversal of this barbaric policy, and the creation of more safe and legal routes for those fleeing conflict and persecution to the UK.

Josie Naughton, the CEO of Choose Love, which helped to fund the claim by Asylum Aid (one of the various cases considered by the high court in its judgment), said:

Today is a dark moment for upholding human rights in the UK. Hostility has come at the expense of compassion, and the country is turning its back on the principle that all should have rights to live in freedom and in safety. Today’s ruling sets a dangerous precedent for evading international and moral commitments towards those seeking asylum.

And Beth Gardiner-Smith, the CEO of Safe Passage International, said:

Today’s decision is deeply disappointing, and our thoughts are with all of those who are at risk of deportation under this cruel policy. As well as being immoral, this plan won’t work in practice to deter people from making dangerous journeys across the Channel as we have seen this year. Instead, it will inflict huge misery and suffering on refugees who have already experienced significant trauma.

Responding to the high court judgment, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said the government should abandon the Rwanda policy because it was unworkable and expensive. She said in a statement:

The Rwanda scheme is a damaging distraction from the urgent action the government should be taking to go after the criminal gangs and sort out the asylum system. It is unworkable, unethical, extortionately expensive.

Ministers have already written a £140m cheque to Rwanda without the policy even starting, with millions more promised even though Home Office officials say there’s no evidence it’ll provide a deterrent and it risks making trafficking worse.

The Rwandan government has said it can only process 200 people a year – or 0.5% of Channel crossings this year.

And the Liberal Democrats have also renewed their call for the government to abandon the policy, on the same grounds. This is from Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dems’ home affair spokesperson:

Whether or not it is lawful, the Conservatives’ Rwanda asylum plan is immoral, ineffective and incredibly costly for taxpayers.

It will do nothing to stop dangerous Channel crossings or combat people smuggling and human trafficking; instead it will give criminal gangs more power and profits.

The Conservatives are betraying the UK’s proud tradition of providing sanctuary to refugees fleeing war and persecution, and breaching our commitments under the 1951 UN refugee convention.

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, says she wants to press on with the Rwanda deportation policy “as soon as possible” in the light of today’s court judgment. She made the comment in one of several tweets on the ruling, saying: “My focus remains on moving ahead with the policy as soon as possible and we stand ready to defend against any further legal challenge.”

Braverman notoriously told an event at the Tory party conference that having a Telegraph front page showing a plane with asylum seekers on it leaving the UK for Rwanda was her “dream” and “obsession”.

Steve Barclay, the health secretary, was reprimanded by a mother during a hospital visit this morning for suggesting that Covid was mainly to blame for problems with the health service.

Barclay and other ministers have repeatedly argued that the problems facing the NHS are to a large extent caused by the impact of the pandemic.

But when Sarah Pinnington-Auld met Barclay as he visited as he visited King’s UCollege hospital in London, she told him she was not convinced by this argument.

As Sky News reports, Pinnington-Auld, whose three-year-old daughter has cystic fibrosis and was being treated in the hospital, said:

We were short of doctors, we were short of beds going into the pandemic so I think it is really wrong to blame it on the pandemic.

She also said that government should be spending more on social care, and that she was concerned that Britain was moving closer to a privatised healthcare model like America’s, where the rich would get a much better service than the poor.

According to Sky News, Pinnington-Auld has in the past expressed her support for Labour on social media.

GB News has tweeted a full clip showing the exchange.

Priti Patel, the former home secretary who negotiated the deal with Rwanda for asylum seekers arriving in the UK to be deported there, said in a statement on Twitter that this morning’s court judgment vindicates her “world-leading” policy.

One of the issues considered by the high court was whether the government’s Rwanda policy was incompatible with the UK’s obligations under the UN refugee convention, as many campaigners have claimed. Here is paragraph 121 from the full judgment, which explains why this argument was rejected.

Mr Drabble KC [who was representing two of the asylum seekers threatened with deportation] submitted that the refugee convention imposes an obligation on contracting states to determine all asylum claims made, on their merits. We disagree. There is no such obligation on the face of the convention. The obligation that is imposed is the one at article 33, not to expel or return a refugee to a place where his life or freedom would be threatened by reason of any of the characteristics that the convention protects. Mr Drabble’s submission was that an obligation to determine asylum claims would be consistent with the spirit and purpose of the convention and could therefore reasonably be assumed. Again, we disagree. Obligations in international treaties are formulated with considerable care. They reflect balances struck following detailed negotiations between states parties. An obligation to determine every asylum claim on its merits would be a significant addition to the refugee convention. There is no reason to infer the existence of an obligation of that order; to do so would go well beyond the limits of any notion of judicial construction of an international agreement; and the protection that is necessary if the purpose of the convention is to be met, is provided by article 33.