Tories vent fury at ‘abominable’ European court ruling on Rwanda flight

Tories vented fury at ‘b***ard’ Strasbourg judges today today after the first flight carrying migrants to Rwanda was blocked at the eleventh hour.

MPs and ministers called for the UK to withdraw from European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after an ‘out of hours’ intervention to stop an Iraqi citizen being deported – just before the Boeing 767 was due to leave a Wiltshire airbase.

The dramatic move came after days of wrangling in Britain’s highest Supreme Court over the plans, which upheld the government’s right to go ahead with the flight. 

Ministers have insisted the deal with Rwanda can deter migrants from coming to the UK and save lives – pointing to the fact that yesterday 300 more people crossed the Channel in flimsy dinghies. Priti Patel has vowed to start preparing another flight immediately, and will make a defiant statement to MPs later. 

But the bold strategy has been condemned by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby as ‘immoral’, while Prince Charles is said to have privately branded it ‘appalling’.

The injunction from the ECHR – which is not connected to the EU – meant lawyers representing the remaining six migrants on board including more Iraqis, an Iranian, a Vietnamese and an Albanian, then lodged their appeals to judges in London before the Home Office ultimately scrapped their removal orders. 

At 10pm the final migrant was on board the plane, which cost the taxpayer an estimated £500,000 to charter, when he was told he was not flying to Africa. 

Boris Johnson had already floated the idea of walking away from the ECHR earlier in the afternoon – a step that has previously been taken by Greece, who have since rejoined, and Russia. The UK helped found the international body, which now has nearly 50 members. 

And there was outrage on Tory MP WhatsApp groups last night. One said of the ECHR: ‘It’s time we kicked these b*****ds  into touch. For once I won’t apologise for my French’. 

James Sutherland, an aide to Defra Secretary George Eustice, is said to have told the group: ‘Did we expect any less? Outrageous that the UK is still beholden to the ECHR as a sovereign nation’.

A Downing Street source told the Daily Mail: ‘It’s an abomination that after domestic courts have repeatedly ruled in the Government’s favour, that an out-of-hours judge in the European Court has intervened to block the removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda.’ 

Another insider said: ‘European judges grounded the whole thing despite the Supreme Court, High Court and Court of Appeal ruling in favour of the Government. It is appalling. One out-of-hours European judge has overruled days and days of debate in the UK courts on the papers alone’.

Ms Patel last night defiantly vowed to plough ahead with her Rwanda relocation plan.

In a strongly-worded rebuttal of the Strasbourg justice’s ruling, she said she would not be ‘deterred from doing the right thing’. 

Ms Patel admitted the policy ‘will not be easy to deliver’ but expressed optimism that the Government would be able to overcome left-wing lawyers’ repeated legal challenges.   

In a round of interviews this morning, Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey said she is ‘highly confident’ the Government will be able to go ahead with other Rwanda flights.

Ms Coffey said ministers were ‘surprised and disappointed’ by the ECHR rules – swiping that she had never known it to act so quickly.

‘The Government is disappointed by the decision. I have never known such a quick decision made by somebody at the ECHR. 

‘I think the public will be surprised at European judges overruling British judges,’ she told Sky News.

‘Nevertheless I know the Home Office is already getting ready for the next flight and we will to continue to prepare and try and overturn any future legal challenges as well.’

Asked if how confident she was the next flight would be able to go ahead, she said: ‘I am highly confident.

‘This decision was taken at rapid pace yesterday. As a consequence it is right that the Government continues to try and make sure we deter unsafe, illegal routes of trying to enter the country because the only people who benefit are unscrupulous people traffickers, often trying to put people into modern slavery as well.’

Although by yesterday just seven migrants were due to be sent to Rwanda, defiant ministers had insisted the flight would go ahead even if there was only one person on board.

The High Court is due to hold a judicial review in July to decide on the legality of the Rwanda scheme.

However, the Supreme Court had refused to step in to block the flights in advance. 

London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan immediately celebrated the news as it was confirmed the flight had been called off. 

He tweeted: ‘Tonight’s inhumane deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda has been stopped by the ECtHR – minutes before it was due to depart.

‘Sending people fleeing violence to a country thousands of miles away was already cruel and callous. It’s now potentially unlawful too.’

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon added: ‘Whilst we are relieved to hear the flight to Rwanda did not take off as planned tonight it is clear that the Government remain determined to press on with this deal. 

‘The fact that the final flight could not take off is indicative of the inhumanity of the plan and the Government’s complete refusal to see the face behind the case.’

A group of protesters had gathered outside Colnbrook Detention Centre in Heathrow yesterday afternoon and lay on the ground in an effort to halt the flight. 

But the cancellation was eventually forced after the ECHR ruled in favour of a 54-year-old Iraqi man, understood to have travelled to the UK by boat in May and thought to have been tortured in the past.

The court said it was effectively barring the man, identified only as KN, from being sent to Rwanda under its rules which apply when there is an ‘imminent risk of irreparable harm’.

It added that the UK Government must not remove KN until three weeks after the full judicial review by the UK High Court has taken place into the legality of the Rwanda policy.

The ruling effectively overturned a series of decisions by British courts – including the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court – that had allowed the Rwanda flight to go ahead.

Left-wing activists and lawyers had launched a string of legal challenges against the Home Office. Some had prevented individuals being placed on the passenger list, but attempts to win an injunction blocking the whole policy resoundingly failed.

At that stage, lawyers for KN went to Strasbourg. 

As the complex series of last-minute legal wrangles unfolded, hundreds of migrants crossed the Channel on small boats yesterday.

An estimated 400 people – including a heavily-pregnant woman, babies and small children – risked their lives to reach Dover in the perilous crossing from northern France. 

Yesterday’s unconfirmed number of arrivals is thought to have brought the total since the start of the year to more than 10,600.

Ms Patel has insisted the Rwanda policy is vital to prevent a repeat of tragedies such as the drowning of 27 men, women and children on November 24 last year.

In her statement last night she said: ‘Our legal team are reviewing every decision made on this flight and preparation for the next flight begins now…

‘Access to the UK’s asylum system must be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers. The demands on the current system, the cost to the taxpayer, and the flagrant abuses are increasing, and the British public have rightly had enough.

‘I have always said this policy will not be easy to deliver and am disappointed that legal challenge and last-minute claims have meant today’s flight was unable to depart.

‘It is very surprising that the European Court of Human Rights has intervened despite repeated earlier success in our domestic courts. 

‘These repeated legal barriers are similar to those we experience with other removals flights and many of those removed from this flight will be placed on the next.’

In an interview with BBC’s Newsnight, former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption said it was unclear if the Strasbourg ruling should stop flights and that the enforceability of the interim Strasbourg judgement is a controversial question.

Lortd Sumption added: ‘This isn’t a final judgement of the Strasbourg court, it’s an interim judgement and what is more, that particular article is not one of the ones incorporated into UK law of the Human Rights Act. A more difficult question is what position is there in international law.

‘On the face of it there is nothing in the convention gives effect to orders of the Strasbourg court.’

Four men who challenged their removal at the High Court in London had their cases dismissed yesterday, while a fifth man lost a bid to bring an appeal at the Supreme Court. 

Baroness Chakrabarti, former director of Liberty and former Labour shadow attorney general, condemned the Government for going ahead with the plan before the Court of Appeal’s final verdict on the lawfulness of offshore processing, because of an ongoing ‘culture war’.

She said: ‘Would it not have been open to the Home Office to hold off removals until then or is it a confected culture war so that other ministers make these remarks about ‘leftie lawyers’ thwarting the will of the people, and that these souls, these seven or so souls, are collateral damage in that culture war.’ 

Lord Coaker, shadow spokesman for home affairs and defence, branded the Government’s Rwanda policy ‘unethical, unworkable and expensive, and flies in the face of British values’.

He argued, during a House of Lords debate on the policy, that it is not only ‘shameful’ in a moral capacity, but that the Government putting an RAF base on standby just to facilitate the flight of around seven people would be costly for the taxpayer.

He asked: ‘What will the cost to the taxpayer be of each person?’

Home Office minister Baroness Williams of Trafford replied that she did not believe it was moral to ‘stand by and allow people to drown’ or to ‘line the pockets of criminal gangs who seek to exploit people trying to cross in small boats’.

She added: ‘In terms of the cost, I don’t think we can put a cost on the price of human lives. I think we need to do all we can to deter these perilous journeys.’