Lawyers prepare for legal battles on behalf of individual asylum seekers challenging removal to east Africa
Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill will become law after peers eventually backed down on amending it, opening the way for legal battles over the potential removal of dozens of people seeking asylum.
After a marathon battle of “ping pong” over the key legislation between the Commons and the Lords, the bill finally passed when opposition and crossbench peers gave way on Monday night.
The bill is expected to be granted royal assent on Tuesday. Home Office sources said they have already identified a group of asylum seekers with weak legal claims to remain in the UK who will be part of the first tranche to be sent to east Africa in July.
Sunak has put the bill, which would deport asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by irregular means to Kigali, at the centre of his attempts to stop small boats crossing the Channel.
Labour have already said they’ll reverse it once they win the next election. My bet would be they’ll get one plane off the ground. This fucking project is going to end up costing in excess of £5,000,000 per person. We could have just housed them in the Savoy for less.
I get what you’re saying, but never underestimate the ability of Blairites with none of the charisma to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Their ineptitude is a big part of the reason why the UK has been under the thumb of the Tories for 14 years…
True. However that ineptitude has fully infected the Tories now. Labour are looking to win not from being any good or inspiring, but because the Tories are much much worse. Then the Tories will go off and lick their wounds for one or two terms and will be back because Labour won’t have the foresight to bring in PR and end the two party system for good.
Haven’t they said that they actually do want to investigate changing the system? But they’ve said they don’t want it necessarily to be PR unless that’s what people want I think they were going on about a possible referendum.
Don’t say we’ve already had a referendum on it because we haven’t. That wasn’t a choice between first past the post and proportional representation it was a choice between keeping first past the post or single transferable vote, which is basically not an improvement.
I think the reforms they’ve said have been pretty small so far. Reforming the lords. Hopefully when they’re going for a second term they’ll be more ambitious.