Politics

Rishi Sunak’s plan to sidestep the Supreme Court’s judgment with a law declaring Rwanda safe was deservedly panned

Oonagh Keating. Updated November 16th, 2023

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Government’s Rwanda asylum plan is unlawful and Rwanda an unsafe country for such a scheme.

The Rwanda Plan would see the Government send 200 asylum seekers to have their applications processed in Rwanda, at a cost of around £169,000 per person – £63,000 more than processing them in the UK.

So far, the UK has paid £140 million to Rwanda and spent at least £1.3 million in legal costs (as of June 2023), plus the cost of chartering several planes, without a single person having gone to Rwanda for processing and with no proof that the policy has the deterrent effect claimed by its supporters.

SNP MP John Nicolson hoped it would draw a line under the policy.

Rishi Sunak had other ideas.

There was an explanatory thread, but he also explained plan B in this address.

To sum up – the Supreme Court declared Rwanda unsafe and said that the UK couldn’t unilaterally declare a country safe, so the UK will unilaterally declare Rwanda safe and plough ahead with a policy declared unlawful by the UK’s highest court of appeal.

People were horrified, but not surprised.

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