Rishi Sunak has bet his political future, even though the polls show it to be short and gloomy, on the deportation plan to Rwanda. The British Prime Minister promised that the first flights with irregular migrants destined for that African country would take off in spring. He has not managed to meet that deadline, but Sunak has managed to overcome, after a long day of tug-of-war, the resistance of a group of lords in the upper house of Parliament. The Rwanda Safety Bill (something like the Law to Proclaim Rwanda a Safe Country), the text that practically limits the possibility of a person appealing their deportation before British justice, was finally approved in the early hours of this Tuesday.
“I can confirm that we already have an airport prepared, and we have booked commercial charter flights with committed schedules. We have trained 500 people to accompany illegal immigrants [sic] to Rwanda, and we will incorporate another 300 in the coming weeks,” Sunak announced hours before Parliament finally gave the green light to the law, but ready to apply all the necessary pressure on deputies and lords until the text was passed. “The first flight will take off in 10 or 12 weeks. A little later than we wanted, but we always made it clear that this procedure would take time,” admitted the prime minister. If he gets his way, deportations will begin next July.
Parliamentary “ping-pong”
What happened this Monday in the British Parliament has a name in British political jargon: “parliamentary ping-pong.” The House of Lords sent its amendments to the law to the House of Commons, which returned them without taking them into consideration. Up to four round trips. Until someone gave in.
The Labor Party’s Desmond Browne, who was Minister of Defense in Tony Blair’s Government, had demanded that all those Afghans who collaborated with the British forces during the last invasion of that country be excluded from possible deportations. The independent David Anderson had managed to forge a coalition of lords who demanded that the independent commission contemplated in the law confirm that Rwanda is really a safe country, to which the management of irregular immigrants can be delegated, and that the Minister of the Interior communicate this to Parliament before the text came into force.
There are two reasons, or movements, why the blockade has finally been lifted. Firstly, Sunak understood that he had to offer some concession. Andrew Sharpe, the member of the House of Lords who represented the Government in the debate, finally promised that the Ministry of Defense would review the requirements for deportation, with the aim that no Afghan veteran and collaborator of the British forces could enter. on that list. “I will not enter into a semantic discussion. “It is simply the right decision,” Sharpe admitted.
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Secondly, as on other occasions, the Upper House has understood that the final responsibility for stopping a legal text that had the majority support of the House of Commons, the main legislative body of the United Kingdom, could not fall on it. For this reason, the second of the amendments, the one that required a final confirmation on the security of Rwanda – the one that the lords had most resisted withdrawing – has disappeared from the debate already at dawn. “It is time for this house to recognize the supremacy of the House of Commons,” acknowledged the main proponent of the motion, Lord Anderson. “I assure you that this law is deeply moral and patriotic and attempts to defend the borders of our country,” Sharpe assured on behalf of the Government, in the last minutes of debate, in an attempt to impose some conciliation in a discussion that had been long. and sour at times.
When the Upper House withdrew the last of its amendments, the text was approved. The British National Audit Office has calculated a cost of around €627 million for the first 300 migrants deported to Rwanda, that is, around two million per asylum seeker.
Sunak had in the morning indirectly blamed the Lords for blocking a law supported by the majority of the Conservative electorate. “For almost two years, our rivals have tried to use every trick possible to block flights [a Ruanda] and allow the boats [con inmigrantes irregulares] continued to reach our shores. It’s over. No more deception. No more delays. Parliament will meet today and vote on this matter, however late it may be. No more buts. These planes will leave for Rwanda,” the prime minister had warned.
Sunak linked the success of his mandate, a few days after entering Downing Street, with the promise of putting a stop to irregular immigration. The slogan Stop the boats (Let’s stop the boats, in reference to the boats with people trying to cross the English Channel) presided over each appearance of the prime minister to address an issue that, according to all the polls, had become an obsession of conservative voters.
In June 2022, the European Court of Human Rights suspended at the last minute the first flight destined for Rwanda, on which only half a dozen people had boarded after an avalanche of resources that left many of the immigrants that the Government on the ground. British intended to deport.
Shortly after, it was the United Kingdom’s own courts—first an appeal court, and finally the Supreme Court—that declared illegal a plan that raised many uncertainties regarding the safety of the deportees.
Under pressure from the hardline wing of his party, which even demanded that the Government ignore the European Convention on Human Rights on immigration, Sunak pulled a new legal text out of his hat (Rwanda Safety Bill). In addition to legally proclaiming, with a voluntaristic tone, that Rwanda is a safe place, in order to calm the possible doubts of the judges, the British Government cut short any possibility that irregular immigrants who were going to be deported could appeal the decision before Justice. Only those who faced a “real, imminent and probable risk of suffering serious and irreversible harm”, who suffered from serious physical or mental illnesses, who had been victims of torture or who were suicidal, could be excluded.
Sunak desperately needed the parliamentary victory he has achieved. Municipal elections are held across England on May 2. The polls predict a new disaster for the torieswhich could lose up to 500 local representatives.
Although the prime minister has reiterated his desire that there be no general elections until next autumn, a greater than expected defeat would inflame internal spirits in the Conservative Party. The idea of having to face a new motion of no confidence in the parliamentary group, like those that defeated Theresa May, Boris Johnson or Liz Truss, could easily lead the prime minister to the decision to call the polls in advance.
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