(CN) — Embattled British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a revolt inside his Conservative Party after his government's plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda was deemed illegal Wednesday by the United Kingdom's Supreme Court.
Since taking office little more than a year ago, Sunak has made stopping illegal immigration a central promise and he's wholeheartedly backed a controversial plan to send asylum-seekers, many of whom cross the English Channel in small boats, to Rwanda, where their claims for asylum can be dealt with.
But the Supreme Court said the scheme was unlawful because there was no guarantee people sent to Rwanda who might qualify for refugee status would be protected from being sent back to countries where they faced harm.
The Court based its decision on evidence that a similar scheme between Israel and Rwanda resulted in people who should have been given asylum getting expelled. Israel sent asylum-seekers to Rwanda between 2013 and 2018.
This was such a big blow for Sunak because stemming illegal immigration has become a chief issue ahead of the next general election, which must take place before the end of January 2025.
With his Tories facing defeat and doubts growing about his leadership, the Supreme Court's ruling piled more pressure on Sunak.
In Parliament on Wednesday, Keir Starmer, the opposition Labour Party leader, attacked Sunak for backing the Rwanda plan.
“He was told over and over again that this would happen, that it wouldn't work — and it was just the latest Tory gimmick,” Starmer said during Prime Minister's Questions, a weekly ritual in the Parliament. “But he bet everything on it and now he's totally exposed, the central pillar of his government has crumbled beneath him.”
Starmer called the Rwanda plan a waste of time and money because the backlog of asylum-seekers has grown to 175,000 people, with Britain spending 8 million pounds ($9.9 million) a day on hotel bills to house them.
“He promised he would stop the boats this year,” Starmer said.
The ruling feeds into Tory infighting that intensified after a cabinet reshuffle on Monday that saw Sunak sack Suella Braverman, his hard-right and divisive home secretary, and bring in former Prime Minister David Cameron as his new foreign secretary.
After the Supreme Court ruling, a battle broke out inside Tory ranks over whether Britain should consider leaving the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, the Strasbourg-based international court that interprets the European Convention on Human Rights.
In June 2022, the Strasbourg court intervened and stopped Britain from carrying out the first deportations of asylum-seekers to Rwanda, arguing the plan potentially violated international laws protecting asylum-seekers. The United Nations and human rights advocates also declared the Rwanda plan a violation of international law.
But hard-right Tory members, including Braverman, contend that Britain cannot control illegal immigration as long as it is bound by the Strasbourg court.
“From my part, the gauntlet has been thrown down,” said Simon Clarke, a Tory parliamentarian pushing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, speaking on Sky News. “Today is a really serious challenge to who governs Britain and whether Parliament can deliver.”
The U.K. was the among the first signatories to a 1949 treaty establishing the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the convention, and it ratified the convention in 1951.
The only countries that have ever left the council are Greece, during a period of military dictatorship, and Russia, following its invasion of Ukraine. Greece rejoined the council after democracy was restored in 1974. Belarus and the Vatican City are also not parties to the convention, though the Holy See is an “observer state” and can be invited to take part in discussions.
Clarke accused the Strasbourg court of overstepping its mandate.
“A convention which has clearly been extended in its interpretation far beyond what anyone in 1951 could remotely have considered plausible, let alone likely, needs to be constrained,” he said.
At an afternoon news conference, Sunak said his government planned to move ahead with the Rwanda plan by passing emergency legislation declaring Rwanda is a safe country for asylum-seekers deported from the U.K. Once the emergency legislation is adopted, he said he would be ready to defy European Court of Human Rights judgments seeking to stop flights to Rwanda.
“I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights,” he said.
He said his government will craft a new treaty with Rwanda to outline “guarantees in law” that asylum-seekers will not be returned to their home countries.
“My patience has run thin, as indeed I think the country’s patience has run thin,” Sunak said.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.
Follow @cainburdeau
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