Wednesday 15 June 2022 08:04 AM Tories vent fury at 'abominable' European court ruling on Rwanda flight trends now

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.   

Although it was widely reported just seven migrants were due to be removed from the United Kingdom on Tuesday, defiant ministers had earlier insisted the flight would go ahead even if there is only one person on board.

But in a late twist, all asylum seekers due to be removed on tonight's first plane to the capital of Kigali disembarked from the plane ahead of departure, meaning the flight will no longer depart as expected.

An out-of-hours judge had been reviewing the remaining cases on papers, with Home Office sources warning the first scheduled flight would not take off after days of recent challenges in British courts. 

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

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 gathered this afternoon outside Colnbrook Detention Centre in Heathrow and lay on the ground in an effort to halt the flight, which is anticipated at around 10.30pm. 

The Boeing 767 is operated by Spanish charter firm Privilege Style and was seen landing at the MoD testing site earlier today. The company had a permit to fly from Stansted to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, at 10.30pm tonight, according to Civil Aviation Authority records. 

According to plane tracking website Flightradar24, the jet touched down in Madrid at around 01.00am GMT on Wednesday morning after spending much of the day collecting dust on the MoD's Wiltshire runway.

Both the airline and the Home Office are yet to comment on the latest reports. 

On Tuesday, the ECHR dramatically ruled that a 54-year-old Iraqi man, understood to have travelled to the UK by boat in May and who may also have been tortured in the past, would not be leaving Britain's shores on Tuesday evening as planned.

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 a 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.

Home Secretary Priti 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.

Ms Patel later said she was disappointed the flight to Rwanda was not able to leave but would not be 'deterred from doing the right thing', adding: 'Our legal team are reviewing every decision made on this flight and preparation for the next flight begins now.'

She continued: '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.'

Meanwhile left-wing campaigners had spent much of Tuesday working to thwart the Home Office's attempts to move Channel migrants to airports and runways ahead of their departures.

One Colnbrook activist said: 'No one should be on this flight. No one should be deported under such racist and discriminatory policies. This flight represents the very worst of government legislation regarding refugees,' The Guardian reports.

The site is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the breakup of the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) in 2001 by the UK Ministry of Defence. 

Activists say just six of the original 130 people originally told they would be deported to Rwanda were expected to be on the aircraft, but this was soon whittled down to zero after intervention from Strasbourg judges.

A charity said the ECHR ruling would mean the others earmarked to go to Rwanda would not now be deported, with their claims being proven correct at the 11th-hour after the flight was grounded.

'This means it is now possible for the other six to make similar claims. We are so relieved,' said Clare Moseley of the charity Care4Calais earlier on Tuesday.

Four men who challenged their removal at the High Court in London had their cases dismissed today, 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, said that a 'substantive judicial review' of the Government's Rwanda policy is set to be considered in July.

She accused the Government of 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.'

This morning, Liz Truss insisted the first plane would take off on Tuesday even if it is only carrying one migrant. The Supreme Court ruling meant this condition will be met. 

'We're expecting to send the flight later today,' Truss told Sky News but said she was unable to confirm the numbers due to be on board.

'There will be people on the flights and if they're not on this flight, they will be on the next flight,' she added.

It came as Boris Johnson vowed lawyers and Church of England critics would not deter the government from seeing the policy through. 

Opening Cabinet this morning, Mr Johnson said: 'What is happening with the attempt to undermine the Rwanda policy is that they are, I'm afraid, undermining everything that we're trying to do to support safe and legal routes for people to come to the UK and to oppose the illegal and dangerous routes,' he said. 

'I think that what the criminal gangs are doing and what those who effectively are abetting the work of the criminal gangs are doing is undermining people's confidence in the safe and legal system, undermining people's general acceptance of immigration.'

The Prime Minister added: 'We are not going to be in any way deterred or abashed by some of the criticism that is being directed upon this policy, some of it from slightly unexpected quarters. We are going to get on and deliver.' 

Challenges by four asylum seekers were rejected by the same judge earlier today. In the first case, the judge said a man's removal to Rwanda would not alter the quality or nature of his relationship with his UK-resident sister, after lawyers representing him argued that deportation would infringe his right to a family life. 

A barrister representing a second man told the judge that he had claimed asylum after receiving 'death threats from loan sharks' in Vietnam. Alex Grigg also alleged procedural failures, saying the man had been handed the letter informing him of his removal when no interpreter was present. However, the judge rejected this argument. 

The third man, who had travelled from Iran to the UK with his 21-year-old son, had asked the High Court to prevent his removal due to his mental health and right to a family life. However, refusing the application, Mr Justice Swift said: 'I accept the prejudice to the claimant will include distress due to being separated from his son.' 

The fourth man had his application to stop his removal rejected and he was also refused the right to appeal. Decisions on any other outstanding appeals could take place even if a migrant is already on the plane, ITV reported.  

In other developments in the unfolding Rwanda flight farce:  

Ministers turned their fire on lawyers who they blame for sabotaging their flagship migration policy.  

'All the lawyers who have been fighting in the courts will now turn their collective might elsewhere and direct all their resources at the remaining individuals due to be on board,' a government source told The Times. 

'They'll be exploiting every single loophole possible and using every trick in the book to get those last people removed from the flight.

'[The chances of it going ahead as planned] are very, very slim.' 

Last night, Tory MP Peter Bone made a combative speech in the Commons in which he complained about 'lefty lawyers' sabotaging the policy. 

The MP Wellingborough told MPs: 'We hear that a number of people who were meant to be on the flight tomorrow have, miraculously, got some lefty lawyer to intervene and stop it. 

'Can I suggest that instead of booking 50 people on each flight to Rwanda, book 250 people on it then when they stop half of them from travelling you still have a full flight - come on, get on and send them.' 

Judges yesterday refused to block the inaugural flight scheduled for today to the offshore processing centre.

Tory MPs cheered in the Commons as the Court of Appeal backed a ruling in the Home Secretary's favour last week, giving the policy the green light.

A separate High Court bid to block the flight also failed yesterday when the charity Asylum Aid was denied an injunction.

The Home Secretary has now won three victories in cases brought against the Government by Left-wing groups. 

Just seven names remained of the 130 on the original passenger list last night after lawyers submitted a series of challenges.

Further individual appeals by these seven, who include Iranians, Iraqis and Albanians, were expected in the hours before the flight.

At least six further cases are due to be heard at the High Court today under the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and other legal measures. 

But the Court of Appeal's decision means Miss Patel's scheme to hand Channel migrants and other 'irregular arrivals' a one-way ticket to the east African nation has avoided falling at the first hurdle.

The Home Secretary insists the policy is necessary to avoid further drownings in the Channel. 

'People will see this as a good result for the Home Office, but now the policy is not facing a blanket ban, well-resourced lawyers will try to get their clients pulled off the flight individually,' a government source said.

'They will try every tactic and exploit every loophole, probably waiting until the very last minute.'

The leadership of the Church of England yesterday condemned the Rwanda operation as an 'immoral policy

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