Legal battle over Rwanda refugee plan is just the beginning

The legality of Priti Patel’s scheme could end up in the hands of the ECHR, says Sean O’Grady

Migrants are still arriving at Dover despite the threat of deportation (Gareth Fuller/PA) (PA Wire)

Hardly is the ink dry on the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 than its enforcement has been passed to the High Court for judicial review.

Whether they’re called “left wing activists” or “lawyers doing their job,” they have succeeded in at least temporarily delaying the first plane-load of refugees being sent to Rwanda.

The policy is so unusual and arguably inhumane that it was inevitable it would end up in the courts. It is equally to be expected both that the Home Secretary should be hopping mad and that the legal action be the subject of lurid newspaper headlines. If the policy is purely performative and designed to stoke up a “culture war” as critics claim, then it has already had that effect.