Is Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan finally dead, or merely resting?

The PM is desperately trying to save his deportation policy after this week’s devasting Supreme Court decision. Adam Forrest asks whether there is a clever way around the judges’ ruling

Rishi Sunak was described as ‘the most persistent’ prime minister Jeremy Hunt has worked with (PA Wire)

Rishi Sunak is scrambling to save face after a humiliating defeat for his Rwanda deportation plan at the Supreme Court earlier this week.

The worse-than-expected verdict from the nation’s top judges – who outright rejected the idea that Rwanda is a safe country – is thought to have thrown the normally cool Tory leader into a brief bout of despair.

His pride badly wounded, the prime minister has been full of feisty rhetoric since then, promising to do “whatever it takes” to get the planes in the air and stop the boats in the English Channel.

But Sunak appears woefully short of workable ideas. He does at least have a short-term strategy, which may help him in his quest to be seen to be doing something over the next few weeks.

The PM is expected to publish an upgraded agreement with Rwanda in a bid to address the court’s concerns around “refoulement” – the potential for refugees rejected by Rwanda to be sent back to the country they are fleeing.

He will also try to come up with emergency legislation that he says will enable parliament to “unequivocally” declare Rwanda a safe destination for asylum seekers. But how far will the legislation go in flouting – or attempting to flout – human rights law?

Suella Braverman says the UK’s domestic and international obligations – the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights – need to be made invalid in relation to Rwanda, by the use of “notwithstanding clauses”.

Despite having sacked his uncontrollable home secretary, Sunak is considering some of her ideas. He is said to be mulling a “semi-skimmed” option, which would try to disapply the Human Rights Act in asylum claims, and a “full-fat” option of using “notwithstanding clauses” to somehow ignore the convention in a way that is legal.

Magical thinking? Legal experts are certainly unimpressed. The Rwanda plan is “probably dead”, according to the respected former Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption. He said it would be “constitutionally extraordinary” for the PM to “change the facts by law” by declaring Rwanda safe.

Lord Sumption said the Rwanda plan would “still be a breach of the government’s international law obligations” – suggesting that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which oversees the convention, would ultimately take the same view as the UK Supreme Court.

So it seems likely that attempts to “disapply” parts of UK human rights law or international treaties are destined to fail. Which leaves the government with the nuclear option of pulling out of the convention altogether.

Is Sunak really prepared to do that? Not yet, certainly. His chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, and new home secretary, James Cleverly, have made clear that they don’t think it will come to the point where Britain will withdraw from the convention.

But the Conservative leader is under pressure to think the unthinkable, with warnings coming from some of Braverman’s allies that letters of no confidence in the prime minister are already being delivered to the 1922 Committee.

While the angry ex-home secretary may only have 20 to 30 supporters on the back benches, there could be dozens more Tory MPs willing to back amendments to the emergency legislation in a bid to push Sunak further than he wishes to go.

Senior Conservatives – both Sunak’s allies and those more sympathetic to Braverman on the Rwanda issue – have pointed out that several European neighbours are increasingly grumpy about the convention.

Some EU countries are keen to see major changes in the interpretation of the convention when it comes to real-world immigration issues in the 21st century. But the fact that some EU countries face similar problems does nothing for Sunak right now.

The PM has to convince Tory MPs and voters that he has the power to do something important himself, rather than wait around in the vague hope that his allies will begin to get on board at some indefinite point.

So Sunak has no choice but to flog a dead horse, or a dead parrot, as it were. As in the Monty Python sketch, the PM continues to insist that the current Rwanda plan is merely resting, momentarily stunned – just waiting to be woken up.

But it is dawning on most of Westminster, including many despondent Tory MPs, that the dream of one-way flights to Rwanda is bereft of life, has ceased to be, is pushing up daises, and should probably now be acknowledged as an ex-plan.