New law will block excuses to avoid deportation to Rwanda - UK prime minister

According to Sunak, the emergency law will control borders, deter people from taking perilous journeys across the English Channel, and end the continuous legal challenges filling the UK courts.

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), he said: "I'm blocking the reasons used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off. This emergency law is the only way to make Rwanda work and control our borders."

He also addressed the media on Thursday against the backdrop of the resignation of his immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, on Wednesday night due to strong disagreements with the direction the UK's migration policy was taking.

Sunak said the Bill was protected so that people would not be able to use UK laws to challenge their deportation.

The only avenue they could challenge under UK laws was if they successfully proved they were in harm's way if sent to Rwanda.

That should be impossible, considering that the UK views Rwanda as a safe destination.

Sunak said in his press statement:

Jenrick resignation

Jenrick said he wanted strong emergency legislation to keep the Rwanda deal alive, and the end of small boats that illegally cross the English Channel, but what they had was a weak Bill.

READ | Rwandan refugees to go to the UK, under new 'fantasy' migrants deal

He called the Conservatives' plan a "triumph of hope over experience" because he didn't see how the proposed legislation could pass through the House of Commons in its current form.

"I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success," he said.

In his letter, Jenrick narrated how the government had gone about restricting illegal migrants from entering the UK.

He said the initiative had been admired by European countries with similar problems, such as Italy, Belgium, Bulgaria, and Turkey, where organised immigration crime gangs operate.

However, he said what was expected from the government by its citizens was a total shutdown of small boats, but the law they want to propose does not have enough weight to get bipartisan backing.

"This emergency legislation is the last opportunity to prove this, but in its current drafting, it does not go far enough," he said.

He warned that "the fortunes of the Conservative Party at the next general election are at stake" if the Rwanda deal amounts to failure.

In her statement before the House of Commons on Wednesday, former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, speaking about the Bill, outlined reasons why it failed at first instance.

"Previous attempts have failed because they did not address the root cause of the problem: expansive human rights laws, flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights and replicated in Labour's Human Rights Act 1998, are being interpreted elastically by courts domestic and foreign to prevent our Rwanda plan from getting off the ground," she said.

So far, the UK has used R3.3 billion (about £140 million) of taxpayers' money to pay Rwanda, which is ready to do business as soon as the UK passes the emergency law.

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