Rishi Sunak expresses our frustration with Rwanda bill delays - “Enough is enough"

At last, the Rwanda legislation has been passed and PM Rishi Sunak is determined planes will take off by summer. “Enough is enough” he made clear this week, but will his good intentions survive the onslaught of legal appeals that will continue to hound his policy as we now live in a country ruled by lawyers and not politicians? Plus activist civil servants will continue to drag their feet.

It was good to see Mr Sunak visibly angry at the start of the week “No more prevarication, no more delay,” he vowed. “No ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda.”

And, true to his word, the House of Commons sat late into the evening to ensure the House of Lords gave way on its amendments. Voters will be pleased to see his determination on a subject that is key to them, but whether it will ultimately deter the little boats is another matter.

There are strong echoes of the struggle to deliver Brexit following the Leave vote in 2016. Despite a supposedly pro-Brexit government, the strength of Remainers within the Tory party and elsewhere in the Westminster establishment ensured it was relentlessly challenged by lawyers, going all the way to the Supreme Court. It was only three years later, when Boris Johnson won a landslide election victory that the Tories finally delivered on the will of the people.

Rwandan flights seem destined for a similar succession of hurdles because the establishment clearly values their globalist views over voters who want to regain control of our borders. And this time there will be no Boris to save the day, no populist landslide, because Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party is directly opposed to the policy.

And so is most of the machinery of government. Earlier this week it was revealed that the Foreign Office was briefing against the policy as they believed it breached the ECHR and might anger Commonwealth nations. Such is their globalist mantra—anything to maintain their virtue-signalling over the cold reality of securing our borders. To them, our relations with foreign countries matter far more than protecting our own citizens.

Despite the passing of the latest law, asylum seekers will still be able to appeal against deportation, asking a judge to grant an injunction while their lawyers prepare a case. Refugee organisations and civil service trade unions will be keen to throw their own spanners into the works. The new law may instruct judges to ignore the ECHR but that doesn’t stop lawyers claiming breaches of international law which will encourage high level political opposition.

The problem is that ever since Tony Blair introduce the Human Rights Act in 1998, the legal system has taken precedence over the government for deciding key issues, thus side-lining our elected representatives. Former Director of Public Prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer is keen to take this further if elected, farming out contentious matters to the legal system and arms-length quangos.

Soon it won’t matter what our MPs say because their hands will be tied by decisions in courts in this country or abroad. The shock decision by the ECHR to overturn the results of a Swiss referendum on climate change and net zero was just one chilling example of supra-national institutions cutting away at our sovereignty and lawyer Sir Keir will be their biggest cheer-leader.

If only Rishi Sunak had the courage of the Greeks to take tougher action against the little boats.

By building a fence on land and physically blocking boats at sea carrying illegal migrants, Greece has cut their number of law-breaking immigrants from 850,000 in 2015 to just 12,500 in 2022, according to UNHCR figures. Numbers have since gone back up slightly but are still a far cry from the years when Greece was overwhelmed by refugees.

Robust action does work and is legal says Professor of Maritime Law Jason Chuah: “Pushbacks are not illegal per se. The Law of the Sea Convention 1982 allows coastal states to take ‘the necessary steps’ to prevent the passage of any vessel that is not innocent. That includes a vessel seeking to unload persons ‘contrary to the immigration laws and regulations of the coastal State’.”

Unsurprisingly such direct action has proved immensely popular with more than half of Greeks applauding the tougher measures. It is just the sort of boldness that could win back voters despairing of the PM ever solving the problem. Let’s hope Rishi is up for the fight.