The UK's ruling Conservative Party is in chaos following the government's release of emergency laws to push through a controversial deportation plan to Rwanda, according to reports.
UK Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick also reportedly resigned, due to "strong disagreements with the direction" of the government's policy on immigration.
In his resignation letter, Jenrick wrote that the proposed laws were "a triumph of hope over experience".
"The stakes for the country are too high for us not to pursue the stronger protections required to end the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme and negating its intended deterrent," he wrote.
That was perceived as a reference to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's refusal to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The "Safety of Rwanda Bill" aims to address a November 15 decision by the UK Supreme Court, which deemed as illegal, the government's plan to send numerous asylum seekers and migrants back to Rwanda.
The proposed Bill declaring Rwanda a safe country, is slated for swift approval in the House of Commons. It sidesteps certain parts of the Human Rights Act (HRA) and disregards "any other rule of domestic law, and any court or tribunal's interpretation of international law."
The proposed legislation would empower courts to disregard any order from the European Court of Human Rights that seeks to halt deportation flights.
Sunak promoted the emergency law, saying it allowed the deportation plan to no longer be bogged down in the courts.
"Our new landmark emergency legislation will control our borders, deter people taking perilous journeys across the channel [and] end the continuous legal challenges filling our courts," Sunak wrote on social media platform, X.
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"It is parliament that should decide who comes to this country, not criminal gangs."
The law was published a day after the British Home Secretary, James Cleverly, signed a fresh treaty while visiting Rwanda's capital, Kigali. This treaty includes commitments regarding the treatment of asylum seekers and other migrants sent there.
Sunak, born to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s, has vowed flights would begin in the spring of 2024.
In April 2022, Britain signed a deal stipulating that certain asylum seekers arriving in the UK via the English Channel on boats would be sent to Rwanda for the processing of their asylum claims.
On June 29, 2022, the London Court of Appeal declared the policy illegal under Britain's Human Rights Act, which includes Europe's human rights convention in British law. The initial deportation flight to Rwanda was halted by a last-minute order from the ECHR on June 14, 2022.
In October 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda was not safe for refugees and that people could only be sent to countries that follow the non-refoulment rule. The United Nations refugee agency has produced evidence of Kigali breaching the rule in a deal with Israel. - Edited by Esther Rose
