Airfield and jets ‘on standby’ to take people to Rwanda in weeks

Rishi Sunak addressed the nation from Downing Street this morning (Picture: Getty)

Weeks of political ‘ping pong’ between the House of Lords and the House of Commons over the Rwanda Bill is set to come to a head tonight – and Rishi Sunak is making a desperate attempt to persuade his peers to back the plan.

As part of his pledge to ‘stop the boats’, the prime minister addressed the nation in a surprise conference from Downing Street this morning.

He said ‘enough is enough’, confirming that an airfield is on standby and the first planes are booked to take asylum seekers to Rwanda in 10 to 12 weeks.

Sunak had originally vowed that deportation flights would go in spring, but this new timetable suggested the first commercial charter jets would not leave until July.

Listing off groups of asylum seekers the government has been dealing with – from Albania and now Vietnam, he said: ‘The success of this does not rest on one flight alone.

‘It rests on the relentless continual process of successfully and permanently removing people to Rwanda with a regular rhythm of multiple flights every month, over the summer and beyond, until the boats are stopped.’

The government has vowed to keep Parliament sitting as late as necessary to pass the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.

There is nervousness in Number 10 that the final vote will not go in the favour of the Conservative Party, paving way to further disappointment during the general election later this year.

The PM believes the piece of legislation – branded ‘dangerous and ‘authoritarian’ by Human Rights Watch – is vital to his plan to stop asylum seekers from crossing the English Channel.

Trying to prove all his critics wrong, he stressed that it sends a ‘clear message’ that they will not be able to stay in the UK.

Peers have repeatedly blocked the Bill with a series of amendments, stretching the debate on the ’emergency legislation’ over more than four months and delaying flights taking people to Rwanda.

Downing Street is hostile to the idea of making concessions, leading to a deadlock with the Lords.

A demonstration under the banner No to the Far Right, Refugees are welcome here in Dover, Kent (Picture: Shutterstock)

The Bill is intended to overcome the objections of the Supreme Court by forcing judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and allowing ministers to ignore emergency injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights.

Mr Sunak has already expressed his frustration, saying last week his patience with those standing in his way had ‘run thin’.

He added: ‘No more prevarication, no more delay. We will sit there and vote until it’s done.’

Last week saw peers amend the Bill yet again to include an exemption for Afghan nationals who assisted British troops and a provision meaning Rwanda could not be treated as safe unless it was deemed so by an independent monitoring body.

On Monday, MPs are expected to vote to overturn those changes before sending the Bill back to the House of Lords.

But some peers may attempt to insist on their amendments again.

A dinghy carrying around 65 people crosses the English Channel on March 6 (Picture: Getty)

If so, the Bill would return to the Commons late on Monday for a further vote and then return once again to the Lords in a process known as ‘ping pong’ that could last well past the Commons’ usual 10.30pm finish.

If peers pass exactly the same amendment twice, however, the Commons faces the choice of either accepting the change or losing the Bill under a rarely-used process known as ‘double insistence’.

Crossbench peer and former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Lord Anderson has raised this possibility and described the legislation as a ‘post-truth Bill’ that asks Parliament to declare Rwanda is safe when, he argued, it is not.

An overwhelming majority of legal experts, NGOs and academics have warned the government against the Bill since it was introduced, saying that it is ‘incompatible with human rights obligations’.

In December, the Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda cannot be considered safe.

Deputy foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell claimed some of the objections to the Bill in the Lords were ‘patronising’.

Addressing a House of Lords amendment to the Bill which proposes independent monitoring of the country’s safety, separate from its own judiciary, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Some of the discussions which have gone on in the Lords about the judicial arrangements, legal arrangements within Rwanda, have been patronising.

‘In my view, they border on racism, so we do not think it is necessary to have that amendment either and that the necessary structures are in place to ensure that the scheme works properly and fairly.’

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