‘I will take them on’: Rishi Sunak vows to challenge those ‘standing in way’ of Rwanda plan

Rishi Sunak has vowed to “take on” anyone who is “standing in our way” regarding the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

The prime minister struck a combative tone following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday, which found the policy – a key tenet of Mr Sunak’s pledge to stop small boat crossings in the Channel – was unlawful.

The prime minister said his patience had “worn thin” and that “people just want the problem fixed”.

“People can see that I want to get this thing done, but in order to finish the job, we need to get Rwanda up and running,” he told reporters.

“We can pass these laws in parliament that will give us the powers and the tools we need.

“Then we can get the flights off and whether it’s the House of Lords or the Labour Party standing in our way I will take them on because I want to get this thing done and I want to stop the boats.”

Mr Sunak was speaking just a day after former home secretary Suella Braverman – who was sacked by the prime minister this week – called for changes to her own Illegal Migration Act to revive the Rwanda deportation scheme, admitting there is “no chance of stopping the boats within the current legal framework”.

The Supreme Court ruled the scheme was unlawful on the grounds that those sent to the country would be at “real risk” of being returned home regardless of whether their asylum claim was justified or not – something that would breach international human rights laws.

In the aftermath of the ruling, Mr Sunak doubled down on the policy, telling MPs he was prepared to bring in “to change laws and revisit… international relationships” if they were “frustrating” his plans.

The government has said it would do this by turning its current deal with Rwanda into a fully fledged international treaty which Mr Sunak argued would “address the challenges” of the court ruling – including making it legally binding for the country not to return asylum seekers home.

The second part would see the government introduce emergency legislation in the Commons which Mr Sunak said would “enable parliament to confirm that with our new treaty, Rwanda is safe” and see off further legal challenges.

But he also acknowledged that even if domestic laws are changed, the government could still face legal challenges from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and vowed: “I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights.”

The prime minister is coming under increasing pressure from some in his own party to leave the ECHR in order to get flights off the ground – something he has so far resisted doing.

An eleventh-hour injunction from the ECHR stopped the first scheduled flights from taking off to Rwanda’s capital Kigali last June, and no one has been deported since.

In her article for the Daily Telegraph, Ms Braverman welcomed Mr Sunak’s plan to introduce emergency legislation but said it should be introduced by the Christmas recess and that parliament should be recalled “to sit and debate it over the holiday period”.

And echoing calls from other Tory MPs she wrote: “The entirety of the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights, and other relevant international obligations, or legislation, including the Refugee Convention, must be disapplied.”