The government is introducing emergency legislation to mark Rwanda as a safe country, the prime minister says, after the UK Supreme Court ruled the flagship asylum policy was unlawful.
Rishi Sunak said the UK was working on a new treaty with Rwanda following the court’s decision.
The treaty would protect against the removal of asylum seekers from Rwanda back to their home country, he said.
“We need to end the merry-go-round” of legal challenges, he added.
Legal heads are being scratched as to how the emergency legislation might work
Declaring a country safe is not the same as proving to a court that it genuinely is – as the Supreme Court has shown.
The controversial plan to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda and ban them from returning to the UK has been subject to court challenges since it was first announced by Boris Johnson in April 2022.
No asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda – the first flight was scheduled to go in June 2022 but was cancelled after an intervention from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The latest ruling from the Supreme Court – the highest court in the UK – determined that the plan in its current form was unlawful.
Addressing reporters at a Downing Street press conference, Mr Sunak said the new treaty and emergency legislation would address concerns and confirm Rwanda is a safe country.
But he said the plan could face further challenges from the ECHR.
“We must be honest about the fact that even once Parliament has changed the law here at home, we could still face challenges from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,” he said.
