The UK government made the following statement yesterday
” Home Secretary James Cleverly has signed a joint Treaty with his counterpart, Foreign Minister, Dr Vincent Biruta, strengthening the UK and Rwanda’s Migration and Economic Development Partnership and directly addressing the concerns of the Supreme Court.
The agreement is part of the government’s plan to ensure that illegal migrants can be lawfully relocated to Rwanda under the Government’s ambition to stop the boats – ensuring that people know that if they come to the UK illegally, they cannot stay here.
Following further positive discussions between the two countries after the Supreme Court judgment, and building on months of work between the two countries, the Treaty responds directly to the conclusions of the Supreme Court and presents a new long-term solution.
The landmark Treaty is binding in international law and ensures that people relocated to Rwanda under the Partnership are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened – an act known as refoulement.
It also enhances the functions of the independent Monitoring Committee to ensure compliance with the obligations in the Treaty, such as reception conditions, processing of asylum claims, and treatment and support for individuals including up to 5 years after they have received final determination of their status. The Committee is made up of 8 independent members.
The Monitoring Committee will also develop a system which will enable relocated individuals and legal representatives to lodge confidential complaints directly to them. It will have the power to set its own priority areas for monitoring, and have unfettered access for the purposes of completing assessments and reports. It may publish reports as it sees fit on its findings.
To further bolster assurances that relocated individuals will not be returned, under the Treaty, Rwanda’s asylum system will be strengthened through a new Appeal Body. The Appeal Body will consist of a Rwandan and other Commonwealth national Co-President, and be composed of judges from a mixture of nationalities with asylum and humanitarian protection expertise (appointed by the Co-Presidents) to hear individual appeals.”
I and my friends will be looking carefully at the text of the Treaty and at the draft legislation which will be needed to ensure the Rwanda policy can proceed without further interruption by UK Courts. The government believes that if it can send some migrants to Rwanda the numbers wishing to come to the UK illegally will drop substantially. To achieve this the government will need to assert the supremacy of the law established by Parliament over other legal interventions.
December 6, 2023
Good morning.
For those thinking that this slight of hand is a solution to this problem, please think again.
It is a straight, ‘one in one out’ policy designed to fool people that the government is brining the numbers down when in truth it is not. In fact we will be swapping healthy (illegal) immigrants for those with serious medical conditions.
You’ve all been taken for mugs !!
December 6, 2023
Sleight of hand.
December 6, 2023
Deliberate misunderstanding? The purpose is, as you probably know, the THREAT of being sent to Rwanda should be sufficient to stop even attempting to cross the Channel. Better stay in Le Belle France. Government hopes that this will stop the boats and not even one flight will be necessary. I think they’re wrong. What will we do with real children and their parents, separate them or send all? People with a sudden bodily accident? We WILL be tested, and we’ll probably fail.
Another waste of time and money by this incompetent government.
December 6, 2023
Yes it’s all in the small print. Rwanda gets to vet which migrants it takes and we take their vulnerable in return.
Shame on you John for being part if such underhanded behaviour.
December 6, 2023
Correct. And any criminal migrants deported to Rwanda who commit a serious crime will be returned to the UK ….. giving them a clear incentive to do just that.
It’s a CON. Like everything else the Not-a-Conservative-Party does.
December 6, 2023
JR, Cleverly admitted yesterday that your party policy was to deliberately lie to the nation and acted against its national interest and deliberately broke national security issue to keep us safe. Your party wants open door immigration and does not care where they come from or whether they pose a risk to our safety. Utterly disgusting.
Moreover, the remain rogue parliament is back in full swing by people like Green, Hammond who oppose any change to ECHR. Lord Greensil of China preaching in Lords defending ECHR and how UK must be u dear EU law courts!! Dismissing Kate Haley’s views over N.Ireland and the EU Windsor sell out which Cameron lauded as an excellent piece of negotiation!! Still no question of Lord Greensil over his leading role for the Chinese investment fund. Only Ian Duncan Smith has raised the issue!
Your party is a danger and threat to our national security from mass immigration and trying to make us a vassal state of EU. Horizon Signed this week where UK gives, yes gives, ÂŁ2.4 billion borrowed mo eh to EU to promote EU growth and interests and furthering its EU army ambition. The EU might, yes might, award some of our taxpayer cash money back to us!! Oh, and for good measure it is signed forever!
The dishonesty of your party does not begin to accurately describe the treachery it promotes on a daily basis.
The actual policy announcement by Cleverly was that Tory govt want to have 500,000 immigrants a year entering our country! 450,000 legal and 50,000 illegal! Housing, public services anyone? Of that number only 1 in 5 work!
December 6, 2023
Where I was taken for a mug was in thinking we had a conservative government.
One PM and his chancellor who adored TB.
The next who called her own party NASTY.
Until recently the true import of those clues was lost on me.
Obviously dyed-in-the-wool ….liberals? Socialists or worse?
December 6, 2023
What person do we get in return Mark, someone with the skills we are told British people are short of?
The NHS has known about skill shortages for their organisation for years, why haven’t they sorted it with 6th form schools, why haven’t they been promoting their jobs in schools, when I was in school they came to our careers fair twice to talk to the students about all of the different careers in the NHS, the police, the armed forces were there, lots of different large local employers offering apprenticeships. We’ve lost our way by giving so much union control and by restricting doctor training left us with people that can leave us without a service at all and no alternative if you can’t afford to pay privately.
December 6, 2023
Mark B
Summed up on Guido Fawkes web site today
December 6, 2023
And if the migrants commit a crime whilst in Rwanda, they get sent back here!
I heard a Human Rights lawyer speak on the radio, and he said even the previous government sent illegals back to their country with no problems, and said we have return policies with countries such as India!
I think Mark B is right, we are being taken for mugs. It’s smoke and mirrors to distract us all…
December 6, 2023
And I thought that the EU-UK Trade & Cooperation Agreement (TCA) treaty was bad …but bloody hell the Rwanda treaty is atrocious
December 6, 2023
As far as I can understand it, the Rwanda deal would transfer less than two weeks worth of small boat arrivals deemed to be “illegals”. What happens to those “illegals”, that turn up on a beach in the remaining 50 weeks?
Keep in mind that the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) that currently governs Rwanda, quelled the genocide between the the Hutu majority and the minority Belgian backed Tutsi elite. How the RPF did it, the International Tribunal on Rwanda declined to investigate.
December 6, 2023
What a mess.
Voting Brexit was not just about Europe for me. It was also a way of expressing my wish that we had an establishment that wanted to conserve what was good in our country and look after our population first.
None of that has happened, the direction of travel under the Tories has been the opposite, and none of Blair’s big reforms have been undone. It’s not because of spineless MPs, it’s because they (except for a few standouts, like our host) and the rest of the establishment don’t believe in conservatism and loathe the British working class.
December 6, 2023
A mess indeed.
Your last paragraph echoes my thoughts exactly.
This is globalism, and levelling up by bringing us down.
December 6, 2023
They partly is largely bought by large political donations, blatant corruption, jobs for the boys, lobbying and MPs paid consultancy jobs.
How else can one explain net zero, renewable subsidies, HS2, some of the PPE contracts, the dire NHS, dire universities, Greensill… hard to see any other rational explanations?
December 6, 2023
The actual policy announcement by Cleverly was that Tory govt want to have 500,000 immigrants a year entering our country! 450,000 legal and 50,000 illegal! Housing, public services anyone? Of that number only 1 in 5 work!
December 6, 2023
Wanderer: “Voting Brexit was not just about Europe for me. It was also a way of expressing my wish that we had an establishment that wanted to conserve what was good in our country and look after our population first.” Me too. I couldn’t have put it better. Our “establishment” couldn’t have done it worse. Beneath contempt.
December 6, 2023
Wanderer
Deep state, pulling the strings behind the scenes??
December 6, 2023
The Supreme Court should not be calling the shots and overriding the decisions of parliament. Time for it to be abolished and the function of parliament to be fully restored.
December 6, 2023
Agreed Peter, but I have little faith in the present parliamentary incumbents to reflect the wishes of the people.
December 6, 2023
Indeed it would be good to undo all the vast damage that Blair & Brown did. Devolution, the political supreme court, 50% to go to university – most studying pointless worthless degrees for ÂŁ50k of debt, the open door immigration…
We will wait to see if anyone actually goes to Rwanda other than ministers and civil servants. We need real action not more hot air, legal papers & pointless waffle.
December 6, 2023
The Supreme Court did not override a decision of Parliament. It said that, under the existing laws made by Parliament, a decision by the Government was illegal.
This government made no attempt to change the law before the Supreme Court made its judgement- so they wasted more time. Someone played the violin while the country filled to bursting point.
December 6, 2023
Supreme Court is a side show for someone to blame. The numbers eradicates any doubt that the Tory deliberately wanted and wants mass immigration to rid us of our nation state. Tory party not interested in our safety, culture or values. It is the globalist dream.
India still persecuting Christianity and the self declared son-in-law of India Sunak has not even raised the matter or linked to trade deal. He only links more immigration to trade deal!!
December 6, 2023
Agreed, Peter!
December 6, 2023
PETER – YES remove the so called “supreme court” which full of lefty libtards who have not a clue about day to day life. Once again it was globalist Blair who introduced this useless inept body of individuals.
December 6, 2023
Another step closer but have to say this is like pulling teeth!! The quickest & easiest way to stop the boats coming. Is remove the benefits. No RNLI & Border Force taxi service. Towing boats back to French waters. No cash, no phone, no legal aid or right to stay! Passing the cost of B&B, until processed to Charities.
Cruel to be kind comes to mind. But at least the Westminster would be protecting British citizens. Which is their key remit!
December 6, 2023
This is merely the starting gun for all those lefty opportunist lawyers to begin finding weaknesses. If all fails they will be rushing for office space in Kigali.
It is long overdue that our generocity with legal aid was severely curbed for these econommic chancers.
December 6, 2023
Read the small print and you’ll be left opened mouth. Cleverly’s a bullshitter and as his leader
December 6, 2023
Rwanda is just a political distraction.
It will never work politically.
It involves Rwanda sending us a refugee for each one we send there.
Given all the faux gnashing of teeth by various Home Secretaries it goes to show the plan all along was to “flood” (Cameron) the country with people from a different culture.
December 6, 2023
Sir John,
The question here becomes one of whether this solution will solve anything in the long run which 13 years Conservative rule has not been able to solve_
December 6, 2023
We should be shipping all illegal immigrants to cold, desolate British territories to be processed and then settled in the same place for the few who might be successful (it should not be possible to gain asylum if you arrive illegally). Too many gain asylum for no good reason.
Rwanda is a sticking plaster masking the fact that we let too many claims succeed which is a draw in itself.
December 6, 2023
I can see how this is going to pan out:
Illegal migrant arrives in a small boat somewhere in SE England. Gov. leaps into action and sends illegal migrant off for a short break in Rwanda, where his appeal is heard and he is returned to England. Probably accompanied by a Rwanda immigrant.
It’s a sort of BOGOF deal.
December 6, 2023
No plan b which could have been fast tracking the construction of secure facilities on Scottish islands where the illegals could be held in acceptable barracks style accommodation – with no freedom to roam in order to protect local people. The Nightingale Hospitals were built quickly and so could similar light industrial buildings. Objections by the Scottish parliament could be overridden quickly through emergency legislation. Instead, the Rwanda charade continues.
December 6, 2023
I’m beginning to think that this Rwanda deal is great …………………. for Rwanda. The better option, for us, is to withdraw all financial support for ‘refugees’. All they would ever get is, er, permission to stay, and work, until it was safe for them to return home. The chancers would then choose somewhere else.
BTW, it’s time that your party designed a new welfare system.
December 7, 2023
If they claim asylum they should be moved to a remote holding centre on a Scottish Isle – Simple. Just give them food and shelter and nothing else.
It would discourage others from even trying.
December 7, 2023
Spot on. Braverman said Nightingale temp accommodation. Javid chose to close such detention centres. Currently 17,300 missing! We do not know who they are either!
December 6, 2023
Spend years (?) trying to fly them off to Rwanda, but they still keep coming….
December 6, 2023
Difficult to see what has changed, if a Country is regarded as unsafe one week, how come it is different the next, when nothing has been done to change matters, other than the same country signing a piece of paper to say it is safe, when that was their original argument in the first place.
Just like Livingstone when Mayor of London declaring London as nuclear free Zone.
It is being reported that once transferred to Rwanda an appeal can be made at any time by illegals for a return to the UK, and that UK judges will be used to hear such appeals., if this is true, surely all we have done is moved the UK legal challenges to Rwanda, but with a huge additional travelling expense.
Surely far more simple to just change/clear up the law here, to say UK law is sovereign, and cannot be overridden by anyone. !
December 6, 2023
One internet source: “India saw nearly 17.8 million people emigrating out of the country in 2020. On the other hand, about 4.5 million people immigrated into the country that year.”
We trade with India and China as prospering countries with 2.8 billion citizens and much land to spare. We already pay them aid to assist the needy. Could not they absorb asylum seekers comfortably there instead, travelling on a British Liner just like an enjoyable cruise?
December 6, 2023
Good grief!
Are WE free and safe?
SAY THE WRONG WORD……
Are we meant to be grateful that we don’t need to be refouled?
We are already there!
December 6, 2023
Just either get on with it quickly or ditch it.
December 6, 2023
Why wait till May 2024 ….if the is ‘oven ready’ do it today
December 6, 2023
Why not use St Helena? It’s a British Overseas Territory that is literally fit for an emperor.
December 6, 2023
I think the small print indicates that the UK will have to take some Rwanda immigrants. So much for the win win. More fudging.
December 6, 2023
+1
December 6, 2023
Don’t for the other white elephant – the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland ….reported to only have 135 immigrants aboard (max 500)
December 6, 2023
I haven’t decided whether the government’s Rwanda policy is (a) playing to the bigot gallery, (b) in the words of James Cleverly (who is now trying to implement it, bless him) “batshit crazy”, (c) not going to work anyway, or (d) all three.
But it doesn’t matter anyway. Because no matter what treaty we sign with another country, that doesn’t make that country “safe”. Imagine the outcry if we decided that we didn’t want to accept any more Ukrainians fleeing the war and signed a treaty with Russia to send them there. This is no different. So the Supreme Court ruling is unchanged.
December 6, 2023
KC,
Simple answer – get rid of the Supreme Court and return their work to the law lords.
The old “bigot” insult no longer has any impact.
Brits do not want to provide a welfare state for the whole world.
I don’t what your background is, but you sound like one of the vast army of bureaucrats seeking to run the country while oblivious to the consequences.
It is a long road. The Conservative party now needs to be finished off, as it nearly was in the 1800s over the Reform Act.
Then we can see Lib Dem and Labour with little between them and even less appeal. Labour will split anyway when the Left try to take control.
December 7, 2023
We certainly shouldn’t accept any more Ukrainians of fighting age, if at the same time we want to support Ukraine in its fight with Russia. If we’ve given up that policy, and let the war end, we won’t need to accept them either, as they won’t be refugees from a war. Some policy coherence from this government would be welcome.
December 6, 2023
I read here:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/12/05/ministers-threaten-to-quit-over-rwanda-flights-law/
“Ministers threaten to quit over Rwanda flights law”
“Ten senior Tories prepared to resign if Rishi Sunak presses ahead with hardline plan”
and in particular:
“One group within the Tory party, understood to include Cabinet ministers, is pushing for the legislation to stick to existing domestic and international human rights commitments.
Damian Green, a former deputy prime minister and the chairman of the One Nation group, said on Tuesday: “The Government should think twice before overriding both the ECHR and Human Rights Act and not rush such long-term, difficult decisions.””
Actually some of us have already thought about that many times over many years, and as for myself I also recall a previous harmful contribution from that MP, urging Boris Johnson on to a course which led to a customs and regulatory border being inserted between two parts of our country:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2023/06/02/will-anyone-save-the-uk-car-industry/#comment-1391596
“Many of us, on both sides of the House, want to deliver what people voted for, to avoid a no-deal Brexit and to avoid the process being strung out interminably, so I welcome the Government’s latest proposals. Can the Prime Minister assure me that the customs proposals for the Irish border do not involve the construction of any new physical infrastructure, whether at the border or anywhere else?”
December 6, 2023
If I know this government it will be a shabby little compromise that achieves not a lot. We are already told we will be accepting some of their refugees and they can chose who to take. If true it’s pathetic. We know Cieverleys migrant plan is full of holes and won’t start until 2024 so encouraging a sunami of applicants in the short term.
Richard Tice rightly shredded your whole approach in the DT yesterday.
December 6, 2023
Why do you persist with this expensive convoluted Rwanda plan which will never work? More effort should be made to just turn the boats around and tackle the growing number of illegals overstaying and working in the black market. You already have legislation to fine employers large amounts if they employ illegals. The black economy is running rings around authorities by using the names of legitimate workers who are no longer in the country, helped by Theresa May’s over generous free right to settle here, and then paying cash in hand to the illegal worker. It wouldn’t surprise me if we have millions of pounds leaving the country every day in low-income top-up payments and housing benefits. Politicians don’t have a clue about how criminals work the system.
December 6, 2023
I read a comment that the only way to satisfy the court is for the UK to set up and operate an asylum seekers camp in Rwanda as other countries have done. The importance us that the asylum seekers would then be under UK control 24/7. It is the Rwandan government the court doesn’t trust.
December 6, 2023
It won’t happen . We all know that one way or another the lawyers will torpedo the effect of any agreement . Cameron will stick to his pledge that the ECHR is the supreme law and push our dignity under the carpet . Our present administration cannot be relied upon to uphold true British values ; we have little influence in world affairs and the personalities in – so called control are hopeless . I would like to see a revolt led by Sir John and Ian Duncan Smith asap .
December 6, 2023
Your party is lost, Sir John. Headlines today state ministers are ready to quit over immigration crackdown. These MPs don’t understand the mood of the country. Voters have no reason to vote Conservative so those on the left will move to Labour and LibDem and those on the right to Reform. This is what happens when you install lefties through your selection process. The values of your party have been undermined from within.
December 6, 2023
Green, Hammond and May are not moderates or centrists they are extreme EU fanatics who will not accept the mandate from the public to leave the EU. They will not allow leaving ECHR because it is l8 led to EU sell out deal to prevent divergence!! Nor was it as Idiot Hunt saying no one could agree how to leave. It was very clear and laid out by Cameron!! Leave in its entirety that was clear. JR’s party undermining every aspect of leaving the EU.
The rogue parliament is back led by Sunak, Hunt and Cameron.
December 6, 2023
It’s not so much lefties (there have ever since I can remember, that is for decades, been some lefties, or at any rate centrists sitting as Conservative M.P.s) as much as the number of Conservative M.P.s now who are fundamentally clueless with negligible understanding of either politics or life and next to no resolve, in other words of such low ability or calibre that they shouldn’t have been selected as parliamentary candidates. I suppose there were always some such but in the past that was disguised because they could easily follow and did follow the majority who had some of the requisite ability. Now that doesn’t happen because it seems the overwhelming majority are politically directionless and generally clueless.
December 6, 2023
Best listen to Christine, SirJ, sadly your party is lost …..your only hope is to ask Sunak to step down and allow Liz to return ….’we live in interesting times’
December 6, 2023
Is anyone outside of the Tory party that’s impressed with the Rwanda plan?
Place the illegals in a camp with basic amenities until they can be returned to their country of origin. For any country the UK has diplomatic relations with they can go straight back. For the rest, keep them in the camps until they decide all things considered they’d rather go back of their own accord.
December 6, 2023
Immigration, Legal and illegal, out of control. The Civil Service, vastly overmanned and out of control. Taxation is far too high and out of control. Net Zero, classic MPs ignorance and refusal to educate themselves and out of control. The NHS has 230,000 more employees in 5 years, 7.7 million on waiting lists for treatment, and junior Doctors disgracefully going on strike again, out of control. The Police Service, should be Force, busy pursuing hate crimes instead of real criminals, out of control. Quangos are swallowing taxpayer’s money and building up their empires, out of control. An unelected Foreign Secretary, unaccountable to the Commons, out of control.
A Government in office but not in control!!!! Now over 20% behind in the Opinion polls, have been for months, and still don’t get it! The Rwanda plan, a joke which will never work!
December 7, 2023
And some on here thought having the Little Usurper in Number 10 would be far better. Gone very quiet these people.
December 6, 2023
I’ve just heard Russell Quirk (political commentator ) on Talk TV suggest that if the government switched off the web page showing migrants all the things they will be given if they come here, it might help reduce the numbers!! Whaaat? The govt is advertising the benefits to migrants???
December 6, 2023
On the 2nd December 519 illegal immigrants crossed the channel.
Under the proposed new Rwanda treaty we could send 500 by flight to Rwanda.
Rwanda could by clause send 500 of their own refugees to the UK
Rwanda could by clause send the 500 UK immigrants back to the UK if they committee a criminal act.
We could in theory be the recipient of 1,000 immigrants for every 500 we send to Rwanda ….costing millions
December 7, 2023
All thanks to, Suella Braverman MP.
A Conservative, she ain’t !!!!
December 6, 2023
Is there a Braver man than the former Home Secretary? No mincing of words, a direct and clear battle cry else you are over run!
December 6, 2023
The reason why the illegals push their way into the UK is because its administration of asylum cases is lazy and snail-slow, and impeded by UK activist lawyers and the inertia of the UK courts: meaning even an unsuccessful claimant can remain here for years, giving him a fair chance of absconding and using our lack of ID cards to go underground and assume any ID he wants. The motivation is then to join criminal gangs.
Rwanda will only succeed if illegal migrants are 1) held in secure camps and 2) swiftly removed without any legal redress.
December 7, 2023
Yes PLEASE, just get it done.