Rishi Sunak’s most morally reprehensible policies have been defeated

The Rwanda plan is dead. Unless there is an unexpected shock, it will never happen. No plane will ever take off. No asylum seeker will ever be sent there.

The full scale of what happened only became clear this morning. Even last night it seemed possible that the flights would take place before the elections, even as part of a photo session at the end of the campaign.

This morning, those assumptions were dispelled. Apparently Rishi Sunak was told by officials that he did not have enough time. The Rwandan program is another casualty of his decision to hold early summer elections. “If I am re-elected as prime minister on July 5, these flights will be operated,” he said during the press round this morning. Notice the tacit admission hidden in his phrasing. When he was consequently pressed at LBC about the timing, he replied: “No, after the election.”

It is still almost possible that flights will take off. Perhaps the operational difficulties will end or he will win the elections. But both of these eventualities are completely unlikely – especially the latter, given the rain-soaked defeat at the start of his campaign and the touchy, bitter manner in which he has conducted himself in interviews so far. Ultimately, only two facts matter: Labor is on track to victory and has committed to repealing Rwanda. Therefore, the project looks dead, stopped before it even started.

This failure is due in part to government incompetence. They proposed a plan so extreme and lacking basic logic that it could easily be torn apart by political opponents and the courts. Sunak then expended enormous amounts of political energy and spent untold millions of taxpayers’ money to bypass the courts. He had almost carried this plan to the point where it would eventually result in flights – probably in late July – only to then call for elections some time before they could get off the ground, which made all this work stand still becomes pointless.

But the real story of Rwanda’s failure is more than just Sunak’s misjudgment. It is a proud story of how key elements of our national life have survived. It is about our superior character as a country and how that superior character prevented the implementation of one of the most grotesque refugee programs proposed by the government.

At the heart of this battle was the Supreme Court. She set out a clear legal position against Rwanda, based on the principle of non-refoulement: the idea that countries must never return asylum seekers to a country where they risk persecution. This has been a feature of countless pieces of international law to which Britain has been a signatory.

Yet this principle directly contradicted Rwanda’s behavior. A similar agreement reached with Israel in 2013 provided for the routine and secret transfer of asylum seekers to Uganda, with only the intervention of the UN Refugee Agency preventing removal. Its asylum systems were not fit for purpose. There was no fair trial.

The Supreme Court must have known what it was getting into when it ruled Rwanda illegal last fall. He must have known there would be an attack, and indeed there was. Sunak has aggressively tried to undermine the separation of powers and overrule the court through legislation. However, he did not change his role and still ruled in accordance with the law. A key institution that upholds the British constitution, even if the government has abandoned it.

This is thanks not only to the judges, but also to those who brought the case. In the courtroom, dozens of lawyers represented their clients – asylum seekers from places such as Iran, Syria and Vietnam. These were what Sunak likes to call “left-wing lawyers”. In fact, they are caring, principled and compassionate people who believe in treating people decently and maintaining the rule of law. If it weren’t for them, this country would be a much worse place than it is.

Credit also goes to the Labor Party. It’s easy to dismiss Keir Starmer as a bland centrist whose positions seem so similar to those of the government that there’s no point in voting for him. And it is true that he did not want to alienate reactionary voters with a moral case against Rwanda. But rhetoric matters much less than action. Starmer took the right stance on this issue: he announced its repeal. And it was because of this commitment that the Rwanda plan was defeated.

Next time someone says there is no difference between Labor and the Tories, they should be asked to make that argument to one of the asylum seekers facing deportation to Rwanda. Let’s see if they find this a compelling proposition. I suspect they will understand the difference between the sides very well.

The last group that deserves recognition are activists. Unlike the French, the British tend to ignore online protests and activism in favor of formal mechanisms to challenge authority. This is a hopelessly simplistic view. Progressive politics works best when it connects activists with formal political actors, idealists with pragmatists, protesters with opposition leaders, activists with judges.

In the background, as the long debate on Rwanda continued, campaign groups continued to apply pressure. They spread the message, raised funds for the fight, lobbied parliamentarians, and organized protests. They helped create an ecosystem of resistance.

If the government has its way, a flight to Rwanda would soon take off. In a few weeks, the British state will be shoving terrified, isolated people onto a plane and sending them to a country they have never known. They will most likely never board that plane. They will never be fooled into doing so.

It was a long, slow and arduous fight. But – and we don’t repeat this often – it was a winning match. One of the most morally reprehensible policies adopted by the British Government in our lifetime is about to collapse. Those who fought against it deserve our gratitude.