Tory infighting over Rishi Sunak’s beleaguered Rwanda plan has descended into civil war as a former deputy prime minister compared Suella Braverman to Vladimir Putin.
Damian Green, deputy PM under Theresa May, said the sacked home secretary wanted to do “what Putin and Xi Jinping do” in her latest bid to ensure deportation flights to Rwanda can take off.
And Tory former minister Tobias Ellwood told The Independent Ms Braverman was behaving like a dictator.
It came as Ms Braverman, sacked on Monday, set out a five-point plan to get the Rwanda deportation scheme back on track. And she lashed out at Mr Sunak’s solution, saying it was unlikely to see asylum seekers deported to the country before the next election.
In an article for The Daily Telegraph, Ms Braverman demanded an “end to government self-deception and spin” and said “tinkering” with the failed Rwanda scheme would “not stop the boats”..
“There must be no more magical thinking,” she added. Ms Braverman argued that “amending our agreement with Rwanda and converting it into a treaty, even with explicit obligations on non-refoulement, will not solve the fundamental issue”.
Instead, she said ministers should address concerns raised by the five senior judges about Rwanda’s asylum and legal system by “embedding UK observers and independent reviewers of asylum decisions”.
And she extraordinarily called for new laws to “exclude all avenues of legal challenge” so that international obligations, such as the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), are “disapplied by way of clear ‘notwithstanding clauses’”.
Mr Green, chairman of the One Nation group of moderate Tory MPs, said Ms Braverman’s suggestion Britain disregards international law is “the most unconservative statement I have ever heard from a Conservative politician”.
He said: “Giving the state the explicit power to override every legal constraint is what Putin and Xi do. We absolutely cannot go there.”
And the former head of the government legal department slammed Ms Braverman’s proposals.
Jonathan Jones KC said: “For the sake of putting (at most) a few hundred people on a plane to a place recently found to be unsafe by our highest court [not a foreign court]: She wants the UK to breach every relevant international treaty on torture, mis-treatment, detention or fair process.”
Senior Tory Mr Ellwood added that Ms Braverman’s behaviour was “completely incompatible with both our democratic and Party values. Bypassing scrutiny to expedite law change is straight from the dictator’s handbook.”
But veteran right-wing Tory MP Sir Bill Cash said Mr Sunak’s emergency Rwanda legislation is “no good” if it does not have clear so-called “notwithstanding” clauses.
He said: “The position is that if the law in a statute is expressly stated, clear and unambiguous, then the courts will follow that legislation.”
Responding to criticism of the potential for Britain to be in breach of its international obligations, Sir Bill said “the idea that international law is not broken by other countries… it’s completely false”.
Sir Bill, who has practised as a constitutional lawyer, told The Independent: “There are some people who believe that it is an absolutely standalone requirement to obey international law, when actually it is well known that in many, many cases, there are moments of national interest where a breach of international law can be justified.
“And it is already conducted by many other states including the EU itself, let alone France, Germany, Denmark… I could go through the list.”
The MP also warned of a “constitutional crisis” if the House of Lords blocks the laws, expected to be put to parliament within days.
He said the upper chamber is “an unelected body” and “would be putting itself in jeopardy” if it opposed the prime minister’s plan.
Hours after the Supreme Court ruled his deportation scheme unlawful, Mr Sunak said he would bring in emergency laws to deem Rwanda a safe country for asylum seekers and sign a new treaty with the country to address the court’s concerns.
But Ms Braverman warned his plan would get snarled up in domestic and European courts as she demanded a tougher approach.
A key Braverman ally meanwhile warned that without a crackdown on small boats, “people will turn to other forces”. Ex-cabinet minister Simon Clarke also called for a general election on the issue – saying: “We need the legislation that is brought forward to be truly effective, and if the Lords block it – let’s take it to the country.”
Rishi Sunak rejected the calls, insisting his plan was “not about over-ruling laws”. He also denied allegations his plan amounted to “tinkering” with the rejected scheme. “No.. the progress we’ve made this year on tackling this issue is meaningful,” he said on a visit to Bolsover.
Ms proposals were slammed by legal experts and Tory colleagues as the split in the Conservative Party over the Rwanda plan grows.
Former Home Office permanent secretary Sir David Normington poured cold water on Ms Braverman’s proposal, saying “I really don’t think that that is possible. I think in the end the Supreme Court wouldn’t allow that.
“I’m not a lawyer, but in the end it’s just against all normal rights, isn’t it, to remove the rights of people to go to the courts?”, he told BBC Radio 4.
Mr Green said he would oppose any proposal to pass a law seeking to block the application of international treaties.
He told the BBC: “It’s not just all our own laws passed by Parliament, and all international treaties that we have signed, that Suella wants to sweep away,” he said.
“If we Conservatives don’t believe that the state should be controlled by the law, that the Government has to obey the law as much as you or I have to obey the law, then that seems to me to be very profoundly unconservative,” he added.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also slammed Mr Sunak for chasing “expensive gimmicks” and instead pursue a “serious solution” to the “very serious problem” of small boat channel crossings.
Mr Sunak’s response to the Supreme Court judgment on Wednesday saw him announce that his administration plans to lay down emergency legislation to have Parliament deem Rwanda a “safe” country.
He also intends to broker a new legally binding treaty on top of the £140 million deal already struck with Kigali to take migrants arriving in Britain via small boats.
The yet-to-be-published treaty with Rwanda is expected to attempt to address the Supreme Court’s concerns around refoulement – the potential for refugees whose applications for asylum are rejected by Kigali to be sent back to the country they are fleeing from.
