James Cleverly has repeatedly refused to deny that he called Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation plan “batshit”.
The new home secretary said he “doesn’t remember” describing the scheme that way after Yvette Cooper claimed he did during a grilling in the House of Commons.
Reacting to the Supreme Court’s verdict that the asylum plan was unlawful, Ms Cooper suggested Mr Cleverly never personally believed in it, and had used the expletive to describe it in private.
“I don’t believe the new home secretary ever believed in the Rwanda plan. He distanced himself from it and his predecessor’s language on it. He may even on occasion have privately called it ‘batshit’,” Ms Cooper added.
Questioned on Thursday morning about the claim, Mr Cleverly did not admit to having used it, but refused multiple opportunities to deny it.
Asked by the BBC whether he had described the policy as “batshit”, Mr Cleverly said: “I certainly don’t remember saying anything like that.”
Asked separately by Sky News, Mr Cleverly instead said: “I don’t recognise that phrase … the Rwanda scheme is an important part, but only a part, of the range of responses we have to illegal migration.”
Home Secretary James Cleverly defended the Rwanda policy (Leon Neal/PA)
It came up again on the Today programme, which apologised for using the term before asking whether Mr Cleverly had said it.
The home secretary said the Labour Party had set a “trap” and “would love us to discuss this particular issue rather than the gaping vaccum in its immigration policy”.
But Mr Cleverly again said he could “not remember” having used the term. An exasperated BBC political editor Chris Mason said “it was not quite a denial”.
It comes as the government is scrambling to rescue its plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda after the Supreme Court ruled the original plan was unlawful, leaving Mr Sunak’s flagship “stop the boats” policy in tatters.
The prime minister has vowed to bring in emergency legislation and to strike a new treaty with the African country, saying he would “not allow a foreign court to block these flights”.
But he has resisted pressure from those on the right of his party to immediately pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights to push the plans through.
Mr Sunak has repeatedly refused to say whether the first deportation flight to Kigali would take off before the next general election, saying instead that he hoped the scheme would come into effect next spring.
On Thursday morning, Mr Cleverly said the new treaty would be published “within days, not weeks” – but he refused to say when the first migrants would be deported.
After the Supreme Court issued its damning verdict, the PM faced a furious backlash from Tory MPs who urged him to ignore the law and “get the planes in the air” while warning that his job was on the line.
