Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailParliament has finally passed Rishi Sunak’s “emergency” Rwanda bill but the controversial legislation is set to run into legal challenges that could still delay flights. Mr Sunak has said that the first flight would take off in 10-12 weeks and regular trips will take place over the Summer “until the boats are stopped.” His plan was finally given the green light on Monday evening after peers in the House of Lords gave up their fight with MPs over amending the legislation. Lords had been trying to force the government to exempt Afghans who supported British troops overseas from being deported to Rwanda. They had also pushed an amendment that would have made sure the terms of the UK’s treaty with Rwanda were met and that it was assessed to be a safe country before flights took off. However the government refused to cave to pressure and didn’t include the changes to the bill. Mr Sunak had already paid £240m to Rwanda by the end of 2023, and spending watchdog the National Audit Office says that the total cost of the plan will be at least £370m over five years. Labour peers didn’t press the Afghan amendment on Monday night after Home Office minister Lord Sharpe said they would not deport members of Afghan special forces units who had been given the right to live and work in the UK by the Ministry of Defence. But they did vote in favour once for the amendment on assessing the safety of Rwanda. Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson told the Lords that their final amendment was “not necessary”, adding: “These amendments have already been rejected, enough is enough.”Labour’s shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinncok said it was “staggering” that the government refused to concede on the clause ensuring the safety of Rwanda. He added: “This is a post-truth bill. You cannot possibly legislate for something which is in the lap of the gods”. SNP MP Alison Thewliss criticised Labour peers for not pushing the flights exemption for Afghans who supported British troops. She told MPs: “If they think this is some kind of concession I’ve got some magic beans to sell them.”Rishi Sunak had pledged to get flights to Rwanda off this Spring but now says planes will get off the ground in July More

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the worldSign up to our free Morning Headlines emailRishi Sunak has pledged to get flights to Rwanda in the air by July, despite the threat of legal challenges and delays even if he does manage to force the controversial asylum bill through parliament overnight. The prime minister insisted asylum seekers will be sent to the east African nation in 10 to 12 weeks “come what may” and that regular trips will take place over the summer.But he faced an agonising final hurdle of ping-pong between MPs and the House of Lords, and the upper house will spend the evening trying to exact two key amendments. MPs and campaigners warned that Mr Sunak’s flagship policy, if successfully passed, could still be set back by legal challenges from individuals, as well as the civil service union which is concerned about breaching international law.Labour condemned the hundreds of millions of pounds already spent on the scheme as an “extortionate gimmick”, while former home secretary Suella Braverman said so few people would actually end up in Rwanda that it would not work as an efficient deterrent.Kicking off a long day of political wrangling, Mr Sunak threw down the gauntlet to peers in a surprise press conference on Monday, saying: “Parliament will sit there tonight and vote, no matter how late it goes; no ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda.”Lords have been trying to force the government to exempt Afghans who supported British troops overseas from being deported to Rwanda. They had also pushed an amendment that would make sure a monitoring committee assesses Rwanda to be safe before flights take off. The government has so far refused to cave to pressure and include the changes to the bill. MPs rejected both amendments in their first vote on Monday evening. Labour peers will rally this evening in support of the suggested amendments, leaving the cross-bench peers with the power to further delay the bill or let it pass. Sunak threw down the gauntlet to peers in a surprise press conference More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch live as Rishi Sunak’s controversial Rwanda bill faces a final parliamentary showdown on Monday, 22 April.Both the House of Lords and the House of Commons are due to sit late into the night to get the bill passed.Mr Sunak’s legislation is aimed at making the plan to send asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda legally watertight.The bill is intended to overcome the objections of the Supreme Court by forcing judges to regard Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and allowing ministers to ignore emergency injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights.However, it has been subject to extensive parliamentary back-and-forth, with peers repeatedly blocking the bill with a series of amendments.The government has vowed Parliament will sit late into Monday night if necessary to pass the bill, which it sees as vital to the prime minister’s pledge to “stop the boats”.The vote comes after the prime minister blamed Labour opposition to the plan for the delay, although his own government had not taken earlier opportunities to rush the legislation through parliament. More

Peers face call to ‘calm down’ and allow Rwanda bill to clear parliamentSign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailPrime minister Rishi Sunak said flights to Rwanda have been booked and will take off by July, “no ifs, no buts” at a Downing Street news conference ahead of the Rwanda bill returning to parliament later today.Mr Sunak told the surprise conference the first flight carrying asylum seekers would leave for Rwanda in 10-12 weeks, despite the problems he has faced passing it into law. Peers have repeatedly blocked the legislation with a series of amendments, stretching debate on the “emergency legislation” over more than four months and delaying flights taking asylum seekers to Rwanda.The bill is intended to overcome the objections of the Supreme Court by forcing judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and allowing ministers to ignore emergency injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights.MPs are expected to vote to overturn those changes before sending the bill back to the House of Lords, where some peers may attempt to insist on their amendments again.Show latest update 1713797272Tory MP Sir Robert Buckland, a former government minister, explained why he was backing the Afghan amendment to the Rwanda bill, Holly Bancroft reports.Referring to members of the Afghan special forces, who fought alongside UK soldiers and who are currently having their UK relocation applications reviewed, he said: “We don’t want to end up with people, who are having their applications reviewed by the MoD, who are stuck in Pakistan, we don’t want them to end up in a position where they’re being carted off in this scheme,” he said.“It wasn’t designed for this sort of category [of people]. Despite all the progress we’ve made on bringing Afghans to safety in the UK, we don’t want to end up with unintended consequences where people who’ve risked their lives for our safety are then put into this scheme.”Sir Robert is also backing the other Lords’ amendment, which would make sure the monitoring committee verifies Rwanda as safe before asylum seekers are sent there. It was also make sure that the committee can tell MPs when Rwanda is no longer a safe country.Sir Robert said neither were “wrecking amendments” but were rather about getting the detail of the bill right.Once the Rwanda bill is passed, Sir Robert told The Independent that there will “inevitably be individual legal challenges”. However he felt that the likelihood of an intervention from the ECHR “has probably receded” due to new guidelines issued to the Strasbourg judges, which have raised the threshold for issuing injunctions. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRwanda deportation flights will begin in July, Rishi Sunak has said as he promised to break the deadlock over the controversial immigration bill.The prime minister said the plans are in place and migrants will be sent to the east African nation in 10 to 12 weeks “come what may”.After five months of wrangling over the so-called emergency Safety of Rwanda bill, which deems it a safe country for relocating asylum seekers, Mr Sunak threw down the gauntlet to peers in the House of Lords.“Parliament will sit there tonight and vote, no matter how late it goes; no ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda,” he told a press conference ahead of the Lords showdown.It will see weeks of parliamentary back and forth finally come to a head, with peers pressuring Mr Sunak to allow amendments to the bill, but the PM standing firm.In a sign of the battle facing ministers, a leading lawyer who sits in the Lords has promised to “keep going as long as necessary” to amend the “ill judged and inappropriate” bill.Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC: “This is something which is ill-judged, badly drafted, inappropriate, illegal in UK and international law and the House of Lords is absolutely right to say we want to maintain our legal standards in this country.”Peers are pushing for Afghan heroes who supported UK troops overseas to be exempted from Rwanda deportation flights.And they want an independent monitoring body to verify that protections in the UK’s treaty with Rwanda are fully implemented and remain in place.A group of people thought to be migrants crossing the Channel in a small boat traveling from the coast of France and heading in the direction of Dover, Kent (PA) More

The first flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda will leave in 10 to 12 weeks, Rishi Sunak has today said (22 April).The prime minister said “enough is enough” as he said MPs and peers would sit through the night if necessary to get the Safety of Rwanda Bill through Parliament.At a Downing Street press conference he blamed Labour opposition to the scheme for the delays, but vowed: “We will start the flights and we will stop the boats.”The prime minister said an airfield was on standby and charter flights had been booked to take asylum seekers on the one-way trip to Rwanda.Mr Sunak said: “No ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has urged peers in the House of Lords to back his Rwanda plan ahead of a final parliamentary showdown this evening. Peers have so far been insisting on two amendments to the Safety of Rwanda bill; one that would ensure that a treaty with the country is properly implemented, and another that would exempt Afghans who served alongside UK forces from deportation. Mr Sunak has insisted that parliament will sit as long as it takes to get the bill passed this evening. “No ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda,” he said at a Monday morning press conferenc . So what happens next once the flagship Rwanda plan is passed by the Lords? There will reportedly be around 150 asylum seekers on the first two or three flights to Kigali, with flights expected to start in July. “We have prepared for this moment… We’ve increased detention spaces to 2,200,” Mr Sunak announced. The prime minister said the government had put an airfield on standby and booked commercial charter planes for specific slots to remove the asylum seekers to Rwanda. He added that 500 highly trained individuals had been found to escort “migrants all the way to Rwanda” with 300 more trained in the coming weeks. The prime minister said that the first flight would leave in 10-12 weeks and he committed to regular flights over the summer “until the boats are stopped”. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Downing Street, London. More

Rishi Sunak said he had confidence in Met Police chief Sir Mark Rowley after a London officer described an antisemitism campaigner as “openly Jewish”.Gideon Falter was threatened with arrest and told his presence was “antagonising” protesters yards away from him.In a press conference on Monday, 22 April, the prime minister pledged support for the commissioner but said he needed to rebuild “confidence and trust” with the Jewish community.The force initially apologised for the incident, but then apologised for its apology after suggesting opponents of pro-Palestine marches “must know that their presence is provocative”.Suella Braverman has called for Sir Mark to resign. More