UK could leave human rights pact to force through asylum seeker policy
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has confirmed that the UK could withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights to tackle small boats crossing the Channel, Carl Dinnen has the details and reaction
The UK could withdraw from a human rights convention it has been part of for 70 years in order to force through its policies on asylum seekers if they are blocked by courts.
Rishi Sunak wants to deport anyone who enters the UK illegally 4,000 miles away to Rwanda, but the plan has been stymied by legal challenges and some Tories want to make it easier by withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Despite the UK signing an agreement with Rwanda for relocating migrants there in April 2022, not one deportation has occurred and the plan will soon be challenged in the Supreme Court.
An immigration minister said the government will do “whatever is required” to make it happen, when asked if it could withdraw from the ECHR, but insisted the plan does comply with the convention.
Robert Jenrick said: "We believe that our current plan is in accordance with our international law obligations and the judgement in the High Court and court of appeal give us reason to be confident that we'll succeed in the Supreme Court.
"But we don't rule anything out, we will do whatever is necessary."
Robert Jenrick refuses to rule out leaving human rights convention
His boss, Home Secretary Suella Braverman, has already expressed her desire to withdraw the UK from an agreement it helped write after World War II and signed in 1953.
Every country in the European continent other than Russia and Belarus is signed up to the convention and the UK would be the first country to ever choose to leave. Russia was expelled in 2022.
Brexit had no impact on the UK's membership of the ECHR because it is a Council of Europe treaty, not European Union.
Liberty, the human rights group, said leaving the ECHR would allow the government to "commit human rights abuses against anyone".
On Twitter, it said: "The European Convention on Human Rights protects everyone in the UK.
"The rights and freedoms we’re all familiar with come from it.
"Dragging the UK out of the ECHR will allow the Government to knowingly commit human rights abuses against anyone."
Another part of the government's anti-illegal immigration policy running into legal difficulty is the housing of asylum seekers on off-shore barges.
The Bibby Stockholm barge, which is docked off the coast of Dorset, has been arranged to house up to 500 migrants but many of the expected first arrivals were able to have their relocation blocked with the help of lawyers.
Around 20 asylum seekers did not board as planned because their transfers were “cancelled” following legal challenges supported by chairty Care4Calais.
Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith said: “None of the asylum seekers we are supporting have gone to the Bibby Stockholm today as legal representatives have had their transfers cancelled.
“Amongst our clients are people who are disabled, who have survived torture and modern slavery and who have had traumatic experiences at sea.
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"To house any human being in a ‘quasi floating prison’ like the Bibby Stockholm is inhumane. To try and do so with this group of people is unbelievably cruel. Even just receiving the notices is causing them a great deal of anxiety.”
While there is no suggestion these lawyers acted unscrupulously, on Tuesday the home secretary announced plans to tackle solicitors who help migrants game the asylum system by charging to help submit false claims.
It comes after the Daily Mail reported a number of solicitors agreed to help an undercover journalist posing as an economic migrant submit a false application in exchange for thousands of pounds.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, has said the necessary powers are already in place to deal with immigration advisers engaged in misconduct.
It added the Home Office is focusing on a “tiny minority of lawyers” rather than “significant” asylum claim backlogs and “the unworkability of the Illegal Migration Act”.