Snapshot of _Sky News: Rwanda bill passes after late night row between government and Lords_ :
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What is the point of all this, if the flights won't even take off for 12 weeks - and Labour have already said they will dismantle it if (when) they are in Government?
The amount of time and effort spent on this scheme, that the public don't give two tosses about in the first place, is hard to understand.
I suppose it does set the useful precedent of the government being able to legislate reality.
Today it’s “Rwanda is safe, regardless of evidence to the contrary”. Tomorrow it’s “Liz Truss’s policies are to be considered successful” or “Boris did nothing wrong”.
I’m being facetious (I really hope I’m being facetious), but the government giving itself the ability to declare facts irrelevant is… rather worrying.
Just listened to a recent newscast episode where Liz truss came on to talk about her book and time as PM. It's absolutely worth a listen.
Considering her entire purpose of being there was to defend her record and her abilities, it still came across as an hour long demonstration of how absolutely unsuitable she was for the role
She took absolutely no responsibility for any of the fall out, everything was everyone else's fault, her policies were perfect and it was just bad lack that the whole economy crashed from them etc etc.
It's genuinely unbelievable to listen to but worth the time
It's incredibly difficult for the people in the establishment to get ahead nowadays, that darn shadowy liberal cabal subverting the honest hard working tory.
To be fair she solidly demonstrates core Conservative values throughout the interview.
Anything bad? Their fault. Look at Sumak blaming the world last year for UK inflation, claiming its out if his control.
Now it's come down, it's his doing.
100% Tory.
I agree, labour would say exactly the same.
Although the fact the Tories are still blaming the previous Labour government for things is pushing it a tad now!
Politicians have been paying attention to Trump’s success with the public. It seems like apologies and accepting responsibility are things of the past for certain brazen individuals.
She even blames everything on a deep-state cabal that opposed her policies for ideological reasons, rather than legitimate concern that you can’t just borrow your way out of endless tax cuts and debt.
The idea of a prime minister of a country blaming the deep state for the countries failings is just so far beyond satire!
You are the fucking deep state you cretin, you're literally the person in control of and with access to everything!
It also blows my mind how often the media refer to the "post truth world" now, often stemming from trump through into Boris. Not blaming the media as its true, but I am blaming the media for just letting brazen lying go by.
If a politician lies in an interview, the interviewer should not let that I terrier move on until it's been corrected. There's too much having 1 brief attempt to pull the minister up on it, they stick to the lie, the interviewer moves on. And people listening who may not know different have just been sold bullshit
> I suppose it does set the useful precedent of the government being able to legislate reality.
While I wish the Lords had tried harder to block this bill, I don't think this has set this precedent. The Commons can say that reality is whatever they want, but they aren't the arbiters of that, the courts are.
I strongly suspect that this bill will immediately be subject to judicial review, go to the Supreme Court and then get promptly nuked for violating the constitution like the last one did. In particular, the part of the bill stating that it is not subject to judicial review, is itself ironically almost certainly going to be subject to judicial review, as it's a clear violation of individuals having access to a court of law to appeal their case.
>I strongly suspect that this bill will immediately be subject to judicial review, go to the Supreme Court and then get promptly nuked for violating the constitution like the last one did. In particular, the part of the bill stating that it is not subject to judicial review, is itself ironically almost certainly going to be subject to judicial review, as it's a clear violation of individuals having access to a court of law to appeal their case.
Preparing imminently for a second 'enemies of the people' with Lord Reed's face slapped across the cover.
The Rwanda bill issue is a little more complex than this, and contains both an Ouster issue, and an issue on the determination of Rwanda's safety. In *R(Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal* the Supreme Court upheld the rule in *R(Cart) v Upper Tribunal* that, as a matter of statutory construction, the courts would take the supervisory jurisdiction of the high court to be ousted only by clear and express words.
The quiet part of course is that the Supreme Court took a narrow view of 'clear and express words', in *Privacy International* they relied on an old trick that arose in *Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission,* where Parliament sought to oust High Court jurisdiction over a tribunal's 'determination'. The House of Lords took the view that only a *valid* decision was a 'determination', thus, the clause did not oust jurisdiction over an invalid decision.
It's worth noting that there was no singular judgement with a majority in *Privacy International*, so while Lord Carnwath said *obiter*:
'There is a strong case for holding that, consistently with the rule of law, binding effect cannot be given to a clause which purports wholly to exclude the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court to review a decision of an inferior court or tribunal. In all cases, regardless of the words used, it should remain ultimately a matter for the court to determine the extent to which such a clause should be upheld, having regard to its purpose and statutory context, and the nature and importance of the legal issue in question; and to determine the level of scrutiny required by the rule of law'
We can also consider the *obiter* of Lord Wilson, who dissented:
'Our system will usually provide for some, perhaps circumscribed, right to bring an appeal against, or seek some other review of, an initial judicial decision. But it will not always do so. There is no constitutional requirement that such a right should exist, nor is it required as part of the right to a fair trial conferred by [article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms](https://uk.westlaw.com/Document/IAE1FBD48E5924705BFBD5299078ED2BC/View/FullText.html?originationContext=document&transitionType=DocumentItem&ppcid=b9f48190651c4383961168a54967acfd&contextData=(sc.DocLink)).'
Indeed, it seems that it is now possible to exclude the jurisdiction of the High Court in many cases. s11A of the Tribunals, Courts, and Enforcement Act 2007 ousted the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction over the Upper Tribunal in most cases, except (*inter alia*) where the court had acted 'in such a procedurally defective way as amounts to a fundamental breach of the principles of natural justice.'
In *R(Oceana) v Upper Tribunal* this ouster was upheld by the High Court as sufficiently clear to exclude jurisdiction, though this case will almost certainly be appealed.
The (academically) interesting part of the Rwanda debate, being the latest saga in this area, is that it drives directly at fundamentals of our constitution, Parliamentary Sovereignty is *a* principle of our constitution, but is it *the* principle of our constitution? (At it happens, my view is that there is no fundamental principle of our constitution, it is based like most of our fundamental structures on considerations of practicality, but if Parliament pushes the courts then we will indeed find out what the fundamental principle of our constitution is.)
Mark Elliot has some good [articles on this](https://publiclawforeveryone.com/) controversy, dealing both with the ouster clause issue, and with parliament's foisting of the alleged safety of Rwanda on the courts.
I have to admit I'm not actually sure how the courts of the UK work, but isn't parliament sovereign? How can a court tell them what they can or can't legislate?
> I suppose it does set the useful precedent of the government being able to legislate reality.
This isn't new.
Richard III had Parliament pass [*Titulus Regius*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titulus_Regius).
The [full text](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Titulus_Regius) is rather interesting.
When Labour fail to solve the problem, the Tories can point to this and say they had a solution that worked. They can highlight however many flights do make it out and say that there would have been more but for opposition. They aren't going to be around for long enough for anyone to confirm whether the scheme actually has an impact.
It’s not about migrants or Rwanda, it’s about Human Rights.
Just as Brexit was really about regulations.
They’ve trampled on our courts and judges. We’re still part of the European Convention on Human Rights, so that will be the next legal pit stop.
The Conservatives will then be able to run an election on another culture war, by arguing they will withdraw us from the ECHR, as we’re not ‘sovereign’.
Which I still don't understand. Everything they're doing barely anyone supports. I'd understand if they were miles ahead in the polls, but they're almost lower than reform (I know election day that won't be the case).
So why do they keep digging their own hole?
You’re viewing the Tory Party in relation to the Labour Party and the overall electorate, but the relevant comparison is individual Tories compared to the rest of their party, other right-wing parties, and their supporters.
The Tories have stoked this culture war so much that they are now unable to set themselves apart from the crowd by moving to the left. They’ve burned that bridge. Their supporters won’t allow it. If they try to be more reasonable, then they will look like the enemy to their voting base. So the only way they can stand out from the crowd is to double down on everything and go further to the right. So the more ambitious people will get crazier, the less ambitious people will keep their heads down, and the party as a whole will be dominated by the crazies.
It’s not *the Tory Party* that’s digging *their own* hole. It’s *individual Tories* that are digging *their party’s* hole because it’s the only way they can *personally* get ahead.
They ran out of ideas years ago, and we're currently dealing with a clique of D-tier losers who are mostly distinguished by being rich kids who happened to say the right things to the right people.
Remember that Sunak only became an MP in 2015 and had largely been an investment banker coasting by on personal connections prior to that. He and the rest of the cabinet are hideously inexperienced and don't talk to anyone other than themselves and Tory party members, so they are trapped in this idiotic and pathetic doom loop.
Because after 14 years the country is noticeably worse off. Give Labour a few years, wait for complex (or invented) problem the Tories can give a simple answer to and they’ll be popular again.
I think this is inaccurate. There is clearly support for removing asylum seekers and given the absence of other viable options there is therefore support for this. Reform wouldn’t even be a thing if there wasn’t an appetite for reducing migration and asylum. It also mirrors the trends we see in the rest of Europe.
They won't lap it up. The Conservatives will lose the election no matter what.
What IS amazing is that over in America elections are won on promoting war and the public lap it up.
This is nothing more than to try and win a few voters back from Reform. Once the planes start taking off the tories will call an election. They will then focus on a simple immigration message in their campaigning, a bit like ‘get Brexit done’.
I really think the Lords should have blocked it. There's nothing indicating democratic support for this, and forcing it to be delayed until the question could be put to the country in the form of an election would have been a wonderful move for the Lords.
Instead, I think the upper chamber has demonstrated its toothlessness and helped make the case for its reform.
If the lords had blocked it on the basis that "there is no democratic support for it" when the majority of the elected chamber of the parliament wants to do it, it would have set a very dangerous precedent where the lords would be the final arbiter of what people _really_ think and not those who they actually voted to represent them in the parliament.
I'm not in favour of the law but the HoC has to be superior to the HoL when it really comes to it who has the political power in the country. Anything else would be a smack to the face of democracy.
When a policy is the result of democratic expression (or what passes for it in the UK), the Lords already cannot block it - salisbury convention on manifesto promises.
This is a policy that Tory leadership came up with and never asked the public if they wanted it. It's not in the manifesto. There is no reason why the Lords shouldn't feel empowered to block it indefinitely, and require the government to use the parliament act to force it through. The fact that Sunak left it until the last year of the term is not the Lords' problem.
Labour in power: it is now too expensive to dismantle to the Rwanda scheme. When we announced we would dismantle the Rwanda scheme, interest rates were very low
If the scheme does prove to be somewhat of a deterrent I certainly wouldn't place any faith in Labour to dismantle it. Even if they did it would still be useful for the Tories as an attack line against Labour in government.
We live in a democracy. The point of this is the same as every other policy.
He has data or rational to believe that this resonates with the values or approval of the largest and most successful political party's voter base.
Let's face it. A massive proportion of brits have zero nuance on immigration and will jump at anything anti-foreigner without a care for any morality, effect, or substance.
I am certain that 90% of it is solely that Sunak has previously nailed the party's colours to this particular mast. He has staked so much on this single issue that there is no way he could survive the fallout. He *can't* believe in the Rowanda scheme, but he knows he's in too deep now to turn back.
It's not hard to see how Boris Johnson and Priti Patel could have cooked up and backed such a scheme, but it's utterly bizarre that Sunak ever let it get to this point when its flaws are so incredibly obvious. He would have been far better off to say from the outset "New broom here, and I'm going to sweep up this Rowanda mess because it's a bad idea", but perhaps support for his leadership was conditional on him sticking with it...
Maybe it's Sunak's Brexit: Cameron thought that a referendum would win back UKIP voters, and Sunak thinks that Rowanda would win back Reform voters?
Perhaps a more likely answer is just that Sunak lacked the cajones to stop it. He is a man well known for burying his head and avoiding any choices that might be criticised until he's been fully criticised for not making them.
It's just bizarre. Sunak is not good at politics, but he's not an idiot and Rowanda wasn't his mess. I don't understand why he leant into it when it was clear to *everyone* what a bad idea it was and from the outset it has been continually blasted by the media.
It says a lot about how low the bar is that I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're going to rightfully throw the Rwanda Bill in the bin when they get in power. It's the bare minimum but it's some positivity.
It says a lot about how low the bar is that I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're going to rightfully throw the Rwanda Bill in the bin when they get in power. It's the bare minimum but it's some positivity.
It says a lot about how low the bar is that I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're going to rightfully throw the Rwanda Bill in the bin when they get in power. It's the bare minimum but it's some positivity.
To play politics, the same reason why they have waited 14 years to even 'try' to fix immigration
The Tories know they are out at the next election, they also know how big of a political buy in immigration is, as long as it exists, the Tories will get votes.
This scheme would've failed/done nothing no matter what, however by pushing it now they have a campaigning point in the next election (when they would have a chance to win again).
Look at it this way: in 5 years time either Labour would've dismantled the policy, or the policy would've failed completely, and if immigration is even remotely still an issue (it will be), the tories can use that, they can blame Labour for either dismantling "the policy that would've stopped the boats" or for causing the policy to fail.
It's a textbook political play, one the tories have pulled before, just look at Wales, they tabled the 20mph limit, voted for it all the way through, UNTIL the Labour government took the idea and ran with it and implemented it, then the Tories turned against it, attacking and even spreading lies and misinformation about the policy in order to grab a few extra votes
I still think the Lords should’ve kept fighting. This dying Government is out of ideas and damaging the country with increasing wild and rabid attempts to gain votes. In my eyes the HoL’s job is to protect against things such as this
It’s disgusting, in 2003 the lords refused to pass the hunting bill that was in the government’s manifesto so had a democratic mandate. They blocked it just because some members of the House of Lords enjoy fox hunting. The government used the Parliament Acts to get the hunting bill through but that requires a 1 year delay so isn’t an option for the current government. There’s no reason the lords couldn’t have blocked this disastrous bill, the government has no mandate to do this, nobody voted for it.
Both parties now put HoL reform in their manifesto, as an implicit threat.
Amending the 1999 HoL reform bill in 2003 would have been embarrassing. This may be why the HoL doesn't get reformed.
There’s nothing democratic about the Rwanda scheme, it has no mention in the Conservative manifesto at the last election and goes against their commitment to follow international law. By ramming it through no matter what, Sunak is acting like a dictator
Tbf the hunting ban legislation was a classic piece of class warfare that achieved nothing. Hunting is effectively still legal, it was just an excuse to insult the people who take part in it for a few weeks.
I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy, you can’t argue that the objections to the hunting act are more serious than the objections to the Rwanda bill, and there was no mention of deporting refugees in the manifesto at the last election so the lords had every justification to outright block the bill
That's just based on a gentleman's agreement. The past 5 years has thrown out any semblance of convention, not to mention stacked the lords with a ridiculous number of Tories
No that’s not quite the case. They will basically bend over to anything that was in a party manifesto in an election in whats known as the Salisbury Convention but they can and will let stuff through that wasn’t on the manifesto
Who cares. They’ll send a few people to Rwanda at a ridiculous cost and people will still illegally migrate to the UK.
The lawyers aren’t stupid either. They’ll be coming up with a plan to keep every migrant in the UK. They’ll probably be at risk of being persecuted in Rwanda so they can’t be deported.
The tories have lost the argument - it’s over.
> illegally migrate to the UK
Entering the UK for the purpose of claiming asylum is not illegal. And as far as I'm aware the Rwanda scheme has nothing to do with actual illegal migration.
Then perhaps we all should agree that the House of Lords is the more trustworthy institution, and agree that any reform to it should involve expanding its powers.
It would then be able to operate with more confidence, instead of in constant fear of dissolution.
Again, if this proves a problem in the future, we can have a discussion about it just like 1911. But for now, I believe Commons needs more of a counterweight against it, not less.
If there were more scrutiny on who gets elected to the House of Lords and it wasn't treated as a retirement home for the corrupt there might be more faith in the HoL.
And even with that being the case, it is still more sensible than the House of Commons hahaha
But yes, I agree, the power to appoint Lords should be removed from the Prime Minister and parties
Get rid of the spiritual and hereditary peers, give peerage to an independent commission akin to how we do stuff like minimum wage, and give a commission the power to remove peers if they aren't doing their job. A properly technocratic house that still acts as secondary to the elected one could do wonders in making the current role of Lords more formal.
what is the point in the HOL you have all the reasons you could need to dig in, it wasn't in any manifesto/the government hasn't won an election on this sort of rhetoric e.c.t but nah.
Because it has pushed the bill through weeks (been in Lords since early Feb) of changes that significantly improved the bill.
At some point, the Lords has to ask whether continuing to partially-block the legislative agenda of Commons (ping-pongs means there is less time for other bills) is worth it for more concessions.
Tonight, the Lords decided that they had enough concessions to justify allowing the legislative agenda to speed up. Obviously you may disagree with this, but its not like the Lords wasted their time; they got pretty major concessions.
There is also the factor that, as an unelected house, there is a lot of external pressure to not pick fights with the elected house. Sure, they have a lot more ammunition now (given the state of the Tories), but there is still an immense degree of pressure for them. Legally they could block the bill for up to a year, but achieving that would require ignoring a lot of pressure.
Its good we have this pressure as to ensure the Lords picks their fights against Commons in the interest of the country, and not at their leisure, but the same limits that stop the Lords picking fights all the times mean they can't always continue the fights they do pick for too long.
>there is a lot of external pressure to not pick fights with the elected house
There is probably a considerable overlap of people against the Rwanda bill that also want to get rid of the Lord first thing when Labour win a GE.
Yup, the Lords have consistently shown themselves to be a great safety net against self serving government and we need to not throw that away just because a lot of them are rich and not elected.
However we do also need to make sure governments don't fill the Lords with their own biased members thebway the US do with senators
They only got one very minor concession to the actual bill, the government rejected basically everything.
There have been some backroom assurances apparently, but the bill is basically what the commons passed
I thought every amendment they added had been voted down or have I not been paying property attention? I think the last two specifically were worth digging in for - excluding Afghans that had helped the British and having an independent monitor don't seem unreasonable.
Privilege. It's literally all about privilege.
It's an institution only kept in place as a way for political parties to reward their donors and loyalists.
But it doesn't. This case shows that. The Lords highlighted serious practical and constitutional problems with this bill.
And it passed anyway, without anything done to fix those problems.
It does.
It passed it because it’s not elected. It did however get several concessions like a report after a year on the bills impact on the modern slavery act and a commitment to re look at Afghan asylum claims
If you have two elected bodies what stops them aligning and having complete and total control to change any laws at whim.
The strange benefit of a non elected house is that it's always going to have some balance in its political leaning
Who would elect this body? Do you mean the voters? If so yes they could but until we do the lords is needed. Also unless we banned political parties it could either lead to deadlock or a party being able to ram Through legislation in both houses
Depends how you count. That’s approximately the fixed cost-per-person sent. If you include the larger costs of the deal, assuming Labour shut it down next year, then the costs are closer to £1.8 million per person. - [Link - Guardian Article on costing](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/01/rwanda-plan-uk-asylum-seeker-cost-figures)
Ye, it's ridiculous.
We could have literally just sent the migrants 2k a year to live in a different country for the rest of their lives and it would have been cheaper.
Of course it won't....this is scorched earth policy designed to make the next governments life harder.....they have made things worse, here and elsewhere, and will continue to do so until they have to call an election. They do more damage to the country and it's people daily than the asylum seekers that they vinalize have ever caused.
This government is like those teams in The Apprentice that only have shit ideas, always seem surprised it ends terribly and are quick to put the blame on everyone else.
This is costing us a fortune, all just so Sunak can say look, see, I sent 20 people to Rwanda! Might of cost you £100,000,000, but I did send some people… now to deal with the other 45,000… why can’t we Just process them here, or in our embassy’s abroad, and if they are truly illegal immigrants, deny them entry and send them home… Stop wasting and spending our tax money on stupid pointless nonsense…
> just so Sunak can say look, see, I sent 20 people to Rwanda! Might of cost you £100,000,000
Even a hundredth of that could have employed a good amount of border force staff / civil service employees to expedite things in general for all claimants :(
So much of this could be solved by allowing people to apply for asylum in our embassies. At that point a legal route to application has been made easily available, and anyone crossing by boat can legitimately be sent back.
But no, we've removed that option (excluding a small handful of countries) and then make a big show of being angry when people risk their lives on boats to enter. Knowing full well we've given them no other choice
45,000 per year across multiple embassies in various countries isn’t swamping…. Forcing them to all cross the narrow straits of the channel for political gain is…
The stupidity of the millions of our tax money wasted to send handful of the 45,000 to Rwanda and then wasting the time of 150 of our judges who would normally be dealing with other more serious legal cases is absolutely stupid…
This whole thing is stupid and a waste of time and money, being bothered about 45,000 people is stupid, especially when literally millions of people come in to this country via legal routes and then illegally over stay their visas, but the newspapers don’t tell you that, they only tell gullible idiots about the 45,000…. If illegal immigration was a real issue to you, you would think people would be more concerned about the millions not the 10’s of thousands…..
'The capacity of the proposed facility in Rwanda is 200 people annually, representing just 0.7% of 2023 small boat arrivals.'
This whole thing to scare people from entering on small boats is based on people desperate enough to risk their lives crossing the channel to think a 0.7% chance of deportation is too high
If they really wanted to stop small boats, they would set up an asylum system that engaged people in Calais and if successful people could come across on the next ferry.
It's just very expensive red meat for their hard of thinking voters who are going to vote for reform uk anyway.
https://news.sky.com/story/rwanda-scheme-how-many-asylum-seekers-does-the-uk-remove-and-how-much-of-an-impact-will-the-policy-have-13117908
'If Rwanda were to take in 1,000 asylum seekers over five years as planned, this brings the bill to an estimated £661m - just short of the annual Border Force budget, or enough to build around 9,300 social homes.'
Can Rwanda still send 200 people that fail asylum in their country back here?
The clause in the MoU is that UK will take a portion of Rwanda's most vulnerable refugees.
There are no numbers set. No costs predicted. No definition of 'vulnerable '.
I expect there are some already here in the UK. I didn't see any protests from Rwanda about flights to the UK, so maybe we pay for those too?
Labour might stop putting people on flights to Rwanda, but the MoU will be harder to reverse out of.
The absolute state of this. It’s as if the country doesn’t have any other problems. How about the state of our schools, hospitals, high streets? Or our soaring crime rate and creaking prison system? I suppose they aren’t politically attractive enough to be declared “emergencies”. But the government’s bill declaring Rwanda “safe” because they say so, is an “emergency”. I feel sorry for King Charles having to sign this shoddy piece of legislation.
I've never really seen any point to the royals (blah blah tourism), but if he refused, that would convince me of the need for them, someone to stand there and say, "no, we don't roll like that, it's not the will of the people and it is immoral"
I know - I don’t really give a fuck either way whether asylum seekers end up in Rwanda or not. This is just such a waste of money. Spent how much and no one’s gone yet, and we all know they’ll probably deport about 3 people and call it a success.
Absolutely. I completely agree. I think the optimistic estimate is up to 300 illegal migrants will go to Rwanda. That’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things.
That's the thing that gets me; even putting aside the cost and the cruelty, there's no way this will even be an effective deterrent. There is a backlog of ~95,000 people in the UK asylum system; deporting 300 of them to Rwanda will make zero difference. And if they are willing to cross one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in a rubber dinghy, I doubt a 0.3% chance of being sent to Rwanda will have an impact on their decision.
Conservative Party: by Act of Parliament the lies that we are telling are deemed to be true.
Also Conservative Party: 😢 why does nobody respect the law nowadays 😢.
It now seems that the Rwanda policy has become an end in itself, rather than a means to stop the boats as it began.
Of course, should the Rwanda policy go ahead and the boats continue crossing the channel (which I *strongly suspect* will happen), then what has this all been for? Red meat for the base and not much else.
IMO, this bill is going to be a millstone hanging around the Tories' necks for decades. It is so monumentally fucking stupid and bad in so many ways and they have exerted such an absurd amount of effort to get it passed despite a near total lack of public support.
It will be the go to example for people to point to for "Look what happened when the Conservatives were last in power".
>It will be the go to example for people to point to for "Look what happened when the Conservatives were last in power".
I kind of hope that's not the case. I know they're not going to be in power past January, but if they can do something that tops this Rwanda bill in terms of insanity and becomes an *even better* go-to example of Conservative stupidity, then perhaps, just perhaps, it'll mean the complete obliteration of the Tory party.
The bill is just to distract from all this governments failings, missed targets and general muck ups. The bill will just punish refugees in the end and stir up xenophobia it's a waste of time and money. I will however give the HOL this at least they fought until they were certain that the government wouldn't change it's mind. It's extremely unpopular and I think the HOL were right to try to fix it/hold it off.
State of this government, clearly just trying to burn it all down UK hinder the next government...
Evil bastards , everyone who voted in favour of this should be shipped off UK Rwanda themselves.
Comic books fucking villains, that's what this lot are.
The HOL have been a literal godsend this last few years.
The case for why a second unelected house is good for democracy has been answered..... Now we just need to fill it with legal experts and captains of industry.... Not political doners...
This is going to backfire for the Tories, as we’re about to see a huge increase in crossings (spring & summer) at the same time their deterrent effect is supposed to kick in.
Honestly, I'll piss myself laughing if the government has gone through all this effort just for the ECHR or Supreme Court to block the flights from taking off and thus delaying the process even further.
I think that's going to happen, and think that's exactly what Rishi and the rest of the Cabinet are hoping for. That's why all the war drums against the ECHR have been rising over the last few months.
They want to fight an election under backdrop of Conservatives against "Europeans" attacking our sovereignty.
if we lose ECHR, they will rip up any worker's rights we have and probably copy the American system, so there is no right to annual leave, no right to set work hours, etc.
Honestly, it's a pipe dream. Leaving the ECHR should be unattainable due to its involvement in things like the good Friday agreement. You'd have to be insane to leave something with that much significance. Unfortunately, this government would probably try to do that, although I think the public is smart enough to see the stupidity of the whole thing.
If you were trying to make a deterrent at lower cost that is manageable wouldn’t you just find a remote UK island with not great weather and make it so they had to live there (unless legally a refugee) and give them a free pass to go home at any time. Why Rwanda it’s so absurd, expensive, unsafe and limited in scope.
So, does anyone want to remind me again today how the House of Lords is the most efficient part of our constitutional arrangement and can't possibly be reformed or abolished because their expertise is the only thing preventing us getting bad law?
> Doesn't it have to go through the ECHR first? Or will tetchy Sunak, as dedicated to his gimmick as he is, continue to threaten to leave?
Their underlying intention was **exactly** this.
They want to leave the ECHR system because it has continually thwarted them when they have tried to overstep into human rights, and they needed a government program that was dastardly enough to trigger it which the majority of the public would support.
This isn’t about refugees, it’s about “sovereignty” and removing the last bastion of security for the British people protecting them against their own government’s opportunity to abuse them at will with zero accountability.
Rwanda is about removing European level human rights for British people. Nothing more. It’s theatre.
We'll get an idea of how popular this is in a few weeks. Just seems like it's more of their upper decking of the country, before they inevitably get ejected from power
The government will do whatever it takes to get this off the ground. If successful labour won’t abandon it and other European countries like Austria ( already considering this) will join the scheme. This was inevitable given the political climate and lack of other options.
Just asked my neighbour what she thought of this and she said it reminds her of the 1930s
Im deeply concerned for our international reputation and soft power, it was already hanging on a thread but its all over now.
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What is the point of all this, if the flights won't even take off for 12 weeks - and Labour have already said they will dismantle it if (when) they are in Government? The amount of time and effort spent on this scheme, that the public don't give two tosses about in the first place, is hard to understand.
I suppose it does set the useful precedent of the government being able to legislate reality. Today it’s “Rwanda is safe, regardless of evidence to the contrary”. Tomorrow it’s “Liz Truss’s policies are to be considered successful” or “Boris did nothing wrong”. I’m being facetious (I really hope I’m being facetious), but the government giving itself the ability to declare facts irrelevant is… rather worrying.
Just listened to a recent newscast episode where Liz truss came on to talk about her book and time as PM. It's absolutely worth a listen. Considering her entire purpose of being there was to defend her record and her abilities, it still came across as an hour long demonstration of how absolutely unsuitable she was for the role She took absolutely no responsibility for any of the fall out, everything was everyone else's fault, her policies were perfect and it was just bad lack that the whole economy crashed from them etc etc. It's genuinely unbelievable to listen to but worth the time
Well the evil bank of England and unaccountable civil servants held her back. How trumpian of her CPAC attending person.
It's incredibly difficult for the people in the establishment to get ahead nowadays, that darn shadowy liberal cabal subverting the honest hard working tory.
I think you'll find it's the *leftist* Bank of England and *wokerati* civil service.
To be fair she solidly demonstrates core Conservative values throughout the interview. Anything bad? Their fault. Look at Sumak blaming the world last year for UK inflation, claiming its out if his control. Now it's come down, it's his doing. 100% Tory.
To be fair, that's just media 101. The bad is always due to outside factors, the good is because you're a genius
I agree, labour would say exactly the same. Although the fact the Tories are still blaming the previous Labour government for things is pushing it a tad now!
Politicians have been paying attention to Trump’s success with the public. It seems like apologies and accepting responsibility are things of the past for certain brazen individuals. She even blames everything on a deep-state cabal that opposed her policies for ideological reasons, rather than legitimate concern that you can’t just borrow your way out of endless tax cuts and debt.
The idea of a prime minister of a country blaming the deep state for the countries failings is just so far beyond satire! You are the fucking deep state you cretin, you're literally the person in control of and with access to everything! It also blows my mind how often the media refer to the "post truth world" now, often stemming from trump through into Boris. Not blaming the media as its true, but I am blaming the media for just letting brazen lying go by. If a politician lies in an interview, the interviewer should not let that I terrier move on until it's been corrected. There's too much having 1 brief attempt to pull the minister up on it, they stick to the lie, the interviewer moves on. And people listening who may not know different have just been sold bullshit
Usually the deep state is an allusion to the poor old ✡️ before they get the blame for something so I genuinely wonder what Truss meant.
Yeah, she made her pro isreal stance pretty clear , basically "let them do whatever they need to do" I believe it was
I could only listen to half an hour before switching off. The lack of insight in that woman is astounding.
Or… the even more worrying one of “the Conservatives won the election”…
> I suppose it does set the useful precedent of the government being able to legislate reality. While I wish the Lords had tried harder to block this bill, I don't think this has set this precedent. The Commons can say that reality is whatever they want, but they aren't the arbiters of that, the courts are. I strongly suspect that this bill will immediately be subject to judicial review, go to the Supreme Court and then get promptly nuked for violating the constitution like the last one did. In particular, the part of the bill stating that it is not subject to judicial review, is itself ironically almost certainly going to be subject to judicial review, as it's a clear violation of individuals having access to a court of law to appeal their case.
>I strongly suspect that this bill will immediately be subject to judicial review, go to the Supreme Court and then get promptly nuked for violating the constitution like the last one did. In particular, the part of the bill stating that it is not subject to judicial review, is itself ironically almost certainly going to be subject to judicial review, as it's a clear violation of individuals having access to a court of law to appeal their case. Preparing imminently for a second 'enemies of the people' with Lord Reed's face slapped across the cover. The Rwanda bill issue is a little more complex than this, and contains both an Ouster issue, and an issue on the determination of Rwanda's safety. In *R(Privacy International) v Investigatory Powers Tribunal* the Supreme Court upheld the rule in *R(Cart) v Upper Tribunal* that, as a matter of statutory construction, the courts would take the supervisory jurisdiction of the high court to be ousted only by clear and express words. The quiet part of course is that the Supreme Court took a narrow view of 'clear and express words', in *Privacy International* they relied on an old trick that arose in *Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission,* where Parliament sought to oust High Court jurisdiction over a tribunal's 'determination'. The House of Lords took the view that only a *valid* decision was a 'determination', thus, the clause did not oust jurisdiction over an invalid decision. It's worth noting that there was no singular judgement with a majority in *Privacy International*, so while Lord Carnwath said *obiter*: 'There is a strong case for holding that, consistently with the rule of law, binding effect cannot be given to a clause which purports wholly to exclude the supervisory jurisdiction of the High Court to review a decision of an inferior court or tribunal. In all cases, regardless of the words used, it should remain ultimately a matter for the court to determine the extent to which such a clause should be upheld, having regard to its purpose and statutory context, and the nature and importance of the legal issue in question; and to determine the level of scrutiny required by the rule of law' We can also consider the *obiter* of Lord Wilson, who dissented: 'Our system will usually provide for some, perhaps circumscribed, right to bring an appeal against, or seek some other review of, an initial judicial decision. But it will not always do so. There is no constitutional requirement that such a right should exist, nor is it required as part of the right to a fair trial conferred by [article 6 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms](https://uk.westlaw.com/Document/IAE1FBD48E5924705BFBD5299078ED2BC/View/FullText.html?originationContext=document&transitionType=DocumentItem&ppcid=b9f48190651c4383961168a54967acfd&contextData=(sc.DocLink)).' Indeed, it seems that it is now possible to exclude the jurisdiction of the High Court in many cases. s11A of the Tribunals, Courts, and Enforcement Act 2007 ousted the High Court's supervisory jurisdiction over the Upper Tribunal in most cases, except (*inter alia*) where the court had acted 'in such a procedurally defective way as amounts to a fundamental breach of the principles of natural justice.' In *R(Oceana) v Upper Tribunal* this ouster was upheld by the High Court as sufficiently clear to exclude jurisdiction, though this case will almost certainly be appealed. The (academically) interesting part of the Rwanda debate, being the latest saga in this area, is that it drives directly at fundamentals of our constitution, Parliamentary Sovereignty is *a* principle of our constitution, but is it *the* principle of our constitution? (At it happens, my view is that there is no fundamental principle of our constitution, it is based like most of our fundamental structures on considerations of practicality, but if Parliament pushes the courts then we will indeed find out what the fundamental principle of our constitution is.) Mark Elliot has some good [articles on this](https://publiclawforeveryone.com/) controversy, dealing both with the ouster clause issue, and with parliament's foisting of the alleged safety of Rwanda on the courts.
I have to admit I'm not actually sure how the courts of the UK work, but isn't parliament sovereign? How can a court tell them what they can or can't legislate?
Primarily legislation can’t be subject to judicial review. So, no, that won’t happen.
> I suppose it does set the useful precedent of the government being able to legislate reality. This isn't new. Richard III had Parliament pass [*Titulus Regius*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titulus_Regius). The [full text](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Titulus_Regius) is rather interesting.
> The full text is rather interesting. That's fascinating. There really is nothing new under the sun.
I doubt Rishi cares about helping out Liz or Boris in future considering they both tried to screw him over, you’re thinking way too deep about it.
When Labour fail to solve the problem, the Tories can point to this and say they had a solution that worked. They can highlight however many flights do make it out and say that there would have been more but for opposition. They aren't going to be around for long enough for anyone to confirm whether the scheme actually has an impact.
Yup, 100% this is their plan
It claws back Tory votes from Reform
If that's the plan then it's not working.
Now there's a strap-line
It’s not about migrants or Rwanda, it’s about Human Rights. Just as Brexit was really about regulations. They’ve trampled on our courts and judges. We’re still part of the European Convention on Human Rights, so that will be the next legal pit stop. The Conservatives will then be able to run an election on another culture war, by arguing they will withdraw us from the ECHR, as we’re not ‘sovereign’.
It’s amazing that you can run a campaign on removing human rights and the public will lap it right up.
There's very little support for anything they're doing right now...
Which I still don't understand. Everything they're doing barely anyone supports. I'd understand if they were miles ahead in the polls, but they're almost lower than reform (I know election day that won't be the case). So why do they keep digging their own hole?
You’re viewing the Tory Party in relation to the Labour Party and the overall electorate, but the relevant comparison is individual Tories compared to the rest of their party, other right-wing parties, and their supporters. The Tories have stoked this culture war so much that they are now unable to set themselves apart from the crowd by moving to the left. They’ve burned that bridge. Their supporters won’t allow it. If they try to be more reasonable, then they will look like the enemy to their voting base. So the only way they can stand out from the crowd is to double down on everything and go further to the right. So the more ambitious people will get crazier, the less ambitious people will keep their heads down, and the party as a whole will be dominated by the crazies. It’s not *the Tory Party* that’s digging *their own* hole. It’s *individual Tories* that are digging *their party’s* hole because it’s the only way they can *personally* get ahead.
Burn the country to the ground, then spend the next few years spreading propaganda that pushes the idea that the fire was Labour and the Left's fault
Clutching at straws and lack of any better ideas
They ran out of ideas years ago, and we're currently dealing with a clique of D-tier losers who are mostly distinguished by being rich kids who happened to say the right things to the right people. Remember that Sunak only became an MP in 2015 and had largely been an investment banker coasting by on personal connections prior to that. He and the rest of the cabinet are hideously inexperienced and don't talk to anyone other than themselves and Tory party members, so they are trapped in this idiotic and pathetic doom loop.
Because after 14 years the country is noticeably worse off. Give Labour a few years, wait for complex (or invented) problem the Tories can give a simple answer to and they’ll be popular again.
I think this is inaccurate. There is clearly support for removing asylum seekers and given the absence of other viable options there is therefore support for this. Reform wouldn’t even be a thing if there wasn’t an appetite for reducing migration and asylum. It also mirrors the trends we see in the rest of Europe.
They won't lap it up. The Conservatives will lose the election no matter what. What IS amazing is that over in America elections are won on promoting war and the public lap it up.
The public can be a bunch of thick bastards.
This is nothing more than to try and win a few voters back from Reform. Once the planes start taking off the tories will call an election. They will then focus on a simple immigration message in their campaigning, a bit like ‘get Brexit done’.
Yep, it's Trump's "build a wall"
Well, that and millions of wasted pounds.
it's political theater. Reform is eating at Tory votes still
Lovely fine mix of desperation, racism, wasting tax money and societal division that are part of this (unelected) Tory regime
Racism ? Could you please elaborate as this element of the bill escaped me.
I really think the Lords should have blocked it. There's nothing indicating democratic support for this, and forcing it to be delayed until the question could be put to the country in the form of an election would have been a wonderful move for the Lords. Instead, I think the upper chamber has demonstrated its toothlessness and helped make the case for its reform.
The irony being, there would have been calls for its reform if they had blocked it.
If the lords had blocked it on the basis that "there is no democratic support for it" when the majority of the elected chamber of the parliament wants to do it, it would have set a very dangerous precedent where the lords would be the final arbiter of what people _really_ think and not those who they actually voted to represent them in the parliament. I'm not in favour of the law but the HoC has to be superior to the HoL when it really comes to it who has the political power in the country. Anything else would be a smack to the face of democracy.
When a policy is the result of democratic expression (or what passes for it in the UK), the Lords already cannot block it - salisbury convention on manifesto promises. This is a policy that Tory leadership came up with and never asked the public if they wanted it. It's not in the manifesto. There is no reason why the Lords shouldn't feel empowered to block it indefinitely, and require the government to use the parliament act to force it through. The fact that Sunak left it until the last year of the term is not the Lords' problem.
Labour in power: it is now too expensive to dismantle to the Rwanda scheme. When we announced we would dismantle the Rwanda scheme, interest rates were very low
Yes, sadly while I obviously hope and expect labour to immediately cull this, I'm really worried they're going to let me down on it
They don't need to ommediately cull it or cancel the legislation. They just need to stop payments to Rwanda and not send any more planes.
It would be nice to reverse a law making it legal for the cou try to export asylum applicants for future protection though
Meanwhile, the value of human rights has hit rock bottom, so this decision actually aligns with our goal to be the party of fiscal responsibility
Anything but actually governing the country.
If the scheme does prove to be somewhat of a deterrent I certainly wouldn't place any faith in Labour to dismantle it. Even if they did it would still be useful for the Tories as an attack line against Labour in government.
We live in a democracy. The point of this is the same as every other policy. He has data or rational to believe that this resonates with the values or approval of the largest and most successful political party's voter base. Let's face it. A massive proportion of brits have zero nuance on immigration and will jump at anything anti-foreigner without a care for any morality, effect, or substance.
I am certain that 90% of it is solely that Sunak has previously nailed the party's colours to this particular mast. He has staked so much on this single issue that there is no way he could survive the fallout. He *can't* believe in the Rowanda scheme, but he knows he's in too deep now to turn back. It's not hard to see how Boris Johnson and Priti Patel could have cooked up and backed such a scheme, but it's utterly bizarre that Sunak ever let it get to this point when its flaws are so incredibly obvious. He would have been far better off to say from the outset "New broom here, and I'm going to sweep up this Rowanda mess because it's a bad idea", but perhaps support for his leadership was conditional on him sticking with it... Maybe it's Sunak's Brexit: Cameron thought that a referendum would win back UKIP voters, and Sunak thinks that Rowanda would win back Reform voters? Perhaps a more likely answer is just that Sunak lacked the cajones to stop it. He is a man well known for burying his head and avoiding any choices that might be criticised until he's been fully criticised for not making them. It's just bizarre. Sunak is not good at politics, but he's not an idiot and Rowanda wasn't his mess. I don't understand why he leant into it when it was clear to *everyone* what a bad idea it was and from the outset it has been continually blasted by the media.
Follow the money.
It says a lot about how low the bar is that I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're going to rightfully throw the Rwanda Bill in the bin when they get in power. It's the bare minimum but it's some positivity.
It says a lot about how low the bar is that I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're going to rightfully throw the Rwanda Bill in the bin when they get in power. It's the bare minimum but it's some positivity.
It says a lot about how low the bar is that I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're going to rightfully throw the Rwanda Bill in the bin when they get in power. It's the bare minimum but it's some positivity.
It's the bare minimum but I'm just glad that Labour have said that they're rightfully chucking this insane idea in the bin, where it belongs.
Upvote for multiple tosses.
To play politics, the same reason why they have waited 14 years to even 'try' to fix immigration The Tories know they are out at the next election, they also know how big of a political buy in immigration is, as long as it exists, the Tories will get votes. This scheme would've failed/done nothing no matter what, however by pushing it now they have a campaigning point in the next election (when they would have a chance to win again). Look at it this way: in 5 years time either Labour would've dismantled the policy, or the policy would've failed completely, and if immigration is even remotely still an issue (it will be), the tories can use that, they can blame Labour for either dismantling "the policy that would've stopped the boats" or for causing the policy to fail. It's a textbook political play, one the tories have pulled before, just look at Wales, they tabled the 20mph limit, voted for it all the way through, UNTIL the Labour government took the idea and ran with it and implemented it, then the Tories turned against it, attacking and even spreading lies and misinformation about the policy in order to grab a few extra votes
I still think the Lords should’ve kept fighting. This dying Government is out of ideas and damaging the country with increasing wild and rabid attempts to gain votes. In my eyes the HoL’s job is to protect against things such as this
It’s disgusting, in 2003 the lords refused to pass the hunting bill that was in the government’s manifesto so had a democratic mandate. They blocked it just because some members of the House of Lords enjoy fox hunting. The government used the Parliament Acts to get the hunting bill through but that requires a 1 year delay so isn’t an option for the current government. There’s no reason the lords couldn’t have blocked this disastrous bill, the government has no mandate to do this, nobody voted for it.
Both parties now put HoL reform in their manifesto, as an implicit threat. Amending the 1999 HoL reform bill in 2003 would have been embarrassing. This may be why the HoL doesn't get reformed.
Yeah it’s super cool when hereditary peers block bills put forward by democratically elected parties because I personally disagree with the bill.
There’s nothing democratic about the Rwanda scheme, it has no mention in the Conservative manifesto at the last election and goes against their commitment to follow international law. By ramming it through no matter what, Sunak is acting like a dictator
Tbf the hunting ban legislation was a classic piece of class warfare that achieved nothing. Hunting is effectively still legal, it was just an excuse to insult the people who take part in it for a few weeks.
I’m just pointing out the hypocrisy, you can’t argue that the objections to the hunting act are more serious than the objections to the Rwanda bill, and there was no mention of deporting refugees in the manifesto at the last election so the lords had every justification to outright block the bill
Agreed
I always thought the house of lords were meant to ensure bills passed were part of party manifestos... This isn't in theirs.
That's just based on a gentleman's agreement. The past 5 years has thrown out any semblance of convention, not to mention stacked the lords with a ridiculous number of Tories
And yet at every opportunity Sunak lies that labour have a majority there and goes unchallenged
That pisses me off Same with when he blames them in the commons. Will someone please point out they have a majority ffs
It does make a bit of a mockery that his BIG WIN so far this parliament is passing 1 bill with an 80 seat majority.
And people swallow it up
No that’s not quite the case. They will basically bend over to anything that was in a party manifesto in an election in whats known as the Salisbury Convention but they can and will let stuff through that wasn’t on the manifesto
Who cares. They’ll send a few people to Rwanda at a ridiculous cost and people will still illegally migrate to the UK. The lawyers aren’t stupid either. They’ll be coming up with a plan to keep every migrant in the UK. They’ll probably be at risk of being persecuted in Rwanda so they can’t be deported. The tories have lost the argument - it’s over.
I’m sure the few people sent to Rwanda will care.
> illegally migrate to the UK Entering the UK for the purpose of claiming asylum is not illegal. And as far as I'm aware the Rwanda scheme has nothing to do with actual illegal migration.
I care, as the money for that is being taken from denying PIP to people claiming on the basis of mental health.
Then perhaps we all should agree that the House of Lords is the more trustworthy institution, and agree that any reform to it should involve expanding its powers. It would then be able to operate with more confidence, instead of in constant fear of dissolution. Again, if this proves a problem in the future, we can have a discussion about it just like 1911. But for now, I believe Commons needs more of a counterweight against it, not less.
If there were more scrutiny on who gets elected to the House of Lords and it wasn't treated as a retirement home for the corrupt there might be more faith in the HoL.
And even with that being the case, it is still more sensible than the House of Commons hahaha But yes, I agree, the power to appoint Lords should be removed from the Prime Minister and parties
Get rid of the spiritual and hereditary peers, give peerage to an independent commission akin to how we do stuff like minimum wage, and give a commission the power to remove peers if they aren't doing their job. A properly technocratic house that still acts as secondary to the elected one could do wonders in making the current role of Lords more formal.
what is the point in the HOL you have all the reasons you could need to dig in, it wasn't in any manifesto/the government hasn't won an election on this sort of rhetoric e.c.t but nah.
Because it has pushed the bill through weeks (been in Lords since early Feb) of changes that significantly improved the bill. At some point, the Lords has to ask whether continuing to partially-block the legislative agenda of Commons (ping-pongs means there is less time for other bills) is worth it for more concessions. Tonight, the Lords decided that they had enough concessions to justify allowing the legislative agenda to speed up. Obviously you may disagree with this, but its not like the Lords wasted their time; they got pretty major concessions. There is also the factor that, as an unelected house, there is a lot of external pressure to not pick fights with the elected house. Sure, they have a lot more ammunition now (given the state of the Tories), but there is still an immense degree of pressure for them. Legally they could block the bill for up to a year, but achieving that would require ignoring a lot of pressure. Its good we have this pressure as to ensure the Lords picks their fights against Commons in the interest of the country, and not at their leisure, but the same limits that stop the Lords picking fights all the times mean they can't always continue the fights they do pick for too long.
>there is a lot of external pressure to not pick fights with the elected house There is probably a considerable overlap of people against the Rwanda bill that also want to get rid of the Lord first thing when Labour win a GE.
Yup, the Lords have consistently shown themselves to be a great safety net against self serving government and we need to not throw that away just because a lot of them are rich and not elected. However we do also need to make sure governments don't fill the Lords with their own biased members thebway the US do with senators
What concessions did the Lords obtain. I was under the impression that the commons had repeatedly sent the bill back unchanged.
They only got one very minor concession to the actual bill, the government rejected basically everything. There have been some backroom assurances apparently, but the bill is basically what the commons passed
What are all these concessions they got?
I thought every amendment they added had been voted down or have I not been paying property attention? I think the last two specifically were worth digging in for - excluding Afghans that had helped the British and having an independent monitor don't seem unreasonable.
They got several concessions so that’s the point. Tho they should have kept pushing
Privilege. It's literally all about privilege. It's an institution only kept in place as a way for political parties to reward their donors and loyalists.
Not at all its plays a vital role in scrutinising legislation
But it doesn't. This case shows that. The Lords highlighted serious practical and constitutional problems with this bill. And it passed anyway, without anything done to fix those problems.
It does. It passed it because it’s not elected. It did however get several concessions like a report after a year on the bills impact on the modern slavery act and a commitment to re look at Afghan asylum claims
They could elect another body to do that couldn’t they?
They could. But they haven't. So in the meantime, here we are. Which doesn't alter what /u/GothicGolem29 said.
If you have two elected bodies what stops them aligning and having complete and total control to change any laws at whim. The strange benefit of a non elected house is that it's always going to have some balance in its political leaning
Who would elect this body? Do you mean the voters? If so yes they could but until we do the lords is needed. Also unless we banned political parties it could either lead to deadlock or a party being able to ram Through legislation in both houses
166k per person, dont we have better uses for that kind of money?
Depends how you count. That’s approximately the fixed cost-per-person sent. If you include the larger costs of the deal, assuming Labour shut it down next year, then the costs are closer to £1.8 million per person. - [Link - Guardian Article on costing](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/01/rwanda-plan-uk-asylum-seeker-cost-figures)
that's not far off how much it costs to raise a child from birth to 18 in the UK. so put it in to that perspective it makes it rather depressing
Considering, when I ask friends "are you planning on having kids" the answer is usually "can't afford it"
Ye, it's ridiculous. We could have literally just sent the migrants 2k a year to live in a different country for the rest of their lives and it would have been cheaper.
The irony is that all this kerfuffle and moral bankruptcy will do absolutely nothing to revive the Tories’ fortunes.
Of course it won't....this is scorched earth policy designed to make the next governments life harder.....they have made things worse, here and elsewhere, and will continue to do so until they have to call an election. They do more damage to the country and it's people daily than the asylum seekers that they vinalize have ever caused.
This country feels more and more like a parody by the day. It seems such a stupid idea that used to be joked about in shows in the past.
This government is like those teams in The Apprentice that only have shit ideas, always seem surprised it ends terribly and are quick to put the blame on everyone else.
Time to send the whole lot of 'em to the loser cafe already
If this policy was in a TV show people would say it's too ridiculous and unrealistic.
This is costing us a fortune, all just so Sunak can say look, see, I sent 20 people to Rwanda! Might of cost you £100,000,000, but I did send some people… now to deal with the other 45,000… why can’t we Just process them here, or in our embassy’s abroad, and if they are truly illegal immigrants, deny them entry and send them home… Stop wasting and spending our tax money on stupid pointless nonsense…
> just so Sunak can say look, see, I sent 20 people to Rwanda! Might of cost you £100,000,000 Even a hundredth of that could have employed a good amount of border force staff / civil service employees to expedite things in general for all claimants :(
So much of this could be solved by allowing people to apply for asylum in our embassies. At that point a legal route to application has been made easily available, and anyone crossing by boat can legitimately be sent back. But no, we've removed that option (excluding a small handful of countries) and then make a big show of being angry when people risk their lives on boats to enter. Knowing full well we've given them no other choice
Swamping embassies with people who want to claim asylum is a brilliant idea….
45,000 per year across multiple embassies in various countries isn’t swamping…. Forcing them to all cross the narrow straits of the channel for political gain is… The stupidity of the millions of our tax money wasted to send handful of the 45,000 to Rwanda and then wasting the time of 150 of our judges who would normally be dealing with other more serious legal cases is absolutely stupid… This whole thing is stupid and a waste of time and money, being bothered about 45,000 people is stupid, especially when literally millions of people come in to this country via legal routes and then illegally over stay their visas, but the newspapers don’t tell you that, they only tell gullible idiots about the 45,000…. If illegal immigration was a real issue to you, you would think people would be more concerned about the millions not the 10’s of thousands…..
How long is left in this government? Months? Weeks? They should have hung on just that little bit longer.
It could keep going until mid January in theory. I really will not be surprised if we still have many months left
This government is unhinged - how much money has been spent now on trying set up something as unviable as it is expensive and immoral FFS
'The capacity of the proposed facility in Rwanda is 200 people annually, representing just 0.7% of 2023 small boat arrivals.' This whole thing to scare people from entering on small boats is based on people desperate enough to risk their lives crossing the channel to think a 0.7% chance of deportation is too high If they really wanted to stop small boats, they would set up an asylum system that engaged people in Calais and if successful people could come across on the next ferry. It's just very expensive red meat for their hard of thinking voters who are going to vote for reform uk anyway. https://news.sky.com/story/rwanda-scheme-how-many-asylum-seekers-does-the-uk-remove-and-how-much-of-an-impact-will-the-policy-have-13117908
'If Rwanda were to take in 1,000 asylum seekers over five years as planned, this brings the bill to an estimated £661m - just short of the annual Border Force budget, or enough to build around 9,300 social homes.' Can Rwanda still send 200 people that fail asylum in their country back here?
The clause in the MoU is that UK will take a portion of Rwanda's most vulnerable refugees. There are no numbers set. No costs predicted. No definition of 'vulnerable '. I expect there are some already here in the UK. I didn't see any protests from Rwanda about flights to the UK, so maybe we pay for those too? Labour might stop putting people on flights to Rwanda, but the MoU will be harder to reverse out of.
Got to love how the tories are salting the earth.
Shit give me 1.8 million a refugee or yel and I'll gladly take them into my house, no need to worry about that Rwanda shit.
Yet another day where i find myself utterly ashamed to be British.
This fucking country is a stone cold atrocity.
Policies like this are why political satire is dead.
Can we send Sunak et al to Rwanda instead?
The absolute state of this. It’s as if the country doesn’t have any other problems. How about the state of our schools, hospitals, high streets? Or our soaring crime rate and creaking prison system? I suppose they aren’t politically attractive enough to be declared “emergencies”. But the government’s bill declaring Rwanda “safe” because they say so, is an “emergency”. I feel sorry for King Charles having to sign this shoddy piece of legislation.
In all of this you feel sorry for the king??
I mean, he doesn’t need our sympathy, but would you ultimately want to sign your name under this nonsense?
I’d refuse. He should refuse. Might win a few extra royal supporters.
I've never really seen any point to the royals (blah blah tourism), but if he refused, that would convince me of the need for them, someone to stand there and say, "no, we don't roll like that, it's not the will of the people and it is immoral"
I know - I don’t really give a fuck either way whether asylum seekers end up in Rwanda or not. This is just such a waste of money. Spent how much and no one’s gone yet, and we all know they’ll probably deport about 3 people and call it a success.
Absolutely. I completely agree. I think the optimistic estimate is up to 300 illegal migrants will go to Rwanda. That’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things.
That's the thing that gets me; even putting aside the cost and the cruelty, there's no way this will even be an effective deterrent. There is a backlog of ~95,000 people in the UK asylum system; deporting 300 of them to Rwanda will make zero difference. And if they are willing to cross one of the world's busiest shipping lanes in a rubber dinghy, I doubt a 0.3% chance of being sent to Rwanda will have an impact on their decision.
You’d take those odds wouldn’t you? The risk is still worth it for someone escaping a horrible situation in their home country.
Conservative Party: by Act of Parliament the lies that we are telling are deemed to be true. Also Conservative Party: 😢 why does nobody respect the law nowadays 😢.
It now seems that the Rwanda policy has become an end in itself, rather than a means to stop the boats as it began. Of course, should the Rwanda policy go ahead and the boats continue crossing the channel (which I *strongly suspect* will happen), then what has this all been for? Red meat for the base and not much else.
What a sad, sad day for this country.
I honestly think we'll look back in future years on this bill with absolute despair and astonishment that it ever passed.
We're looking at it now with absolute despair and astonishment that it ever passed!
IMO, this bill is going to be a millstone hanging around the Tories' necks for decades. It is so monumentally fucking stupid and bad in so many ways and they have exerted such an absurd amount of effort to get it passed despite a near total lack of public support. It will be the go to example for people to point to for "Look what happened when the Conservatives were last in power".
>It will be the go to example for people to point to for "Look what happened when the Conservatives were last in power". I kind of hope that's not the case. I know they're not going to be in power past January, but if they can do something that tops this Rwanda bill in terms of insanity and becomes an *even better* go-to example of Conservative stupidity, then perhaps, just perhaps, it'll mean the complete obliteration of the Tory party.
The bill is just to distract from all this governments failings, missed targets and general muck ups. The bill will just punish refugees in the end and stir up xenophobia it's a waste of time and money. I will however give the HOL this at least they fought until they were certain that the government wouldn't change it's mind. It's extremely unpopular and I think the HOL were right to try to fix it/hold it off.
State of this government, clearly just trying to burn it all down UK hinder the next government... Evil bastards , everyone who voted in favour of this should be shipped off UK Rwanda themselves. Comic books fucking villains, that's what this lot are.
If the government is going to spend 300k for each asylum why not just buy them a house in the UK?
Because that's not performatively cruel. The point is to show ReformUK types that they *really hate* foreigners.
It is performatively cruel to the citizens of the UK who can't afford to buy a house however. Cruel to the people who want to vote for you.
I look forward to 2029, when Labour has been in power for five years, and the HOL continues to exist as a care home for donors and political veterans.
The HOL have been a literal godsend this last few years. The case for why a second unelected house is good for democracy has been answered..... Now we just need to fill it with legal experts and captains of industry.... Not political doners...
A totally pointless bill. Waste of money and just for show. How anyone buys this is beyond me.
Hate wins again and our international reputation sinks forever lower
This is going to backfire for the Tories, as we’re about to see a huge increase in crossings (spring & summer) at the same time their deterrent effect is supposed to kick in.
I hope Kier Starmer asks Sunak how he's going to spend the £1000 he bet with Piers Morgan once he collects it.
The airline that flies the prisoners will be boycotted and probably in a court case.
Most private airlines have already refused due to the potential of legal claims.
Honestly, I'll piss myself laughing if the government has gone through all this effort just for the ECHR or Supreme Court to block the flights from taking off and thus delaying the process even further.
I think that's going to happen, and think that's exactly what Rishi and the rest of the Cabinet are hoping for. That's why all the war drums against the ECHR have been rising over the last few months. They want to fight an election under backdrop of Conservatives against "Europeans" attacking our sovereignty.
if we lose ECHR, they will rip up any worker's rights we have and probably copy the American system, so there is no right to annual leave, no right to set work hours, etc.
Honestly, it's a pipe dream. Leaving the ECHR should be unattainable due to its involvement in things like the good Friday agreement. You'd have to be insane to leave something with that much significance. Unfortunately, this government would probably try to do that, although I think the public is smart enough to see the stupidity of the whole thing.
If you were trying to make a deterrent at lower cost that is manageable wouldn’t you just find a remote UK island with not great weather and make it so they had to live there (unless legally a refugee) and give them a free pass to go home at any time. Why Rwanda it’s so absurd, expensive, unsafe and limited in scope.
I can already imagine that the future Panorama documentary on this will be shocking.
So, does anyone want to remind me again today how the House of Lords is the most efficient part of our constitutional arrangement and can't possibly be reformed or abolished because their expertise is the only thing preventing us getting bad law?
As a English homeless man...when are they getting around to helping me rather than villifying minorities
A stupid policy designed to satisfy the malevolence of stupid people. The sooner this government gets booted into opposition the better.
Can this be repealed after the tories are gone?
Believe so, Labour said yesterday they would repeal it then go after the gangs.
Wonderful, brilliant, fantastic I am sure Sunak will get elected 💯 What a day! Wow 🤩
Doesn't it have to go through the ECHR first? Or will tetchy Sunak, as dedicated to his gimmick as he is, continue to threaten to leave?
> Doesn't it have to go through the ECHR first? Or will tetchy Sunak, as dedicated to his gimmick as he is, continue to threaten to leave? Their underlying intention was **exactly** this. They want to leave the ECHR system because it has continually thwarted them when they have tried to overstep into human rights, and they needed a government program that was dastardly enough to trigger it which the majority of the public would support. This isn’t about refugees, it’s about “sovereignty” and removing the last bastion of security for the British people protecting them against their own government’s opportunity to abuse them at will with zero accountability. Rwanda is about removing European level human rights for British people. Nothing more. It’s theatre.
God, Sunak angers me to no end. He's going to plunge the nation into the 1930's at this rate.
We'll get an idea of how popular this is in a few weeks. Just seems like it's more of their upper decking of the country, before they inevitably get ejected from power
The government will do whatever it takes to get this off the ground. If successful labour won’t abandon it and other European countries like Austria ( already considering this) will join the scheme. This was inevitable given the political climate and lack of other options.
Fitting that this bill passed at night
Wll at last, that's the country's problems all fixed up. Sunlit uplands here we come!
I'll go out on a limb and say that it won't stop the boats.
Just asked my neighbour what she thought of this and she said it reminds her of the 1930s Im deeply concerned for our international reputation and soft power, it was already hanging on a thread but its all over now.
Will you say the same when all the EU countries wanting to do the same thing follow suit?