Home secretary claims he does not remember if he made disparaging comments about the government’s Rwanda planIn his interviews this morning James Cleverly, the home secretary, also dismissed the debate within the Conservative party about whether the UK would need to withdraw from the European convention on human rights (ECHR) to implement the Rwanda policy as a distraction.Speaking on Times Radio, he said the government’s “preferred option” was to remain within the ECHR. He went on:This is a distracting conversation. I get it is of interest, legitimate interest, but the point I have made is I, the prime minister, the government, will not be distracted from focusing on what we have been told by the supreme court judges needs to be fixed in order to get this out of the way.I don’t believe [withdrawal from the ECHR] will be necessary. I believe that we can act in accordance with international law and we are very determined to do that.Let me tell everyone now – I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights.If the Strasbourg court chooses to intervene against the express wishes of parliament, I am prepared to do what necessary to get flights off.I have never heard of them trying to change the facts, by law. For as long as black isn’t white, the business of passing acts of parliament to say that it is profoundly discreditable.I have never heard of a situation in which parliament intervenes to declare the facts – the safety or unsafety of Rwanda – to change the facts from those which have been declared by the courts to be correct.The courts have perused hundreds of pages of documents to arrive at this conclusion. For parliament simply to say the facts are different would be constitutionally really quite extraordinary.Lawyers argue all the time, that’s literally what they do. I have very eminent lawyers who take a different view.We have been working with the Rwandans to beef up, to strengthen, to professionalise and enhance their professional institutions, we’ve been doing this throughout this last year.The supreme court is only able to look at the facts as presented to the appeal court, which was 15 months ago, and we have not wasted the intervening months. Continue reading…
Source link : https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2023/nov/16/james-cleverly-rwanda-policy-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live
Author : Andrew Sparrow
Publish date : 2023-11-16 11:18:24
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