The UK Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the government’s scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was unlawful, dealing a massive blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s major election pledge on immigration before a vote expected next year.
The court unanimously rejected the govern-ment’s appeal against an earlier ruling that migrants could not be sent to Rwanda because it could not be considered a safe third country.
The Rwanda scheme is the central plank of Sunak’s immigration policy as he prepares to face an election next year, amid concern among some voters about the numbers of asylum seekers arriving in small boats on Britain’s shores.
Announcing the court’s decision, court Presi-dent Robert Reed said the five judges involved agreed there were “substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulement,” being sent back to their country of origin.—AFP
