Delivering a scathing speech, Baroness Chakrabarti said that the bill risks being ‘contrary to UK law’ and ‘risks breaching international law’.
A Labour Party peer has taken apart the government’s Rwanda Bill in under a minute, as Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy to stop small boat crossings suffered its first parliamentary defeat on Monday.
The House of Lords voted for a motion to delay ratification of the new Rwanda treaty until the government can show the country is safe.
Delivering a scathing speech, Baroness Chakrabarti said that the bill risks being ‘contrary to UK law’ and ‘risks breaching international law’.
Sunak has also faced opposition from within his own party over the proposed bill, with the Supreme Court ruling that the Rwanda policy was unlawful as it leaves people sent to Rwanda open to human rights breaches.
Determined to push ahead with the scheme, despite the ruling of the Supreme Court, Rishi Sunak has brought forward emergency legislation, the Safety of Rwanda Bill. It compels judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country and gives ministers the powers to disregard sections of the Human Rights Act.
Those on the left of his party are worried about the Bill’s disregard for domestic and international law, while those on the right, some of whom rebelled last week, say that the bill does not go far enough and are worried it could still be blocked by the courts.
Last week, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick tabled an amendment which would permit the UK government to ignore parts of human rights law in relation to sending people to Rwanda.
Speaking in the Lords, Chakrabarti took apart the bill in under a minute. She said: “Matters such as this, that were my Lords, not in anyone’s manifesto, that risk being contrary to the domestic rule of law, including by ousting the jurisdiction of the courts or indeed changing reality, as it has been found by the Supreme Court on the 15th November.
“A little muscular, in relation to matters that risk breaching international law, not found by a foreign court or even international court but by the highest court in our land, that risk breaching human rights that are baked into the hard won and precious Good Friday Agreement.. And all this in what may or may not be the last days of a government.”
Downing Street insists that flights to Rwanda will not be delayed by the Lords vote and had warned peers prior to the vote that a failure to pass the legislation would be an attack on the “will of the people”.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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