The Irish Times view on the UK’s Rwanda bill: an inhumane and ineffective piece of legislation

It will be July before the British government can send even a trickle of asylum seekers to Rwanda. But the passage on Monday night of its Rwanda Bill, after repeated episodes of parliamentary ping pong between the Commons and the Lords, does not mean it will be easy even then. Lawyers have promised to fight every deportation in the courts and there are still serious doubts about whether the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will countenance the legislation which seeks to deny it a review role.

The British courts had on its behalf previously taken issue with the UK insistence that Rwanda is a “safe” destination for refugees, which the new bill “deems” to be the case. A British withdrawal from the court and the dismantling of its incorporation in British law, championed fervently by the Tory hard right, remains on the cards. That would seriously undermine the Belfast Agreement, whose rights provisions are copperfastened by the European court.

The Council of Europe’s human rights watchdog has condemned the bill, saying it raises “major issues about the human rights of asylum seekers and the rule of law”. Its practical impact on dissuading people from trying to cross the Channel to Britain is highly questionable – tragically, five more died attempting to do so hours after the bill was passed.

The difficult passage of the bill, whose purpose is primarily deterrence to people smuggling rather than being an effective means of reducing refugee numbers, was described by Home Secretary James Cleverly as a “landmark moment”. The Tories will represent it as a flagship “achievement” ahead of an election which may come as soon as the summer, but in reality it looks unlikely to achieve much, beyond garnering a few headlines.

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Evidence about the impact of the much-vaunted legislation, either through deterrence or the departure of a small number of initial flights to Rwanda , is in any case unlikely to be evident before the country votes.

The bill is inhumane and shows a Conservative government willing to override its own courts and to “disapply” international law.