The Safety of Rwanda Act: a pointless exercise in performative cruelty

Late on 22 April 2024 the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill cleared its final stages in the UK parliament.1 Its stated purpose is to enable the government to send migrants who have reached the UK to Rwanda. The bill was deemed necessary because the government’s previous attempts to send migrants to Rwanda were thwarted, firstly by a series of temporary blocks (Rule 39 orders) imposed by the European Court of Human Rights, and then by the UK Supreme Court.2 The Supreme Court ruled that the government had failed to show that refugees sent to Rwanda would be safe and would not be sent on to another country and that its plans were incompatible with the UK’s obligations under international agreements, in particular, the 1951 Refugee Convention. These decisions created two problems. Firstly, should the government want to proceed, it had to show that Rwanda was indeed safe. Secondly,…
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