HARD-right Tories are pushing for the UK Government to “immediately” overrule existing British laws and international agreements which led to the Rwanda plan being blocked.
The New Conservatives – a group of right-wing Tory MPs with a hardline stance on immigration – held an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning immediately after the Supreme Court ruled plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful.
Speaking after the meeting the group’s co-chair Danny Kruger said the ruling posed an “existential” threat to the party.
He told reporters the UK Government must introduce legislation “immediately” to give it the power to disregard its commitments under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - part of the reason the Rwanda plan was struck down.
But the unanimous Supreme Court ruling today also noted the UK was bound to protect asylum seekers from potentially being sent to an unsafe country – as they found they may be if deported to Rwanda – under laws passed by the UK Parliament, not just international treaties.
READ MORE: Rwanda plan block welcomed by human rights campaigners
Kruger, Devizes MP, argued the UK Government must also seek to override those precedents and seek to find a way to declare its Rwanda policy “shall have immediate effect” and review the authority of the courts over Parliament.
He said: “This feels absolutely existential for our party. We promised to stop the boats, we promised to take back control of our borders.
“What we’ve seen today is that the court has overridden that sovereign decision of the British people and if the Government will not step up and do whatever it takes, as the Prime Minister has promised he will, there will be no reason for the public to trust us again.
"So we absolutely have to respond to this in the most robust way possible and genuinely insist on the sovereignty of this country over its borders.”
Asked what the Prime Minister must do in response to the ruling, Kruger said: “What he needs to do today in our view is to announce immediate legislative action to give effect to the sovereign will of the public and indeed the Parliament itself, as expressed in recent legislation.
“The Illegal Immigration Act is not strong enough. It should have been strengthened at the time, as we argued then.
“We need to introduce legislation either to insist that, notwithstanding the European Convention and the Refugee Convention and other international agreements, that the principle of the Rwanda policy is legitimate and shall have immediate effect.
“So either by a notwithstanding clause, the general application, not just to the ECHR, and or through a series of legislative measures to withdraw us from the ECHR and to insist on British sovereignty.”
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