The government’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful. That’s according to a ruling from the High Court this morning following a legal challenge against the scheme. The Home Office victory comes in response to the application from aid groups and asylum seekers to stop the government enacting its deportation agreement with the African country. These challenges meant that the first deportation flight – scheduled to depart on 14 June – was grounded. Since then, no flight has been allowed to take off – and not one asylum seeker has been sent to Rwanda.

It is likely that today’s result will be challenged in the courts

Reading the summary of the ruling, Lord Justice Lewis said: ‘The court has concluded that it is lawful for the government to make arrangements for relocating asylum seekers to Rwanda and for their asylum claims to be determined in Rwanda rather than in the United Kingdom.’ In a boost for the government’s policy, the court also ruled that the scheme does not breach the refugee convention or human rights laws.

Yet it is not a matter of case closed. Lord Justice Lewis said that the eight individual migrants in the case who had arrived by small boats must have their claims reconsidered at a later date. The court ruled that then home secretary Priti Patel had failed to consider their individual circumstances. The court also set aside the decisions in those cases – and said they will be sent back to the current Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, to be reconsidered. That means that while the general scheme is lawful, actually identifying individuals that can be sent to Rwanda under it is more complex.

Finally, it is likely that today’s result will be challenged in the courts. Already there are suggestions that some of the applicants will appeal against the judgment, which means the case could go to the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and eventually the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. It means the government is still some way away from getting the scheme properly up and running.

However, this is still a significant milestone for the government. The fact that no flights had taken off meant that both voters and Tory MPs were fast losing faith in the government’s ability, when more than 44,000 people this year have arrived in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats. When I recently asked Rishi Sunak whether the scheme worked, he pointed to today’s judgment as key: ‘We always knew it was going to be challenged so until we’ve been through the process, we won’t know. It was always the case that it was going to be challenged.’ The Prime Minister believes the small boat crossings pose an existential threat to his government. Today’s ruling is viewed as an important step in gripping the situation.

The post What the High Court ruling means for the Rwanda scheme appeared first on The Spectator.