Organisers of a demonstration against the Government's Rwanda plan have branded Tuesday's failed attempt to send asylum seekers to East Africa as a success.
As the plane which was due to carry the first asylum seekers to Rwanda stood on the runway prepared for flight, people came together at Grey's Monument in Newcastle to show they strongly disagree with the plans.
Just seven people were due to be on board the flight from Boscombe Down military base to Rwanda, which cost an estimated £500,000. But it was later revealed that due to last minute interventions by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) all migrants were removed from the plane and the flight would not take off as scheduled.
Yunus Bakhsh, from North East Against Racism, which organised the Newcastle protest, said: "It's fantastic news as far as North East Against Racism is concerned. It was the most ill-thought through and quite frankly the most obscene policy I think anybody has seen come out from our government in many, many years.
"On every level it didn't make sense and the perniciousness of it, and the fact that it was done in the manner that it was, was going to inevitably lead to what we saw which was protests around the country, quite successful attempts by individuals to block the path of the transport taking people to the flight, and the legal aspect of it.
"There was legal challenges about the flight, as well as legal challenges for each of the individuals. The fact the Government fell foul of the court of human rights should tell you everything you need to know about the nature of what they were trying to do."
Today Home Secretary Priti Patel told MPs it was "inevitable" there would be legal challenges to the Government's policy, but said she was surprised by the European Court of Human Rights' intervention, overruling domestic judicial decisions. She added that she will "not be deterred from doing the right thing" and persisting with the plans.
Mr Bakhsh added: "If there are legal challenges pending, it is absolutely imperative that no action is taken before that is addressed - it's simple. But this Government has so little disregard for its own laws that as far as it's concerned it's above the law.
"They act above the law when they have parties while the rest of us are confined to our homes and then they act above the law when they carry out policies. If even Prince Charles is of a view that this is wrong then it tells you how far there is opposition to this policy."
Following the ruling from ECHR, some Tory MPs are said to be demanding Prime Minister Boris Johnson withdraws from the ECHR, which was set up in 1959 to rule on allegations of violations of the civil and political rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.
However Hexham Conservative MP and Pensions minister Guy Opperman said he would not be advocating to withdraw from the ECHR and that he did not think it was government policy. He told Times Radio: "I don’t believe it is our policy, nor would it be something I will be advocating for withdrawing from the ECHR.
"I think the situation is that, as I understand it, the UK courts have primacy on this matter, but as I understand the decision last night from the ECHR, a decision was made that not everything had been considered by the UK courts in those circumstances."
Mr Bakhsh said North East Against Racism will continue to campaign for the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. He said: "We're going to continue our campaign against this racist, hostile environment that the government is trying to create.
"Only a couple of months ago they were telling us that they were going to lay on special trains for refugees from Ukraine and they set up these resettlement programmes, and people would get £300 if they put a refugee up, which is fantastic, but that should apply to everybody, not just to some people."
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