14 April – Resettlement target: ‘tens of thousands’
Channel crossings: 562 people in 15 boats
Boris Johnson launches the policy with a bullish view of the number of asylum seekers who enter the UK via unauthorised routes who could be sent to Kigali. “Rwanda will have the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead,” he said.
Johnson’s remarks were carefully non-binding. But assuming that “tens of thousands” implies at least 20,000 over the five-year deal, that would imply about 4,000 people being sent to Rwanda each year.
6 May – Target: 300 people
Channel crossings: 116 in four boats
The Times reports that the Home Office’s own modelling suggests that the true number likely to be eligible for resettlement in Rwanda in a year would be about 300. At that rate, the story points out, it would take 34 years to remove 10,000 migrants. The Home Office says it does not recognise the analysis.
14 May – Target: 50 people within a fortnight
Channel crossings: 167 in 13 boats
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the prime minister says that 50 people have been given “notices of intent” that they will be sent to Rwanda within two weeks. None of the 50 have gone within two weeks.
There is little clarity about how, exactly, those people are selected for removal, other than that they are expected to be young men, that those who have arrived since 1 May take priority, and that the government says “the strength of their claim” is a factor.
20 May Target: “in the hundreds” each year
Channel crossings: 41 in one boat
Dominic Raab walks back Johnson’s initial “tens of thousands” figure, saying he wants to “manage expectations” around the policy. Asked if it would be hundreds or thousands of people facing removal each year, he says: “I would have thought it was more likely to be in the hundreds.”
7 June – First flight: 130 people
Channel crossings: 79 in two boats
About 130 people have been selected for the first flight on 14 June, the Daily Mail reports. But it is reported that 80 have submitted legal challenges, and that the Home Office expects the remaining 50 to do the same.
8 June – First flight: 30 people
Channel crossings: none
By the following day, the Guardian reports that the number expected to fly is about 30.
Johnson – with the help of allies in the media – blames successful appeals on “lefty lawyers … undermining everything that we are trying to do”. The reality appears to be a predictable set of legal challenges, which the government is likely to have been advised would succeed. The appeals are understood to be under article 8 of the Human Rights Act, the “right to family life”, as well as on the basis of torture and trafficking claims. Potential trafficking victims are entitled to a 45-day pause in immigration proceedings while their case is investigated.
13 June – First flight: “fewer than 10” people
Channel crossings: 138 in three boats
Among those removed from the list are three children whom the Home Office had declared to be adults. There is also an Iranian human rights whistleblower who gave first-hand testimony of potential violations by the Iranian government. “I am still very stressed about what will happen next,” he said.
14 June – First flight: cancelled
Channel crossings: 260
By Tuesday morning, there were seven people left due to fly to Rwanda. On Tuesday night, the figure fell to three, then one. Then the flight, which cost about £500,000, was cancelled altogether. The decision by the European court of human rights – not an EU body, but an international guarantor of human rights that the UK helped to found in 1950 – in the case of one 54-year-old Iraqi man, a victim of torture, provided grounds for the remaining six to appeal for their removal orders to be scrapped.
Amid jubilation from campaigners and recrimination over the role of the court, which interprets the European convention on human rights, Priti Patel blames the failure of her policy on “legal challenge and last-minute claims”. She says “preparation for the next flight begins now”. Earlier, Johnson hints that the UK could leave the convention. A judicial review of the legality of the Rwanda policy is due to be heard by the high court in July.
