Good morning. When the UK government scheduled the first flight taking refugees to Rwanda for last night, it hoped to have as many as many as 130 people on board – the first step in a hugely controversial policy that Boris Johnson had boasted could remove “tens of thousands” of refugees who came to the UK via unauthorised routes.
The number had already shrunk to a reported seven by yesterday morning. By 10pm, just one passenger remained. And then, to the jubilation of campaigners and lawyers who had been working to keep the flight from leaving, their ticket was cancelled too.
That stunning outcome – which could hardly seem more ignominious for the government – was brought about by a last-minute intervention by the European court of human rights. But it was also the result of relentless work by lawyers and activists on behalf of refugees who fled to the UK in the most appalling of circumstances. Today’s newsletter, with the Guardian’s Diane Taylor, is the anatomy of a policy that started with a very big number, and has now – at least for the moment – vanished into thin air.
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Before the headlines, a quick note to say that tomorrow Nimo and I will be hosting First Edition Live, discussing the most pressing issues and top stories with experts – starting with the future of the Conservative party. We’ll be joined by columnist Gaby Hinsliff and Salma Shah, former adviser to the health secretary, Sajid Javid – and we need your questions. What would you like to know about the ongoing crisis in Boris Johnson’s government, and how it’s playing out with MPs and the party’s supporters? Hit reply to this email to let us know.
Watch live here and on theguardian.com from 7pm, Thursday 16 June (you can also hit the notification bell on YouTube to get a reminder when the stream starts). See you there.
Five big stories
Climate crisis | Rising sea levels will inevitably force the abandonment of about 200,000 coastal properties in England within 30 years, new data suggests. The value of the homes at risk is in the tens of billions of pounds.
Scotland | Nicola Sturgeon plans a fresh Scottish independence vote next year without authority from Boris Johnson’s government. Sturgeon said she had a mandate to do so as she released a new report making the case for independence.
Brazil | Police in Brazil have arrested a second man in connection with “the alleged murder” of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira. The news comes as the Brazilian ambassador to the UK apologised to the family of Phillips for incorrectly telling them his body had been found.
Ukraine | Ukrainian authorities say they are continuing to evacuate civilians from Sievierodonetsk during every “quiet” moment, after three main bridges out of the eastern city were destroyed by Russian shelling.
Russia | Russia has banned 29 members of the British media, including five Guardian journalists, from the country over coverage of the invasion of Ukraine. A Guardian spokesperson said the news was “a bad day for press freedom”.
In depth: from ‘tens of thousands’ to a cancelled flight
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14 April Resettlement target: ‘tens of thousands’
Channel crossings: 562 people in 15 boats
It might seem like hubris this morning – but when he launched the policy, the prime minister had 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.
This may be a plausible figure to achieve the deterrence Johnson and Priti Patel have promised – but Diane Taylor, who has reported on asylum issues for years and spoken to many refugees on both sides of the Channel, is sceptical.
“Asylum seekers, when they get there, are thinking: ‘well, we’ve reached the end of the line anyway’. This is the last throw of the dice. They were already taking the risk of drowning, after all. So this Rwanda policy is a pretty abstract prospect for them.”
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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.
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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’s 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. But Diane has spoken to refugees who describe “50 people in a room, and a few being picked off by officials – you go left, you go right. It seems arbitrary.”
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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 said: “I would have thought it was more likely to be in the hundreds.”
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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 (last night), 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.
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8 June First flight: 30 people
Channel crossings: none
By the following day, Diane and home affairs editor Rajeev Syal report that the number will be about 30.
Johnson – with the help of allies in the media – has got a lot of mileage out of blaming 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.
While it has been reported that the vast majority of the appeals are under article 8 of the Human Rights Act, the “right to family life”, Diane says: “We don’t know about every case, because we can’t attend them. But I would be very surprised if many people were making a case simply on the basis of article 8. The ones I’m hearing about are predominantly torture and trafficking cases.” Potential trafficking victims are entitled to a 45-day pause in immigration proceedings while their case is investigated.
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Monday First flight: “fewer than 10” people
Channel crossings: 138 in three boats
Among those removed from the list are three children who 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.
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Last night First flight: cancelled
Channel crossings: 260
By yesterday morning, there were seven people left due to fly to Rwanda. Last 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 which 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.
In touch at midnight after a very long day of reporting, Diane said that campaigners, lawyers and asylum seekers were “euphoric”. “Of all the Home Office’s policies over the last decade, none has sent such a shiver down the spines of those who hold the Geneva convention dear.”
But she also sounded a note of caution that there is still much more to do. Despite the failure, the government will not mind being able to make an enemy of “lefty lawyers” and the European court.
Sure enough, Priti Patel last night blamed the failure of her policy on “legal challenge and last-minute claims” and said “preparation for the next flight begins now”. “Getting this reprieve doesn’t mean you get out of being bundled on to a plane soon,” says Diane. “It’s not a get out of jail free card. It just holds them up a bit.”
The attritional impact of the individual challenges since the flight was announced is remarkable – but the bigger battle is the full-blown judicial review that’s due in July. “If the policy is found to be unlawful then,” Diane says, “perhaps that will be the end of it.”
There was one other milestone yesterday: the number of people to risk their lives to cross the English Channel on small boats since Johnson announced the policy ticked past 5,000.
What else we’ve been reading
Peter Blake is turning 90. He has a new exhibition, and a lot of good material for Jonathan Jones, including: he once took the Beatles out to a place called The Crazy Elephant, but he didn’t like them as much as the Beach Boys. Archie
Imagine being Brian Blessed’s child? What an experience to be taken to school by Prince Vultan. His daughter, Rosalind Blessed, gives us a delightful insight into her always-performing dad: “I have experienced many a one-man-show about five inches from my face.” Toby Moses, head of newsletters
Emma Pattee has a chapter for the alternative history books: the 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed the world. The remarkable document, seen by President Carter, set out the future impacts of fossil fuels with eerie prescience. Archie
Coco Khan’s exploration of age-gap relationships is a blast, and contains this predictably uncomfortable nugget: “Half of British men would sleep with a 21-year-old-woman, though far fewer would be willing to enter into a relationship. In contrast, 15% of British women would sleep with a 21-year-old man.” Toby
In the New Yorker, Molly Fischer puts her finger on something about the “ceaseless churn” of articles that become podcasts that become documentaries that become dramas: “There is something bleakly recursive in watching as these stories are sold, and sold, and sold again”. Archie
Sport
Cricket | England won the series against New Zealand with an unforgettable fifth day chase at Trent Bridge. Jonny Bairstow scored the second-fastest century by an Englishman of all time to drive his side to victory.
Football | England ended their season with their worst result at home since 1928, a 4-0 defeat against underdogs Hungary. John Stones was sent off in the 82nd minute.
Tennis | Serena Williams will make her long-awaited return to the game from a one year layoff after she was granted a wildcard into the Wimbledon singles draw. Williams, 40, has won seven singles titles at the All England Club.
The front pages
Our Guardian print edition leads today with “Chaos as first Rwanda flight cancelled by court ruling”. The Mirror has “What a cruel farce” and the Metro calls it the “Rwandan air farce”. The Times says “European judges block deportations to Rwanda” and the Telegraph does the same headline in the passive voice: “Rwanda deportation blocked by European judges”. The i looks at the dubious effectiveness of the policy: “Hundreds cross Channel despite Rwanda threat”. The Daily Mail seems less apoplectic than you might expect with “Euro court grounds jet to Rwanda” but the Express says “Fury as Rwanda flight blocked”. Fury of another kind in the Sun, which says the boxer of that name is to make a “£200m return” – not on an investment, but by making a comeback in the ring. The front page of the Financial Times says “Coinbase to cut almost a fifth of staff as crypto crunch worsens”.
Today in Focus
Living with long Covid
With no restrictions in place and a successful vaccine rollout in the UK, it is tempting to think that the threat to health from coronavirus is passing. But millions are struggling with long Covid, says Linda Geddes
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Amid the noise around “cancel culture” and the “dangers of wokery”, it’s pleasing to see how a celebrity can go about making swift amends for a wrong – and have it welcomed by critics. Anger over for Lizzo’s new song, Grrls, for its use of the word “spaz” – an ableist slur deriving from spastic diplegia, a form of cerebral palsy – had built over the weekend.
In response, Lizzo has simply removed the word from the song and apologised for its inclusion: “I never want to promote derogatory language. As a fat, black woman in America, I have had many hurtful words used against me, so I understand the power words can have ... As an influential artist I’m dedicated to being part of the change I’ve been waiting to see in the world.”
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
