Today a large number of Conservative MPs will be mulling over the legal advice and predictions for Mr Sunak’s Rwanda scheme.
Five of the Conservative groups who want to end illegal migration and think the UK Parliament should instruct all courts accordingly will be told this draft bill does not do that. It undermines its endorsement for UK control with permitted appeals to an international court.MPs from the ironically named One Nation group want to embed rights of appeal to all courts including foreign ones more clearly. As always they do not trust our country, its people and Parliament and wish to constrain the government through international treaties and courts.
It is a great pity the PM put so much on this scheme and then turned it into a constitutional struggle over whether we can govern ourselves or not. Having two senior Law Officer Ministers from the One Nation group means legal advice that prevents Parliament instructing the courts to stop the boats in the area of international law where different lawyers take very different views of what is possible.
My advice to him is to concentrate on getting down legal migration more rapidly and by more than his current plans. This would do more to relieve pressure on housing and public spending. It is difficult to see how his compromise bill can get through the Lords as well as the Commons. Meanwhile there are other obvious steps he could take to stop some more small boats.
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