Sunak Says He Won’t Let a ‘Foreign Court’ Block Deportations

Rishi Sunak greets Rwandan president Paul Kagame in Downing Street on April 9.

(Bloomberg) — Rishi Sunak said the UK will not let foreign courts block his plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, and declared “enough is enough,” suggesting the prime minister is considering the UK’s ongoing membership of the European Convention on Human Rights.

“I won’t let a foreign court block our ability to put people on planes and send them to Rwanda,” Sunak told LBC radio on Wednesday, when asked if the governing Conservatives would contemplate the possibility of leaving the ECHR. “I’ve come at this very reasonably. We’ve worked hard. We’ve got the numbers down. We’ve done everything right. We’ve passed new laws through Parliament, we’ve addressed everyone’s concerns, but at this point enough is enough.”

Sunak was speaking amid speculation he could commit his Conservatives to withdrawing from the ECHR in order to ensure Britain can deport migrants. He refused to be drawn specifically on whether he would put that commitment in his party’s election manifesto. He must hold a national vote by the end of January and repeated his expectation that the country would go to the polls in the second half of this year.

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