The government’s Rwanda asylum policy is in disarray after the UK’s highest court ruled it is unlawful.
Ministers say the plan to deport asylum seekers and ban them from returning is needed to tackle small boat crossings.

But the Supreme Court upheld an earlier Court of Appeal ruling which said the policy leaves people sent to Rwanda open to human rights breaches.

The unanimous decision means the flagship policy cannot go forward in its current form. The ruling is the latest stage in the legal battle over the controversial plan since it was first announced by Boris Johnson in April 2022.

Flights were prevented from taking off in June last year after the Court of Appeal ruled the policy was unlawful due to a lack of human rights safeguards.

The legal case against the policy hinges on the principle of “non-refoulement” – that a person seeking asylum should not be returned to their country of origin if doing so would put them at risk of harm – which is established under both UK and international human rights law.

Ten claimants in the case argued that ministers had ignored clear evidence that Rwanda’s asylum system was unfair and arbitrary.

In a unanimous decision, the five Supreme Court justices agreed with the Court of Appeal that there had not been a proper assessment of whether Rwanda was safe. The judgment does not ban sending migrants to another country, but it leaves the £140m Rwanda scheme in tatters – and it is not clear which other nations are prepared to do a similar deal with the UK.

In their judgement, the justices said there were “substantial grounds” to believe people deported to Rwanda could then be sent, by the Rwandan government, to places where they would be unsafe.

It said the Rwandan government had entered into the agreement in “good faith” but the evidence cast doubt on its “practical ability to fulfil its assurances, at least in the short term”, to fix “deficiencies” in its asylum system and see through “the scale of the changes in procedure, understanding and culture which are required”.

It leaves Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – who has made tackling illegal immigration a central focus his government – with a major political and legislative problem.

Natalie Elphicke, Conservative MP for Dover, the landing point for many of the small boats, said: “The Supreme Court decision on Rwanda means the policy is effectively at an end. No planes will be leaving and we now need to move forward.

“With winter coming the timing of this decision couldn’t be worse. Be in no doubt, this will embolden the people smugglers and put more lives at risk.”

The Supreme Court decision comes as the political fallout continues after the sacking of Suella Braverman on Monday.

Sunak dismissed her days before the court was due to rule on the policy which she had championed as home secretary, after a row about her criticism of the Metropolitan Police.

In a highly critical letter to the prime minister, published on Tuesday, Braverman claimed the Rwanda policy would remain “vulnerable” to legal challenges even in the event of a Supreme Court ruling favourable to the government because he had not backed her proposals to diverge from international human rights law.