Cleverly’s battle to send flights to Rwanda is not over yet

James Cleverly has just signed a new treaty with Rwanda that the UK government hopes will lead to the deportation policy finally getting going. As he did so, the Home Secretary insisted that the Rwandan government had made a ‘strong commitment’ to the safety of asylum seekers – which was the key reason the Supreme Court had ruled against the policy. He told a press conference in Kigali that ‘we’ve addressed the issues that were raised by their Lordships’ and said Rwanda had established a reputation for the humane treatment of refugees. The treaty that was signed today ‘builds on that joint work’. 

The Home Secretary was clearly very careful to suggest that the Rwandan government was already doing the work needed, rather than the UK having to swoop in to improve things. He spoke of the importance of an already strong judicial system being ‘on display’, rather than saying that it was being developed and improved.