Jenrick takes aim at Rishi’s Rwanda fix

After three days of speculation, Robert Jenrick has finally broken cover. In this morning’s Daily Telegraph he sets out in an 1,800-word article, the reasons why he resigned from government on Wednesday, why he thinks the Rwanda Bill will fail and what his broader concerns are about high levels of migration.

On Sunak’s flagship legislation, Jenrick expresses doubt that ministers will really use powers to ignore Strasbourg interim measures grounding flights. He writes that ‘the new Bill replicates the provisions under the section 55 of the Illegal Migration Act, which enables ministers to use their “discretion”, but in practice I know the instances this will be used is vanishingly rare, if ever.’

The Newark MP believes that the legal challenge avenue left open will render the Bill useless, arguing instead that the whole of the European Convention on Human Rights should be disapplied in the legislation. Just like his former boss Suella Braverman, he argues that the ECHR and existing asylum frameworks should be scrapped as ‘these treaties were designed for a different world.