‘Our small boats plan will push boundaries of international law’, admit senior Tories
A new plan to ban refugees arriving in the UK by small boats from today from claiming asylum will push the boundaries of international law but will not break it, a senior Tory has said.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman is set to publish long-promised legislation on Channel crossings on Tuesday that she has admitted “pushes the boundaries of international law”.
This will include preventing people who come to the UK illegally from claiming asylum or using human rights law to stop their removal.
Ms Braverman will ask for this to apply from the moment she unveils the proposals in the Commons to avoid people smugglers “seizing on the opportunity to rush migrants across the Channel”, a government source told Sky News.
She is expected to say that under the new illegal migration bill, asylum claims from those who travel to the UK in small boats will be inadmissible.
Arrivals will be removed to a third country and banned from ever returning or claiming citizenship.
Former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland said while Ms Braverman has said the legislation will push the boundaries of international law, it will not go as far as breaking it.
He told Sky News’ Kay Burley at Breakfast: “I’ve had assurances that the government isn’t seeking to break international law – that’s its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights, the Refugee Convention.”
Sir Robert said without that it would be “a bit of a free for all for everybody to try and do their own thing” as he acknowledged other countries in Europe and around the world are also struggling with illegal immigration.
He added that he will be looking at the new legislation for exceptions to allow, for example, women from Iran who refuse to wear the hijab or a refugee coming from a war-torn part of the world “who clearly is coming for the right reasons to be able to seek asylum here in the UK”.
Sir Robert admitted there has been “a lot of over-promising and under-delivering” on small boat crossings but thinks Rishi Sunak has the right approach in going “one step at a time” and not just relying on UK legislation but taking action internationally “to avert the problem from reaching the Channel in the first place” such as talks with the French.
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Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman will unveil the plan in full on Tuesday. Pic:UK Government
Refugee charities have already described the plans as “costly and unworkable” and said they “promise nothing but more demonisation and punishment” of asylum seekers.
Writing in The Sun, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the UK has a “proud history of welcoming those most in need”.
But he claimed that those arriving in small boats were doing so via “safe, European countries”, and were not “directly fleeing a war-torn country” or “facing an imminent threat to life”.
Former Labour home secretary Jack Straw told Sky News the government keeps coming up with “desperate measures” and said the latest plan is trying to “override all the international obligations and turn ourselves into a kind of pariah amongst western European states is not going to work anyway”.
He added: “I promise you we will in a year, 18 months time, when there’s a general election, Mr Sunak will be very, very embarrassed about the fact that the numbers might come down a bit but have not stopped.”
Government ‘pushing boundaries of international law’
Critics say the UK has “comprehensively shut down” legal routes for refugees to come to the UK.
While there are schemes to help people fleeing specific countries like Hong Kong and Ukraine, the government has failed to explain the safe and legal routes for asylum seekers escaping war from other parts of the world.
Mr Sunak has made stopping Channel migrant crossings one of his five priorities in office and said while previous bills have made a start on gripping this, “what we are announcing today takes that work forward”.
“It will mean that those who come here on small boats can’t claim asylum here,” he added.
Despite plans such as forcibly removing asylum seekers to Rwanda being mired in legal challenges, ministers were expected to approach the limits of the European Convention on Human Rights with the new legislation.
Writing in the Daily Express, Ms Braverman admitted the plan “pushed the boundaries of international law”.
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Sunak will hope trying to stop Channel crossings appeals to voters
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‘People smuggling is just another job’
Government still committed to Rwanda deportations
Under the new legislation, a duty will be placed on the home secretary to remove “as soon as reasonably practicable” anyone who arrives on a small boat, either to Rwanda or a “safe third country”.
According to The Times, this will take precedence over human rights and modern slavery claims, and there will be new powers to mass detain arrivals.
Mr Sunak spoke to Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame before unveiling his plans, and pledged to continue working with him to ensure their stalled project works.
The government has paid more than £140m to the east African nation for deportations, but no flights forcibly carrying migrants to the capital of Kigali have taken off because of legal challenges.
The PM will also meet France’s President Emmanuel Macron on Friday to discuss further cooperation that will be required to reduce boat crossings.
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Decmeber: Braverman defends Rwanda policy
‘Unworkable and costly’
Several Tory MPs welcomed the news that a new bill was imminent, but Labour raised doubts about the legality and feasibility of the bill and the Liberal Democrats said ministers had drawn up “another half-baked plan”.
The Immigration Services Union representing border staff also said the plans are “quite confusing” and do not seem “possible” without the Rwanda policy functioning.
Almost 3,000 migrants have made unauthorised crossings of the English Channel already this year.
Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said the plans “shatter the UK’s long-standing commitment under the UN Convention to give people a fair hearing regardless of the path they have taken to reach our shores”.
“It’s unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats,” he added.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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