Rishi Sunak has said he will introduce emergency legislation to make sure his Rwanda plan is not blocked again and said “flights will be heading off in the spring as planned”.
After the Supreme Court ruling that the flagship asylum policy is unlawful, the prime minister said he has been working on a new international treaty with the East African nation to address the judges’ concerns and ensure it is “safe”.
He said: “This will provide a guarantee in law that those who are relocated from the UK to Rwanda will be protected against removal from Rwanda and it will make clear that we will bring back anyone if ordered to do so by a court.
“We will finalise this treaty in light of today’s judgment and ratify it without delay.”
Mr Sunak insisted the legislation would “end the merry-go-round” of legal challenges that have stopped flights from taking off since the controversial policy was announced in April last year.
“We need to end the merry-go-round. I said I was going to fundamentally change our country, and I meant it,” Mr Sunak said during a Downing Street press conference.
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He said he would be taking the “extraordinary step of introducing emergency legislation” which will “enable parliament to confirm that with our new treaty, Rwanda is safe”.
But he also acknowledged that even if domestic laws are changed, the government could still face legal challenges from the European Court of Human Rights and vowed: “I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights.”
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“If the Strasbourg court chooses to intervene against the express wishes of parliament,I am prepared to do what is necessary to get flights off,” he said.
In its ruling on Wednesday, the UK’s highest court said refugees sent to Rwanda would be at “real risk” of being returned to their country of origin, whether their grounds to claim asylum were justified or not – breaching international law.
It has fuelled calls from some Tory MPs to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to push forward with the plan.
An eleventh-hour injunction from the ECHR stopped the first scheduled flights from taking off to Kigali last June, and no one has been deported since.
The Supreme Court judges said it is not only the ECHR which is relevant to their ruling, pointing out that the UK is signed up “other international treaties which also prohibit the return of asylum seekers to their countries of origin without a proper examination of their claims”.
However Mr Sunak was confident that his new plan will work.
He said he is “delivering” on his pledge to stop the boats, and the new treaty is “ready to go” to reassure the courts.
“We will clear the remaining barriers and flights will be heading off in the spring as planned,” he said.
The press conference came after Suella Braverman, who was sacked as home secretary on Monday, called for emergency legislation to “block off the ECHR and other routes of legal challenge”.
Conservative Party deputy chairman Lee Anderson said the government should “ignore the laws” and send migrants back the same day they arrive in the UK.
All flights were halted at Edinburgh Airport this morning due to an IT issue affecting its air traffic control provider.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the airport later announced service had resumed.
Its post read: “Flights have now resumed following the IT issue with our air traffic provider.
“We thank passengers for their patience and understanding.”
But passengers continue to feel the effects.
A Delta Air Lines flight from New York to Edinburgh was diverted to Dublin after going into a holding pattern over the Scottish capital.
And a live arrivals board on the airport’s website showed multiple flights diverted, delayed and cancelled.
Image: Arrivals board at Edinburgh Airport. Pic: Edinburgh Airport
Morven McCall and Cody Stevenson, both 19, were due to fly easyJet from Edinburgh to Amsterdam on their first trip away together.
Morven told Sky News: “We literally just got into the airport and as soon as we walked through the door there was an announcement that it had been cancelled.
“I was ill over the summer and had to cancel two holidays already, this was our first time going away together. We are just gutted and stressed.”
Image: Arrivals at Edinburgh Airport. File pic: PA
One passenger was on a plane when they found out.
They said: “We boarded our flight and pushed back on time for an 8.45 (am) departure, then sat for a while before the pilot told us what was happening.
“He updated us a couple of times, cabin crew are brilliant at handing out water etc, and I’m surprised that everyone appears to be upbeat. But then you do wonder how long for, just been told we’re hoping to be in the air in 20 minutes.”
Another passenger told us: “The first news was from the airport announcement as we were halfway through boarding, saying the airfield was closed due to air traffic control down.
“No one knew what was going on. We’d already been delayed a bit before boarding, with no reason. I suspect problems started about 9am.”
It comes after an earlier announcement that all flights had been halted.
“No flights are currently operating from Edinburgh Airport,” the previous statement said.
“Teams are working on the issue and will resolve as soon as possible.”
There was no timeframe for recovery initially, Sky News learned.
It’s understood by PA that the issue was not linked to today’s Cloudflare outage.
Edinburgh Trams also posted on X, writing: “If you’re travelling with us to @EDI_Airport this morning, please be aware that flights are not currently operating.”
The airport urged passengers to contact their airline for the latest information on flights.
An average of 43,000 passengers per day use the airport, which is served by 37 airlines flying to 155 destinations.
The police watchdog says it is investigating after a teenager who was tasered by an officer on a motorway was fatally hit by a car.
Logan Smith, 18, was being taken to hospital in an ambulance at about 11pm on Sunday when the vehicle stopped on the hard shoulder of the M5 in Somerset.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said the vehicle stopped on the northbound carriageway “due to the concerns of ambulance staff”.
Mr Smith got out of the ambulance near the junction for Weston-super-Mare and “entered the live lanes of the motorway”, the watchdog added.
Police were called and an officer arrived at the scene, with bodycam footage showing the officer discharging their Taser, causing the teenager to fall to the ground.
“Soon afterwards” Mr Smith was struck by a car travelling on the southbound carriageway, the IOPC said.
The watchdog said it was investigating the “actions and decisions taken by Avon and Somerset Police prior to the death of a teenager”.
IOPC Director Derrick Campbell said: “My thoughts and sympathies are with Logan’s family and friends and everyone affected by this shocking and tragic incident.
“We want to reassure everyone that we will independently investigate all the circumstances surrounding this incident, including the use of a Taser.
“After being notified by the force, we sent our investigators to the police post incident procedure to begin gathering evidence.
“We have taken initial accounts from the officer and ambulance staff involved.
“We met with Logan’s family on Tuesday, to give our condolences, explain our role and to provide some further detail about our investigation, including a Taser being discharged during the incident.
“We will continue to keep them updated and they request that their privacy be respected at such a difficult time.”
The coroner has been informed and formal identification and a post-mortem have taken place.
A former doctor has been charged over alleged sexual assaults on 38 patients in his care.
Nathaniel Spencer, 38, has been charged with 15 counts of sexual assault, 17 counts of assault by penetration, nine counts of sexual assault of a child under 13, three counts of assault a child under 13 by penetration and one count of attempted assault by penetration.
It follows a police investigation into alleged sexual offences between 2017 and 2021.
Staffordshire Police said in a statement the charges come after a complex investigation by the Public Protection Unit into sexual offences at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, in Stoke-on-Trent, and Russells Hall Hospital, in Dudley.
Image: North Staffordshire Justice Centre
Ben Samples, deputy chief crown prosecutor for the West Midlands CPS Complex Casework Unit and Serious Violence, Organised Crime and Exploitation Unit, said: “We have decided to prosecute Nathaniel Spencer for a number of serious sexual offences allegedly carried out against patients while he was working as a doctor – including assault by penetration and sexual assault against a child.
“Our prosecutors have worked at length to support a detailed and complex investigation by Staffordshire Police, carefully reviewing the available evidence to establish that there is sufficient evidence to bring the case to trial and that it is in the public interest to pursue criminal proceedings.”
Spencer, from Birmingham, will appear at North Staffordshire Justice Centre on 20 January 2026.
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