RWANDA SHAMBLES

>>Rishi bid to push through court-KOd plan >>£140m spent ..and small boat hell still goes on

- DAVE BURKE

THE Tories were at war last night after their cherished Rwanda deportation plan was torn to shreds by the courts.

Supreme Court judges unanimously torpedoed the plan, ruling Rwanda is not a safe country to send asylum seekers.

They ruled there are substantial grounds for believing asylum-seekers sent to the African country face a real risk of ill-treatment.

People could be forced back to their homeland, also highlighting deficiencies in the country's asylum system, the judges ruled.

But Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised new legislation to try to get around their decision.

His strategy is to seek a treaty with Rwanda that will address the concerns of the Supreme Court.

He will also aim to introduce emergency laws to empower Parliament itself, not the courts, to confirm that Rwanda is safe.

Sunak told a Downing Street press conference: "We will take the extraordinary step of introducing emergency legislation.

"This will enable Parliament to confirm that, with our new treaty, Rwanda is safe. It will ensure that people cannot further delay flights by bringing systemic challenges in our domestic courts."

Leaving the door open to abandoning the European Convention on Human Rights, he added: "I am prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships to remove the obstacles.

In a sign of how divisive the issue is for the Tories, former justice secretary Robert Buckland said moments later such a course of action would not be sensible, adding: "Let's put that one to bed."