Hammer blow to Sunak's 'stop the boats' vow as judges tear Rwanda flights plan to shreds

RISHI SUNAK'S flagship Rwanda deportation plan was torn to shreds today in the Supreme Court which branded it unlawful.

- Tristan Kirk and Nicholas Cecil

The ruling dealt a huge blow to the Government's blueprint to "stop the boats" crossing the Channel.

Britain's most senior judges demolished the Home Secretary's argument that deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda would not put some of them at risk of being wrongly sent back to their home country from where they had fled, potentially endangering their life or putting them at risk of persecution or torture.

Their judgment was a devastating verdict on the scheme pushed by Suella Braverman before she was sacked as home secretary on Monday.

Her "dream" of seeing a plane take off for Rwanda before Christmas, carrying asylum seekers and economic migrants, was firmly grounded by the ruling, possibly permanently.

The Prime Minister said: "This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats."

The judges made clear that quitting the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), as being demanded by some Tory Right-wingers, would not allow the UK to escape its obligations to asylum seekers under other international rules.