Rwanda immigration Bill; UK immigration minister quits 

The UK immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, has quit over legislation pertaining to sending migrants to Rwanda.

Jenrich’s exit left Britain’s ruling Conservative party in confusion on Wednesday after hardliners turned the screw on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The UK leader’s position seemed increasingly vulnerable after Jenrick said he had resigned due to “strong disagreements with the direction” of the government’s policy on immigration.

The bombshell resignation came after Rwanda warned that it would pull out of a treaty to accept migrants if the UK did not respect international law.

Former hardline interior minister Suella Braverman also issued Sunak an ultimatum to get tougher on immigration or face certain wipeout in the next general election, in a torrid day for the British PM.

Jenrick resigned after Sunak’s administration published emergency legislation designed to ensure Rwanda is considered a safe country after UK Supreme Court judges last month deemed that it was not.

In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Jenrick wrote that the proposed laws were “a triumph of hope over experience”.

“The stakes for the country are too high for us not to pursue the stronger protections required to end the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralyzing the scheme and negating its intended deterrent,” he wrote.

That was seen as a reference to Sunak’s refusal to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The bill proposes giving ministers powers to disregard sections of the UK Human Rights Act and ECHR when considering deportation cases.

But some right-wing Tories, including Braverman, want Sunak to leave the ECHR altogether.

Braverman, sacked last month after a series of outspoken comments, told parliament earlier that the government needed to go further to tackle “mass, uncontrolled, illegal immigration”.

Among her demands was to block “all routes” of legal challenges to deportations to get deportation flights to Rwanda by the time of the poll, which is expected next year.

She has become the cheerleader of the vocal Tory right-wing and is thought to be positioning herself as a future leader if Sunak is forced to quit after the nationwide vote.

The Tories lag well behind the main opposition Labour Party in opinion polls ahead of an election that must be held by January 2025.