UK: House of Commons debates deportation flights to Rwanda

AreaRead the video transcript expand here

Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister:

Question Time in the British House of Commons.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Home Secretary Priti Patel are reacting to the initially failed deportation flights to Rwanda.

Boris Johnson, British Prime Minister:

The point of contention is a treaty that the British government has signed with Rwanda.

According to this, asylum seekers who enter Britain illegally can be deported to the East African country.

The British government wants to pay at least 120 million pounds to Rwanda so that the country takes over the asylum procedures in their place.

According to the Conservative Party, the mechanism should deter those who pay smugglers to cross the English Channel.

Priti Patel, British Home Secretary:

However, the European Court of Human Rights stopped the first deportation flight to Rwanda at the last minute on Tuesday evening.

However, the court justified the decision with a small procedural error, not with fundamental violations of the Rwanda deal against the European Convention on Human Rights.

Priti Patel, British Home Secretary:

Opposition MPs like former Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn have criticized the Rwanda deal.

Jeremy Corbyn, Labor MP:

After Brexit, another legal conflict between the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe is now looming.

Unlike the European Court of Human Rights, the British Supreme Court allowed the deportation flight.