Suella Braverman has warned Rishi Sunak that his latest attempt to tackle illegal migration “won’t work and it will not stop the boats”.
Ms Braverman offered her scathing verdict during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, saying the Bill includes clear sections which allow a “whole raft of individual claims to be made by people that we might seek to remove to Rwanda”.
She said: “They will be able to bring those claims through the courts via judicial review.
“They will be able to challenge the decisions made by the Secretary of State and those those challenges could take months, and potentially sometimes years, ultimately clog up the system when our removal of those people to Rwanda.”
Ms Braverman argued her objections have nothing to do with the leadership of the Tory Party, and said her party doesn’t have a “death wish”.
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She argued the Tories are now in a “very perilous situation”.
She said: “The facts don’t lie, and we need to deliver on a key promise, that’s how we will win the next general election.
“The time for talk, the time for slogans and promises is over. We need to show delivery and that’s what this debate right now is all about.”
While Ms Braverman has noticeably watered down her personal criticisms of Mr Sunak, and said there are “elements” of the new Bill that should be “welcomed”, she maintained that the Government’s latest attempt is doomed to fail.
She said: “We can’t do half measures. We have to totally exclude international law, Refugee Convention, other broader avenues of legal challenge, because the reality is in this area of law, as we’ve seen, regrettably, in June, people will bring legal claims, they will bring challenges through the courts, and those challenges will operate to block flights to Rwanda.”
She expressed “surprise” at Downing Street’s statement that Rwanda would not have gone along with stronger measures to ignore international law, as the Bill itself makes clear that James Cleverly “cannot confirm the Bill complies with international law”.
She said: “So on that basis, there would be a problem given the statement made by Downing Street.
“There’s an intellectual incoherence in the statement they put out.”
Ms Braverman also argued that the measure put forward by her and others on the right of the Tory party does not breach international law.
The former Home Secretary said she “very much hopes that the Prime Minister changes course” and that she wants Mr Sunak to succeed in stopping the boats.
She said: “We are all Conservatives. I want this PM to fulfil his promise that he made to stop the boats.
“He said he would do whatever it takes. I’ve told him what it will take to stop the boats. It is his choice as to what he does. And I’m urging him to take up the advice and the feedback that colleagues who are well-intentioned and want us all to win so that he can actually fulfil the promise which has been made to the British people.”
She said she hopes Mr Sunak leads the Conservative Party into the next General Election.
