UK PM Boris Johnson defends Rwanda contentious migrant flight plan

The UK government's contentious new policy to fly out illegal migrants to Rwanda continues to face legal challenges in the courts on Tuesday, even as Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the strategy and pledged to get on with it.

Speaking at the start of a weekly Cabinet meeting at No. 10 Downing Street in London, Johnson insisted the government would not be "deterred" or "abashed" by the criticism of the policy.

It came as the Church of England, led by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, joined campaigners and charity workers in their criticism of the plan as inhumane and risky.

"We are not going to be in any way deterred or abashed by some of the criticism that is being directed upon this policy – some of it from slightly unexpected quarters," said Johnson.

"What is happening with the attempt to undermine the Rwanda policy is that they are, I'm afraid, undermining everything that we're trying to do to support safe and legal routes for people to come to the UK and to oppose the illegal and dangerous routes. That is what we are trying to do, that is the essence of our policy," he said.

Hitting out at lawyers challenging the policy in the courts, he added: "And I think that what the criminal gangs are doing and what those who effectively are abetting the work of the criminal gangs are doing is undermining people's confidence in the safe and legal system, undermining people's general acceptance of immigration." Meanwhile, an asylum seeker due to be on the first flight from the UK to Rwanda on Tuesday evening failed in his bid against deportation.

Up to eight people are due to be on the plane but appeals remain ongoing till the last minute.

These cases follow the failure of a last-ditch attempt to block the flight altogether in the Court of Appeal on Monday when Indian-origin judge Lord Justice Rabinder Singh said the court could not interfere with a High Court judge's ''clear and detailed'' judgment from last week.

That judgment to refuse permission to appeal was subsequently upheld by the Supreme Court on Tuesday, where a review was sought.

A plane set to deport the first batch of asylum seekers believed to include Iraqis and Vietnamese nationals, to the eastern African nation's capital Kigali will leave a UK Ministry of Defence runway in Wiltshire.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has stressed that the flight would leave even if a very small number of people were on it, as it would ''establish the principle'' of the policy to break the business models of people traffickers.

''If people aren't on the flight today, they will be on the subsequent flights to Rwanda,'' she said.

In a letter to 'The Times' newspaper, Church of England leaders described the plan as an ''immoral policy that shames Britain''.

Signed by the archbishops of Canterbury and York and more than 20 other bishops who sit in the House of Lords, the letter said that ''those to be deported to Rwanda have had no chance to appeal or reunite with family in Britain''.

''They have had no consideration of their asylum claim, recognition of their medical or other needs, or any attempt to understand their predicament,'' the letter notes.

The UK's new Migration Partnership with Rwanda is part of a five-year trial launched by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel in April this year, in which some asylum seekers deemed to have entered the UK illegally are transported to Rwanda to claim refuge there.

They will get accommodation and support while the Rwandan government considers their application, and if they are successful, they can stay in the country with up to five years' access to education and support.

If their asylum claim is unsuccessful, they will be offered the chance to apply for other immigration routes or face deportation from Rwanda.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)