PM defends new Rwanda plan during Downing Street presser
Rishi Sunak insists his new Rwanda legislation "blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights" and claims going any further would mean "the entire scheme will collapse". Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Transcript
00:00 Good morning. Today the government has introduced the toughest anti-illegal immigration law
00:10 ever. I know that it will upset some people and you will hear a lot of criticism about
00:14 it. Claiming asylum, that's now blocked. Abuse of our modern slavery rules, blocked.
00:22 The idea that Rwanda isn't safe, blocked. The risk of being sent to some other country,
00:29 blocked. And spurious human rights claims. You'd better believe that we've blocked those
00:34 two because we're completely disapplying all the relevant sections of the Human Rights
00:39 Act. And not only have we blocked all of these ways that illegal migrants will try and stay,
00:47 we've also blocked their ability to try and stay by bringing a judicial review on any
00:53 of those grounds. That means that this bill blocks every single reason that has ever been
01:01 used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off. The only extremely narrow exception will
01:09 be that if you can prove with credible and compelling evidence that you specifically
01:15 have a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm. We have to recognise that
01:22 as a matter of law. And if we didn't, we'd undermine the treaty we've just signed with
01:28 Rwanda. As the Rwandans themselves have made clear, if we go any further, the entire scheme
01:35 will collapse.