Braverman says one flight to Rwanda ‘here or there, with few passengers on it’ will not work as deterrent

Suellla Braverman, the former Conservative home secretary, restated her belief this morning that the government’s Rwanda bill won’t work. Braverman, who was sacked by Rishi Sunak partly because they disagreed over immigration policy, told the Today progamme:

Unfortunately I voted against the legislation because I think it’s fatally flawed. I don’t think it’s going to stop the boats, and that’s the test of its efficacy.

Braverman said all the government’s attempts to tackle illegal migration were being thwarted by human rights law.

The simple fact is this is our third Act of Parliament that the Government has introduced in four years to stop the boats.

None of them have worked – none of them have worked because they are all still susceptible to the international human rights law framework contained in the European convention on human rights judged by, and adjudicated by, the European court of human rights in Strasbourg – that’s the problem, and that’s why I’ve been calling for a few years now to leave the European convention on human rights.

At the Conservative party conference in October 2022 Braverman famously said that it was her “dream” to see the first flight take off to Rwanda because she thought the policy would have a deterrent effect. She said:

I would love to have a front page of The Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.

But this morning she revealed that she has revised hew view since then. When the Today presenter Mishal Husain reminded her of her “dream” comment, and asked if she would congratulate the PM when the first flight took off, Braverman replied:

The prime minister has pledged to stop the boats. That’s what we owe the British people and that’s the test. I’m afraid this bill, as drafted, will not achieve that goal. It’s fatally flawed …

One flight here or there, with a few passengers on it, will not provide the deterrent effect that is necessary to break the people smuggling gangs, to send the message to the illegal migrants that it’s not worth getting on a dinghy in the first place because you’re not going to get a life in the UK.

We need to have regular flights going to Rwanda with large numbers of passengers on them. That’s the only way to stop the boats.