The resignation as Secretary of State for Immigration of Robert Jenrick has caused a new and sudden crisis in Rishi Sunak’s Government, one day after the signing of a treaty with Rwanda for the deportation to the African country of thousands of immigrants pending application. of asylum.
Jenrick has justified his resignation by alleging “a profound disagreement with the direction that the Government’s immigration policy has taken.” Her resignation comes three weeks after her dismissal as Interior Secretary of Suella Braverman, who is now threatening to lead a revolt against the ‘premier’ in Parliament.
Sunak has announced a new emergency law following the Supreme Court’s decision to declare the Rwanda plan “illegal” on the grounds that immigrants can be repatriated to their place of origin.
The prime minister is confident of ultimately winning the legal battle with the new treaty with Rwanda and the changes introduced by the emergency law. Sunak was building on the boost given to the Rwanda plan by his new home secretary, James Cleverly, who traveled to Kirali on Tuesday to announce the new treaty.
Robert Jenrick, however, resigned a few hours later as head of Immigration and revealed the divisions within the Government. Like Suella Braverman, Jenrick was in favor of going further and promoting the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Convention on Human Rights, to guarantee that no “foreign” court can again block the take-off of planes with immigrants heading to Rwanda, as happened in June 2022 (with Boris Johnson as Prime Minister).
The right wing of the Conservative Party, spurred by the so-called European Research Group, has realigned itself in favor of the toughest line of immigration policy, in another of the final blows of Brexit that could put Sunak in trouble. back for the 2024 elections.
In his resignation letter, Jenrick emphasizes that the emergency law does not offer “sufficient protections” to prevent future legal interference. The resigning Secretary of State even claims that the law “does not have the best possible guarantee of success” in Parliament in its current draft.