British lawmakers voted to support the government’s plan to send some asylum-seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda, keeping alive a policy that has angered human rights groups and cost the U.K. at least $300 million, without a single flight getting off the ground. The House of Commons voted 313-269 to approve the government’s Rwanda bill in principle, sending it on for further scrutiny. The result averts a defeat that would have left Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s authority shredded and his government teetering. It buys Sunak some breathing space, but tees up further wrangling in the coming weeks. The bill seeks to overcome a ruling by the U.K. Supreme Court that the plan to send migrants who reach Britain across the English Channel in boats to Rwanda – where they would stay permanently — is illegal. The bill is the result of a new deal that was signed on December 5 by Rwanda and the UK.
SOURCE: AFRICA NEWS