So Much for Brexit: European Court Blocks UK From Deporting Illegal Migrants to Rwanda

A European court intervened in the late hours of Tuesday evening to prevent a deportation flight to Rwanda from the UK, sparking calls for Brexit Britain to finally leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

The deportation flight, which had already been bogged down to near irrelevancy by domestic legal challenges resulting in just a handful of illegal boat migrants prepped for removal to Rwanda, was cancelled outright by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) after an 11th-hour appeal by an Iraqi migrant.

According to a report from The Telegraph, an alleged asylum seeker from Iraq, dubbed ‘KN’, launched an appeal at the ECHR after losing an appeal at the UK Supreme Court.

The European judges found that the Iraqi should not be deported until a judicial review of the policy has been conducted and that there was no legal mechanism for him to be returned to Britain should the migrant face poor treatment in Rwanda as the country is outside the jurisdiction of the ECHR.

Despite the UK officially leaving the European Union in 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government did not remove the country from the jurisdiction of the ECHR as it is technically not part of the EU. The ECHR is actually a body of the Council of Europe, a distinct organisation, although in practice membership of the Council is de facto mandatory for EU members.

Leading Brexit figures, including Nigel Farage, had long warned that the scheme to deport illegal migrants to the East African nation of Rwanda would be hampered by the UK’s membership in the European Court.

Commenting on the ECHR blocking the deportation flight, Mr Farage said on Wednesday morning: “Left-wing lawyers now dictate our immigration policy. Time to leave the ECHR and finally complete Brexit.

Mr Farage said that the fight to leave the European Court will be “Brexit 2.0” as Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn’t “do Brexit properly”.