A senior minister in the Home Office has resigned over plans to try and revive the Rwanda policy.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, is said to have quit after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rejected demands to opt out of European human rights laws to revive the controversial policy.
Home Secretary James Cleverly confirmed the news after repeated questioning, and Mr Jenrick says his resignation comes ‘with great sadness’.
In his resignation letter, he said: ‘It is with great sadness that I write to tender my resignation as minister for immigration. I cannot continue in my position when I have such strong disagreements with the direction of the government’s policy on immigration.
‘I have been pushing for the strongest possible piece of emergency legislation to ensure that under the Rwanda policy we remove as many small boat arrivals, as swiftly as possible, to generate the greatest deterrent effect.
‘I am unable to take the currently proposed legislation through the Commons as I do not believe it provides us with the best possible chance of success.
‘We said that we would stop the boats together. That is what the public rightly demands and expects of us. We must truly mean that we will do “whatever it takes” to deliver the commitment when we say so.
‘This emergency legislation is the last opportunity to prove this, but in its current drafting it does not go far enough.
‘I refuse to be yet another politician who makes promises on immigration to the British public but does not keep them.’
The prime minister will have been rocked by the resignation, after refusing to take the more hardline approach to the Rwanda policy with new emergency legislation.
Mr Cleverly was repeatedly asked if Mr Jenrick had resigned during his Commons statement on the plans earlier this evening – during which the immigration minister was conspicuously absent.
The news comes as it was revealed Rwanda could be given £15 million to take people who arrive in the UK on small boats – on top of the £140 million already paid out.
The plan was deemed illegal earlier this year, which led Mr Sunak to introduce emergency legislation to try and get the scheme back on track.
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