Boris Johnson's Ex-Wife Slams 'Damaging' Effect Of Rwanda Act

  (The Huffington Post) : Boris Johnson and his ex-wife Marina Wheeler Boris Johnson’s ex-wife has cast serious doubt on one of his flagship policies, the controversial plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. The Conservative government, now led by Rishi Sunak, pushed to get the Rwanda bill passed into law – but it comes with major risks. Marina Wheeler KC – currently a workplace harassment adviser to Labour – said on Tuesday that the ongoing legal challenges to the scheme are “of concern”. Channel 4 News’ Cathy Newman asked the barrister if the government’s decision to ignore the courts’ fears around the act damaged the UK’s “reputation of legal probity”. Wheeler said she still thinks the country is a “beacon of legal probity”, but added: “The new [Rwanda] act doesn’t abide by the Supreme Court’s rulings, and I think that is very damaging. “An act that says we should ignore the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights is also very damaging.” The ECHR declared the deportation plan was unlawful in June 2022, and said British judges needed to examine the arguments against it more thoroughly. That meant the first flight meant to take refugees to the African country never took off. Then the UK Supreme Court ruled it was unlawful, too. The only way Sunak has ever managed to work around this was to tell civil servants to ignore European court judges. Johnson actually urged Sunak to override the court in 2023, claiming it was not for “judges in London” to determine if Rwanda was safe. He called for the government to change the law and decla the African country a safe place so the scheme could go ..