Rwanda’s out – so what’s the government’s plan B?

Another day, another setback for Rishi Sunak. It started well enough, with inflation falling to 4.6 per cent, delivering his pledge to halve it this year.

But the good news was eclipsed three hours later, by the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that the government’s controversial scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful because there would be a risk of them being sent back to their home country.

This humiliating setback is a reminder that no one is above the law. The immoral attempt to send vulnerable to Rwanda – an unsafe land – shows the deep decay at the heart of today’s Conservative Party.

Today encapsulates Sunak’s premiership: a small step forward, a big step back. His problem is that voters will notice his Rwanda body blow more than the drop in inflation. After all, prices are still rising (and, in any case, the fall is the Bank of England’s work, rather than the government’s). There is public support for “stopping the boats”, but today’s ruling shows it will be very hard for the prime minister to deliver his promise to do so.

He should now go back to the drawing board and look at other solutions; if the programme went ahead, Rwanda would take only a tiny proportion of those crossing the Channel and there is no proof the plan would act as a deterrent. Without legal safe routes to the UK, asylum seekers would still take their chances in the boats.

But Sunak has already doubled down (again) on a failed scheme that has already cost £140m, judging that a humiliating retreat would be worse than ploughing on. He said: “This was not the outcome we wanted, but we have spent the last few months planning for all eventualities and we remain completely committed to stopping the boats.”

A few hours after the Supreme Court ruling, he vowed to do “whatever it takes” to prevent illegal channel crossings. At PMQs, he said he was prepared to “revisit domestic legal frameworks” and “international relationships” if they continue to “frustrate” plans to deport asylum seekers.

In all this, his task has been made more complicated by Suella Braverman’s vitriolic, personal attack on his integrity and alleged weakness in last night’s letter after her sacking as home secretary.

She said defeat in the Supreme Court would mean being “back at square one” and accused the PM of “failing to prepare any sort of credible plan B” despite her repeated requests for him do to that. Sunak denies the charge. His plan B might include trying to answer the court’s criticism by agreeing on a formal treaty with Rwanda and having it ratified by parliament.

The danger is that this might not satisfy either the court or right-wing Tory MPs, who are inevitably now pressing Sunak to go for the nuclear option Braverman urged – the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). There is currently no cabinet majority for that. Sunak, James Cleverly, the new home secretary, and Alex Chalk, the lord chancellor are opposed and Lord Cameron, the foreign secretary, will likely join them.

But it is not impossible that a desperate Sunak is dragged down that route, perhaps initially by opting out of part of the ECHR. It could be a slippery slope: quitting the ECHR would wreck his attempts to enjoy better relations with the EU, and contradict the Good Friday Agreement which brought peace to Northern Ireland.

Some right-wingers think they can pressure the PM into making a manifesto pledge to hold a referendum on ECHR withdrawal. If, by the election, he fails to send any asylum seekers to Rwanda, he might just be tempted: it would enable him to run immigration and Europe as election issues (even though the ECHR is not an EU agreement, but never mind). This would create two genuine dividing lines with Labour (which has pledged to scrap the Rwanda scheme as unworkable) rather than invented ones that fail to move the dial.

Following today’s ruling, some right-wingers will try to persuade Sunak to re-run Boris Johnson’s populist “government versus the judges” campaign – an echo of the Brexit battles in which Supreme Court judges were branded “enemies of the people” for ruling that suspending parliament was illegal. This will not be Sunak’s instinct, and he should resist such calls. Taking the Trumpian road – and reminding voters of Johnson – would not impress people in the blue wall in the south, as his cabinet reshuffle with Cameron’s return was designed to do.

Where does today’s decision leave Braverman? On the face of it, it strengthens her claim that Sunak has failed on a key policy. But she cannot escape responsibility either: “Don’t blame me, I was only the home secretary” is not a very convincing leadership pitch. If he was such a disaster, why didn’t she resign?

While the Supreme Court has compounded Sunak’s headache and will fuel the revolt on the right, I doubt Braverman will be the beneficiary. Some natural supporters tell me she has blown her chances of being the next Tory leader in the past two weeks, listing her claim that being homeless was a “lifestyle choice”, her attack on the police’s operational independence, and her bitter, incendiary letter to Sunak.

“It’s a mixture of arrogance and political naivety,” one said. “We cannot change leader yet again before the election – and when we do, it won’t be to Suella.”

A tiny crumb of comfort for Sunak on another bad day at the office.