To insist that judges must have the final say would displace Parliament’s proper role as the ultimate decision-maker in our constitution.
Only by improving this Bill, and by delivering on the Prime Ministers’ pledge to stop the boats, can we assert with confidence that the people’s will has prevailed.
The Supreme Court could only decide it had the power to strike down legislation if it already possessed that power. Authority cannot be established by appeal to itself.
Doing the minimum possible on legal migration would have the unwelcome effect for the Prime Minister of prolonging and intensifying debate about it.
The Government needs as broad a coalition of voices as possible to tackle the fissure opening up in our constitution and public life.
Complex problems often require international cooperation, and cooperation is more likely to be effective within a framework of mutually respected laws.
The Prime Minister’s mooted emergency legislation seems unlikely to pass; even if it did, there is hardly time before the next election to get the policy operational.
The judgment may be a setback, but it is certainly not an insurmountable obstacle. It is open to Ministers to respond to the Supreme Court’s concerns and move urgently to implement this important policy.
The issue of immigration is now fully back at the centre of our national life and will exert a profound influence on the outcome of the rapidly approaching general election next year.
The Prime Minister looked relieved to have appointed a Home Secretary who is not furious with him.
“We are unanimously of the view that the Court of Appeal was entitled to reach that conclusion.”
If Sunak doesn’t commit the Conservatives to leaving, and then somehow wins the next election, the next Leader of the Opposition will take up the cause.
Why should a previous government’s commitment to the international community trump (in practice if not in legal theory) a later government’s commitments to the British people?
The case hinges on Rwanda’s capacity to deliver the necessary safeguards, not on any claim that the entire policy is a breach of international law.
The sovereignty of Parliament, as the representative of the people, has been eroded, and power handed to an increasingly assertive bureaucracy.