Boris Johnson defends Rwanda policy as fifth asylum seeker fails in legal bid to block deportation tonight – live | Politics

Downing Street has defended the appointement of David Buttress as the government’s new cost of living tsar despite Buttess saying in January that Boris Johnson should resign. Buttress has also criticised Johnson and the Tories more widely, as well as arguing that the Rwanda deportation policy lacks common decency. (See 4.15pm and 4.36pm.)

The PM’s spokesperson said Buttress’s previous comments were “not relevant” to his new role. He went on:

As you would expect for any sort of appointment, the requisite due diligence is carried out. This instance is no different.

The individual you are referring to has a very clear task with regards to the cost of living as opposed to any other areas of government policy.

Anyone who looks at Mr Buttress’s CV can see that he is well-qualified to advise the government in this specific area. Those views are not relevant to the role he is doing.

A fourth person has had their bid to prevent their removal to Rwanda rejected by the high court, PA Media reports. PA says:

In a hearing on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Justice Swift refused the application of a Kurdish man against his removal.

The judge also refused him permission to appeal.

Including the supreme court hearing (see 12.42pm and 2.27pm), there are now five asylum seekers who have lost court hearings today which they hoped might suspend deportation proceedings.

Plaid Cymru has said Wales and the rest of the UK should rejoin the EU single market. Speaking during first minister’s questions in the Welsh parliament, Adam Price, the Plaid leader, said:

The cost-of-living crisis and the challenges we’re facing in every sector of the economy and in every part of the UK bar London arguably has a very simple practical solution which is returning to the principle at the heart of ‘Securing Wales’s Future’, the white paper Plaid Cymru and the Welsh government jointly published, which is re-joining now the single market and the customs union.

Price urged Mark Drakeford, the Labour first minister, to make this argument to Boris Johnson and to Keir Starmer. Starmer’s Brexit policy was “vague”, Price said.

Drakeford was non-committal, but accepted that being in the single market would remove barriers to trade.

In the high court, Mr Justice Swift has today refused a third person’s bid to prevent their deportation to Rwanda, PA Media reports. PA says:

The man, who had travelled from Iran to the UK with his 21-year-old son, had asked the high court to prevent his removal due to his mental health and right to a family life.

However, refusing the application, Swift said: “I accept the prejudice to the claimant will include distress due to being separated from his son.”

Earlier Swift dismissed legal bids to halt deportation from an Iranian Kurd (see 2.07pm) and from a man from Vietnam (see 2.33pm).

Separately, the supreme court has also rejected an appeal from a fourth asylum seeker trying to halt deportation. (See 12.42pm and 2.27pm.)

The government has appointed David Buttress, the former chief executive of Just Eat, as its new cost of living tsar. He is supposed to work “in partnership with the private sector to identify, develop and promote new and existing business-led initiatives that support people with rising costs of living – from discounted prices or product offers to the expansion of business-run programmes”.

Labour sources have pointed out that in January Buttress was calling for Boris Johnson’s resignation on Twitter.

My colleague Jessica Elgot has posted some more from Buttress’s back catalogue.

Here is the full quote from Boris Johnson on leaving the European convention on human rights. He was asked whether, in light of all the legal challenges that the Rwanda deportation policy was facing, it was time for Britain to now leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR) to reduce the government being obstructed by the courts. He replied:

It’s certainly the case that … the legal world is very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the government from upholding what we think is a sensible law.

We’re trying to make a distinction between legal pathways to the UK, which we support – we want people to be able to come here in fear of their lives, but we want them to do it legally and safely, and that’s why we have all the safe and legal routes that are open to people. What we want to do is show the people traffickers that they’re breaking the law, they’re risking people’s lives and it won’t work anyway.

Now, will it be necessary to change some laws to help us as we go along? It may very well be. And all these options are under constant review.

This implies that the idea of withdrawing from the European convention on human rights is more of an option that Johnson is toying with at this stage than a proposal to which he is firmly committed. Johnson, like many politicians, is fond of floating ideas to see what reaction they provoke (particularly if they are likely to excite the Tory papers and infuriate the left).

The government is already committed to legislating this session for a bill of rights that would limit the extent to which decisions of the European court of human rights (which adjudicates on the convention) are automatically followed by UK courts. But withdrawing from the convention would be a much more radical, and provocative move.

Theresa May floated the idea in 2016, when she was home secretary (and angry about the way the convention limited her ability to deport foreign criminals). Her proposals was not adopted by colleagues, but Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former chief adviser, said the ECHR was “unfinished business” as Britain left the EU, and during the withdrawal negotiations the UK was at one point reluctant to promise that it would remain party to the convention post-Brexit.

Here is the clip.