So the game is on, once again. Six months after a last-minute intervention by the European court of human rights prevented a flight carrying seven migrants from taking off for Kigali, the Home Office’s Rwanda asylum-processing deal is back in play, thanks to today’s ruling in favour of the scheme by Lord Justice Lewis and Mr Justice Swift.
A summer of political turmoil – which saw the exits of both the scheme’s originator, Priti Patel, and its enthusiastic supporter Boris Johnson – had offered the government a precious chance to shelve the policy, which even some Conservative stalwarts regard as morally distasteful and legally questionable.