Government sources said they hoped the first flights would leave the UK “as soon as possible”, but that ministers “know there will be legal challenges” and are “less optimistic” than before about when it will happen.
Last month, Mr Johnson’s spokesman seemed to return to the original schedule, suggesting that the first migrants would set foot in Rwanda in the “coming months” – not by the end of May, as the prime minister had originally suggested.
The spokesman insisted the plan was “a completely legally sound approach that has been tested and considered”. The spokesman said the interior ministry could not wait for the court cases to be resolved before flights began, although the proposal now appears to have been abandoned.
A separate source from Whitehall, familiar with the policy, told The Telegraph that the two-month deadline from the initial announcement in mid-April was more realistic.
Opposition was opposed by Labor, who described it as a “shameful statement” intended to divert attention from the “party door”, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who said the principle could not “stand up to God’s judgment”.
The archbishop said: “It cannot bear the burden of our national responsibility as a country shaped by Christian values, because the transfer of our responsibilities, even to a country that strives to do as well as Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God who we took responsibility for our own failures. “
But the announcement was welcomed by rear Tory courts, who said it would end the flow of illegal migrants across the English Channel in small boats and put an end to the activities of criminal gangsters who organize their passage.
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