Britain was on a collision course with European judges last night after they intervened at the eleventh hour to block the inaugural deportation flight to Rwanda.
A decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg to grant injunctions against the removal of the migrants, including an Iraqi, an Iranian, a Vietnamese and an Albanian, grounded the flight half an hour before it was due to leave.
The privately chartered aircraft, a Boeing 767, was due to leave Boscombe Down military base in Wiltshire at 10.30pm last night, with at least four of the migrants driven to the airfield earlier in the day.
Priti Patel, the home secretary, denounced the ECHR’s intervention, saying she found it “very surprising” that it had contradicted rulings
