Robert Jenrick resigned as immigration minister in December 2023 because he said he could not support Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda asylum legislation, arguing it was too weak on stopping illegal migration and did not go far enough in overriding human rights constraints.

What actually happened

  • In early December 2023, the government published emergency legislation aimed at saving its Rwanda scheme for sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda after the UK Supreme Court ruled the original plan unlawful.
  • Jenrick, then immigration minister, quit shortly afterwards, sending a resignation letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

His stated reasons

  • Jenrick said he had “strong disagreements with the direction of the government’s policy on immigration” and could not continue when the Rwanda bill, in his view, did not provide the “stronger protections” needed to stop small-boat crossings.
  • He described the bill as “a triumph of hope over experience” and said he refused to be another politician making immigration promises to the public that were not kept.

Policy and legal issues

  • A key fault line was how far the UK should go in limiting the effect of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act on deportations to Rwanda.
  • Jenrick and other MPs on the right wanted tougher measures to prevent legal challenges from blocking flights, while Sunak chose a more constrained approach that stopped short of fully disapplying the Convention.

Political context and fallout

  • His resignation exposed a deep split inside the Conservative Party over how hard-line to be on immigration and asylum, especially after repeated promises to “stop the boats”.
  • Sunak called the resignation “disappointing” and said it was based on a misunderstanding of the legislation, but critics used it as evidence of a government losing control of its own strategy.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.