Kemi Badenoch tells Labour 'We told you so' after migrant flights blocked
Kemi Badenoch said her message to the Government was "we told you so" after an Eritrean man won a High Court bid to have his deportation under the returns deal with France temporarily blocked.
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Asked by a listener during a phone-in on LBC with Iain Dale whether she would say “I told you so” to the Government, she said: “You’ve taken the words out of my mouth.
"That’s exactly what I would say to Labour. We told you so. It wasn’t just me, lots of people.”
The Eritrean man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is bringing a legal claim against the Home Office, asking the court for a block on his removal.
He was due to be on a flight to France at 9am on Wednesday.
The Home Office defended the case, saying that it was reasonable to expect the man to claim asylum in France.
Read more: Kemi Badenoch slams defecting Conservatives as 'running away from problems'
On Tuesday evening, Mr Justice Sheldon said: "I am going to grant a short period of interim relief.
"The status quo is that the claimant is currently in this country and has not been removed.
"So, I make an order that the claimant should not be removed tomorrow at 9am, but that this matter should come back to this court as soon as is reasonably practical in light of the further representations that the claimant… will make on his trafficking decision."
Ms Badenoch told Iain Dale that the Tories’ Rwanda deportation plan was “not a perfect plan”, but it would have allowed “third-country processing”.
She called out the "legal problems" that make removing people from the country difficult and said Labour is going to have to "learn the hard way" that they need to be tough in tackling immigration.
"Immigration is too high," she said.
"But on top of that, people are arriving illegally and claiming asylum, when really they're not asylum seekers, they're economic migrants. It is a problem that's increasing all across Europe.
"Other countries have it worse than we do.
"We've got to get tough on it and that means having a sensible plan.
"We had a deportation bill disapplying the Human Rights Act, making sure that if you arrive illegally, you're deported immediately.
"No benefits for these groups of people. We need to get very tough and Labour is going to learn the hard way.
"That just playing nice, one in, one out with France, that's not a real plan and it can't even do one in, one out."
'Every day, someone who should be removed uses our own legal system against us.'
— LBC (@LBC) September 16, 2025
@IainDale asks @KemiBadenoch if she's in favour of leaving the ECHR, after the High Court temporarily blocked a deportation under the 'one in one out' policy. pic.twitter.com/ByuNCTmLrK
Ministers agreed the pilot scheme with the French government in July as part of efforts to deter the record number of arrivals by small boat crossings so far this year.
The first detentions of migrants took place last month as the deal came into force and they have been held at an immigration removal centre pending their removal from the country.
Under the arrangement, the UK will send back to France asylum seekers who have crossed the Channel, in exchange for those who apply and are approved to come to Britain.
Despite the ongoing legal challenge, Downing Street insisted it expects deportations to begin "imminently", with the Prime Minister’s official spokesman saying "for obvious reasons we’re not going to get into a running commentary on operational details before that".
