Nadhim Zahawi has called for the minister in charge of the 'one in, one out' returns deal with France to "resign" after an Eritrean man won a High Court case against the Home Office.
Speaking to GB News, the ex-Conservative MP declared the block of a second migrant from Britain to France both "predictable and unbelievable".
Plans to fly the second migrant out on Tuesday were scrapped after his lawyers claimed his experience of being "tortured and trafficked" should "prevent him from being returned to France".
Another Air France flight, which was supposed to have at least one migrant on it, took off without them as last-minute legal challenges blocked the deportation.
Nadhim Zahawi has called for those in charge of Labour's migrant exchange deal with France to resign
|GB NEWS
Discussing the High Court victory on GB News, Mr Zahawi fumed: "This is predictable and unbelievable. Predictable because on the night of the election, Keir Starmer threw away all the hard work of having the Rwanda deal in place to process people in Rwanda.
"I predicted on that night that this will come back and damage him, and if not taken down completely, and I think ultimately it will. It's unbelievable, because again, what minister is going to resign over this?"
Calling on the "senior responsible officer" to "resign" over the failed deportations, he added: "When you had what the spectacle of two planes with journalists being taken out to show them that this thing is working, having zero, not a single illegal migrant being sent back.
"Who's the senior responsible officer as they call them in the civil service? If this was in the private sector, the senior responsible manager would tender his resignation tonight."
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There were no migrants on the first two Air France flights from Heathrow to Paris
| GETTYMr Zahawi drew comparisons with his time leading the vaccine rollout, where clear accountability was established.
He explained how Emily Lawson served as the senior responsible officer for that programme, with full visibility to the public about who was in charge so that "the nation knew which civil servant was the highest ranking".
The former Tory MP told GB News: "When I did the vaccine program, the senior responsible officer was Emily Lawson. I deliberately did two things. One, made sure she had her team and everything she needed in place to be able to deliver for the country in vaccinate the nation.
"But two, I put her in front of the camera so the nation knew which civil servant was the highest ranking.
"And coincidentally, she came from the private sector, and, by the way, went back to the private sector after because she got so fed up with Government."
Mr Zahawi told GB News that the decision is both 'predictable and unbelievable'
|GB NEWS
Calling again for those in charge of the exchange deal to resign, Mr Zahawi stated: "So who's the SRO? That's the question, and who's the minister who is going to resign?"
Defending the decision by the court, Kate Grange KC, for the Home Office, said in written submissions that it was "reasonable" to expect the Eritrean man to claim asylum in France.
Ms Grange said: "It is inevitable that not all asylum seekers potentially within scope for removal will be removed because of the inevitable limits on capacity and the nature of the scheme.”
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: "As we’ve been saying the last couple of days, we have actually made the first detentions under the scheme and expect the first returns to take place imminently, but for obvious reasons we’re not going to get into a running commentary on operational details ahead of that."