A video grab from footage broadcast by the UK Parliament's Parliamentary Recording Unit (PRU) shows Britain's Home Secretary Priti Patel (right) reacting as Britain's opposition Labour Party's shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper speaks during a statement concerning the government's plan to send migrants and asylum seekers who cross the Channel to Rwanda in the House of Commons in London on June 15, 2022. Photo: AFP

Britain's government Wednesday refused to rule out abandoning a European human rights pact after a judge dramatically blocked its plan to fly asylum-seekers to Rwanda, sparking fury among Conservatives.

The last-gasp intervention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) forced the government to cancel the first flight on Tuesday night, after the number of claimants aboard had already been whittled down by UK legal challenges.

Interior minister Priti Patel, however, told parliament the government "will not be deterred from doing the right thing" and that plans for further flights "have already begun."

She attacked the "usual suspects" among lawyers' firms and rights groups for defying the "will of the British people," as well as "evil" gangs behind a flourishing cross-Channel trade in migrants.

The ECHR is unrelated to the European Union, which Britain left in January 2020. 

But Tory backbenchers, fresh from rebelling in large numbers against Prime Minister Boris Johnson's leadership, said the ruling infringed on British sovereignty.

"Yes, let's withdraw from European Court of Human Rights and stop their meddling in British law," MP Andrea Jenkyns tweeted, echoing others in the party and banner headlines in right-wing newspapers.

The government's top law officer, attorney general Suella Braverman, said many in Britain would be frustrated at the role played by a "foreign court."

"We are definitely open to assessing all options available as to what our relationship should be, going forward, with the European Court of Human Rights," she told BBC radio.

AFP