Ministers have formally scrapped their Channel migrant “pushback” policy just over a week before it was due to be challenged in the High Court.
The policy would have allowed Border Force patrols to intercept boats and redirect them back to France.
Defence ministers said that the policy would not be used once their department took over responsibility from the Home Office. Priti Patel, the home secretary who introduced the policy last year but has never seen it put into action, had insisted as late as last week that it was still live.
The Public and Commercial Services trade union, Care4Calais, Channel Rescue and Freedom from Torture had planned to argue at the High Court that Border Force did not have the legal authority to push
