Boris Johnson accuses Justin Welby of ‘misconstruing’ Rwanda policy

Boris Johnson is said to have accused Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby of having “misconstrued” the policy of sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Sources close to the Prime Minister said he accused the senior clergyman of being “less vociferous” in his condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin than he was in his attack on the policy.

The criticism from Mr Johnson appeared to have come in a private address to Tory MPs in Parliament after he was forced to repeatedly apologise over the fine he received from police for breaching coronavirus laws.

Mr Welby raised “serious ethical questions” about the policy in his Easter Sunday address and said it cannot “stand the judgment of God”.

In the sermon, the archbishop said “sub-contracting out our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of the nature of God who himself took responsibility for our failures”.

But sources said Mr Johnson accused “senior members of the clergy” of having “misconstrued the policy”.

The Prime Minister was said to have then added that the clergymen were “less vociferous” in their condemnation on Easter Sunday of Mr Putin than they were on the migration policy.