The UK Supreme Court case will consider the fate of the government's controversial plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda. The outcome is far from certain - and the full story is far more complex than headlines suggest.

Let's go back to the beginning.

The UK is a member of the Refugee Convention - the international law that says it will consider the cases of people who arrive in the country seeking asylum.

It's very difficult to seek asylum in the UK - so people have increasingly arrived with the help of smugglers.

The government says that these people who could have claimed asylum in France, or elsewhere in the EU, should not be coming to the UK at all.

So three prime ministers ago in April last year, the government struck a deal with Rwanda in which the African nation agreed to take some of these asylum applicants off the UK's hands. It's been paid £140m so far to do so - and it remains totally unclear how many it would ever take, even if the scheme ever gets to operate.

Back in 2022, the then Home Secretary Priti Patel ordered that 47 English Channel-crossing migrants could be put on the first flight. That fell to just seven by the planned departure date of 14 June.

But lawyers acting for the migrants asked the High Court to stop the flight ahead of a full legal challenge to the Rwanda plan.

A judge refused to stop it, saying the flight should be allowed to leave before the scheme was considered - and more senior judges ruled there was nothing wrong with his decision.

But as the plane was being prepared, a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg blocked the take-off.

It said British judges must be allowed time to fully assess the policy - and that's what has been happening ever since.