Boris Johnson has hit back at Archbishop of Canterbury after the church leader criticised the governments decision to of send illegal migrants to Rwanda, claiming the top clergy should be condemning Vladimir Putin instead.

It comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury used his Easter sermon to accuse the government of "subcontracting our responsibilities" and acting "opposite of the nature of God."

The PM's criticism of the Rt Rev Justin Welby's comments was described as a "disgraceful slur", a senior Church of England official has said.

Boris Johnson accused Justin Welby of having "misconstrued" the policy of sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Christian MP Sir Desmond Swain spoke to Premier and shared his thoughts: "I agree with the Prime Minister, I've spent a couple of weeks in Rwanda for over 10 years, teaching English to primary teachers, and I'm very impressed with Rwanda's way of doing things.

"There are all sorts of concerns, that anyone can quite properly have, but I have to set that against the situation that we're in at the moment, where people are undertaking paying gangsters to get round our immigration system to get themselves here - jumping the queue effectively, for those schemes that we have in place, putting themselves and their children and various others in enormous danger. 

"I just don't think that we can go on with the expectation that we will have literally hundreds and hundreds of people on every calm day crossing the Channel."

Sir Swain went onto to say that he thinks it is perfectly proper for the Prime Minister and for the government to address the problems with the Rwanda programme, and that people's reservations were "perfectly legitimate" considering the lack of detail offered. 

He continued: "I accept entirely that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a point of view, and he's entitled to express that point of view, and it's the job of the church to challenge government. 

"But on this one, I'm currently on the side of the government."