Sunak Battles to Unite UK Tories Behind Rwanda Migrant Plan

Alex Wickham and Kitty Donaldson
·5-min read

(Bloomberg) -- Rishi Sunak made an 11th-hour push to shore up support within his ruling Conservative Party for his flagship immigration policy ahead of a vote Tuesday evening that appeared to hang on a knife-edge.

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The prime minister is trying to push through the House of Commons a bill designed to implement his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda by severely curtailing their ability to launch legal appeals against deportation. But he’s being hemmed in on both sides by competing Tory factions — with right-wingers seeking to harden the legislation and moderates vowing to oppose moves to do so.

That’s turned the first Commons vote on the bill into a moment of danger for Sunak, who has staked his premiership on the Rwanda plan even after it was ruled unlawful by the UK’s top court last month. If he loses, it would be the first such defeat on the second reading of a bill for a sitting government since 1986 and threaten to fatally undermine his premiership.

In a desperate attempt to win over potential rebels, Sunak called a group of right wingers to a breakfast meeting at his Downing Street residence on Tuesday morning. But it wasn’t clear whether he’d succeeded. One person familiar with the matter said the bill’s opponents numbered 40 — enough to defeat the government. Other rebel-minded Tories privately speculated they would fall short of defeating the government.

Three Tory MPs who oppose the legislation told Bloomberg they expected Sunak would narrowly win the vote. Following a meeting of right-wing MPs ahead of the vote, leader Mark Francois said the group had decided not to support the bill, and that they will seek to change it in future stages of its passage through Parliament. The “bulk of us will abstain,” he told broadcasters.

He also indicated that Sunak had told them he’s willing to tighten the bill, a line that will test the tolerance of more moderate Tories.

Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, an opposition party that has lent votes to support Tory governments in the past, said its eight MPs won’t support the bill.

The deportation deal with Rwanda is the centerpiece of Sunak’s effort to curb a surge in migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats and claiming asylum: more than 29,000 have done so this year, and more than 45,000 made the crossing in 2022. Ministers argue deportation to Rwanda will act as a deterrent to migrants undertaking the crossing in the first place.

Underscoring the human lives at stake that provide a backdrop for the parliamentary ructions, a person familiar with the matter said a migrant had died aboard the Bibby Stockholm accommodation barge that the government opened earlier this year in an attempt to relocate migrants from hotels into less appealing dwellings. The Home Office declined to confirm the death, saying in a statement that it’s “aware of reporting of an incident involving an asylum seeker on the Bibby Stockholm” and that it would be “inappropriate” to comment further.

Sunak holds a working majority of 56 in the Commons, meaning it would take 29 Tories to oppose the bill or 57 to abstain — or a combination of opponents and abstentions to defeat the government. If there’s a tie, the normally non-voting speaker has a casting vote.

The government expects to win the vote, illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson told the BBC on Tuesday. In a message to his party’s right, he suggested that any attempt to harden the legislation by blocking all court claims was “not the British thing to do.”

Moreover, the One Nation caucus of center-right MPs has warned that while it will vote for the bill, it’s not prepared to countenance amendments that toughen it “in a way that would make it unacceptable to those who believe that support for the rule of law is a basic Conservative principle.”

In a speech north of London on Tuesday, opposition Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer accused the Tories of “fighting like rats in a sack” and failing to provide the leadership the UK needs. ”We’re all stuck in their psychodrama. All being dragged down to their level,” he said.

Simon Clarke, a right-wing MP who is one of the possible rebels, called on the government to pull the vote rather than risk losing it, and instead come back with a different plan. Tomlinson and Sunak’s own spokesman, Max Blain, said the government would go ahead with the vote.

Even if Sunak wins Tuesday’s vote, he still faces an uphill battle to get it through Parliament. Right wingers in the Commons say they will seek to amend the legislation to toughen it, while moderates are unlikely to stomach changes they see as Britain retreating from its international obligations. After the Commons, the bill would face further hurdles in the Lords with peers expected to try to moderate the legislation.

As Sunak scrambled to ensure victory on Tuesday, Blain acknowledged that Climate Change Minister Graham Stuart was recalled from the United Nations climate talks in Dubai to attend the vote, even as discussions overran in the middle eastern city to firm up an agreement on the next steps in the battle to restrain global warming. He also said Stuart would fly back after the vote.

While Theresa May and Boris Johnson both lost multiple votes on motions and amendments during their tenures as prime minister, a defeat for Sunak would be the first time a sitting government has lost a vote on the so-called second reading on the general principles of a bill since 1986. Then, Margaret Thatcher’s administration lost a vote on a bill seeking to liberalize Sunday trading rules for shops.

--With assistance from Ellen Milligan.

(Updates with stance of Tory right-wingers, DUP, starting in fifth paragraph.)

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