Sunak seeks to avert revolt over Rwanda plan and restore authority over Tories

Rishi Sunak is trying to avert a damaging rebellion by right-wing Tory MPs over his Rwanda plan ahead of a crunch vote on Tuesday night.

The Prime Minister invited the New Conservatives group to breakfast at No 10 as the Government battled to avoid a humiliating defeat over the scheme to send asylum seekers to the African nation.

Would-be rebels have warned Mr Sunak that “major surgery” is still required to fix the flagship asylum legislation, with as many as 40 MPs prepared to either abstain or vote against it.

A revolt by 29 Conservative MPs could be enough to defeat the Safety of Rwanda Bill at its first Commons hurdle – something that has not happened to a piece of Government legislation since 1986.

Around 20 members of the New Conservatives were expected at the No 10 breakfast meeting.

The group’s co-founders, Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, and Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson were among those in Downing Street.

Illegal migration minister Michael Tomlinson – who replaced Robert Jenrick after he resigned in protest at the legislation – insisted he is “very much in listening mode” as last-ditch efforts to woo would-be rebels continue.

He told Sky News: “They’re not pesky rebels – they are respected colleagues who I have worked with.”

Mr Tomlinson said he is a former member of the European Research Group (ERG), one of the Tory factions critical of the Bill, and “I know the concerns that colleagues have”.

“I knew the desire of colleagues right across the breadth of our broad church in the parliamentary party. What do they want? They want this Bill to work.

“The way I’m going to help to persuade them to support the Bill and to support us as we pass the Bill through Parliament is to help show that the Bill is actually going to work, because that’s what we all want. We all want this legislation to work. And that is what I’m determined to do.”

He also dismissed criticism of Rwanda’s leader, Paul Kagame, from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s president, Felix Tshisekedi, who accused his neighbour of behaving like Adolf Hitler by having “expansionist aims”.

“There are various ways of describing… that’s one. That’s not one that I recognise, that’s not one that our country recognises.”

The New Conservatives’ invitation to Downing Street follows a meeting in Mr Kruger’s office on Monday night – attended by Mr Jenrick and former home secretary Suella Braverman – which concluded the Bill “needs major surgery or replacement”.

Jonathan Gullis, one of the MPs invited to No 10, told TalkTV he still had “grave concerns” about the legislation and had not yet decided how he would vote.

“I still have those concerns that we will end up being bogged down with individual claims that mean that we’ll see very few people put on the plane to Rwanda,” he said.

Former Cabinet minister Sir Simon Clarke joined the chorus of criticism of the Bill, saying the Government should “withdraw the legislation and come back with a new Bill” that could avoid appeals against being sent to Rwanda.

He said: “This is a matter of practical politics as well as principle; we have failed to deliver on our promise to stop the boats twice already. There is neither public patience nor sufficient time for us to fail again.”

ERG leader Mark Francois also called for Mr Sunak to withdraw the Bill and rewrite it to toughen it up, rather than put it to a vote on Tuesday.

Deputy ERG chairman David Jones told Times Radio: “We believe we have the numbers, if necessary, to stop the bill progressing.

“We would far rather the Government did that itself and spoke to us constructively about a better piece of legislation.”

But in a boost to the Prime Minister, One Nation moderates – numbering around 100 MPs – said they will recommend backing the Bill after attending a meeting addressed by Attorney General Victoria Prentis.

However, in an indication of the difficulties facing Mr Sunak as he struggles to assert authority over his party, One Nation chairman Damian Green also warned its MPs would oppose any amendments that would risk the UK breaching the rule of law and its international obligations.

He said: “We support the Bill unamended, but if anyone brings forward any amendments that breach our international obligations or breach the rule of law, we vote against those amendments at future stages.

“We will vote with the Government tomorrow, but we want the Government to stick to its guns and stick to the text of this Bill.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly used an article in the Telegraph to defend the plan overnight, writing: “After Brexit, the United Kingdom is a fully sovereign country once again – and of course we must control our borders. Anyone who agrees must support the Rwanda Bill.”

The Bill allows ministers to disapply the Human Rights Act but does not go as far as overriding the European Convention on Human Rights, which Tory hardliners have demanded.

The Government’s current assessment is that only one in 200 cases will successfully avoid being sent to Rwanda once the Bill becomes law.

But critics of the plan have disputed the Home Office’s modelling of how effective it would be.

Mr Jenrick said: “If individual claims are permitted everyone will make one, the court backlog will balloon, our detention capacity will become overwhelmed within days, people will be bailed, and new arrivals will simply abscond.

“The proposed Bill is both legally and operationally fundamentally flawed.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer dismissed the Rwanda plan as a “gimmick” and piece of political “performance art”.

He told BBC Breakfast Labour would use the money “being wasted on the Rwanda scheme” to step up cross-border policing to tackle human trafficking gangs and speed up asylum claim processing, with those refused permission to stay sent back to their country of origin.

“What I wouldn’t do, and what I won’t vote for, is £290 million spent on a gimmick that is the Rwanda scheme, that won’t work, at the very most will take about 100 people. We’ve got 160,000 people waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, so it’s a drop in the ocean,” he said.

Human rights group Amnesty International UK urged all MPs to vote against the legislation, calling it an “outrageous attack on the very concept of universal human rights”.