Sunak faces major test in showdown over Rwanda asylum plan

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces a major parliamentary showdown on Wednesday over his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, Reuters has reported. Some of his party’s members of parliament threaten to rebel after they lost an initial bid to toughen the proposed law.

The government comfortably defeated attempts to strengthen the bill late on Tuesday that had been backed by almost a fifth of Conservative Party MPs in what was the biggest rebellion yet against the British prime minister. He only won because most opposition parties voted against the rebels, whose action to try to toughen the legislation and close what they say are loopholes, has again exposed deep divisions in the governing party.

The Conservative rebels will now have to decide whether to back down or join forces with opposition parties to try to defeat the government at the bill’s final stage in the House of Commons, known as a third reading.

In an election year when the Conservatives are trailing the opposition Labour Party badly in the polls, some of those MPs who voted for the changes to the legislation might ultimately vote in favour to avoid being criticised by the electorate in their constituencies.

The government is confident that it will win the vote, despite one senior rebel MP saying that the scale of Tuesday’s rebellion had given the group confidence it could defeat the government. “We will get it through, but I’m going to listen respectfully to my colleagues this afternoon,” said Michael Tomlinson, illegal immigration minister, adding that Sunak had promised to recruit more judges to process future asylum appeals.

However, any government victory will come at a cost. Sunak has lost two Conservative deputy chairmen over his refusal to compromise and party divisions have deepened.

Labour leader Keir Starmer used parliament’s prime minister’s questions to ridicule Sunak over his Rwanda plan, accusing the government of spending “hundreds of millions of pounds on a removals policy that doesn’t remove anyone.” The government has said that it has paid £240 million ($304 million) to Rwanda so far, and no asylum seekers have been sent there.

Starmer’s words seemed designed to fire up the rebels, some of whom are still hoping to inflict a government defeat, with one senior Conservative MP saying, “Last night’s numbers speak for themselves.” Defeat would be a huge embarrassment for Sunak and would severely weaken his authority over his party, possibly leading to its third leadership election in less than two years.

Several more centrist Conservative MPs, though, said that the rebels would not be able to command the numbers needed to defeat the government, fearful of the wrath of voters before an election that Sunak has said he expects will be held in the second half of this year.

The prime minister has made stopping asylum seekers crossing to Britain from France on small boats a central aim of his government. Most asylum seekers say that they are fleeing wars in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia and the majority of arrivals in the past five years whose cases have been completed have been given refugee status. According to the British government, though, about 90 per cent of the people making the journey are men, and many are economic migrants rather than genuine refugees.

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