UKAnalysis

Sunak beats the Tory rebels after smoked salmon breakfast

Conservative mainstream triumphs on Rwanda legislation - until after Christmas at least

European Research Group chair Mark Francois called a press conference shortly before the vote and said the rebels would hold Rishi Sunak to his promises in January, Photograph: Lucy North/PA Wire

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Mark Paul London Correspondent
Tue Dec 12 2023 - 21:13

The day, for those billed as a phalanx of Tory immigration rebels, began with breakfast with Rishi Sunak. It ended with humble pie, as the prime minister vanquished them by easily winning a vote on his Rwanda legislation. The rebels will get another chance to bother him again in January.

Rebels from the so-called “five families” of right-wing Tory factions, who were supposed to number up to 100, had threatened to scupper the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.

They were angry because Sunak refused to include a clause banning asylum seekers from legally challenging deportation to the African country. He said this would break international law.

Yet despite all their bluster, only 38 of the rebels abstained on the legislation while not a single one of them voted against. Sunak won the vote by 313 votes to 269. In the end, it wasn’t even close.

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[ British immigration minister Robert Jenrick quits after new Rwanda legislation unveiled ]

The prime minister hosted several of the rebels for a smoked salmon breakfast at Downing Street on Tuesday morning, where he is said to have promised that he would listen to their ideas to toughen the Bill when it reached the next amendment stage.

Mark Francois, the Tory former Brexit rebel, who now appears to want to himself as the head of the five families, marched everyone up to the top of the hill, only to march them all down again.

He called a press conference in Portcullis House, the modern office wing of the parliamentary estate, shortly before the vote where he said the rebels would hold Sunak to his promises in January. That was when it really started to sound like the game might be up for the rebels.

From about 6.30pm, MPs began streaming from Portcullis House through the tunnel underneath the road and towards the House of Commons. This was meant to be a full three-line whip, no pairings on the vote, no exceptions, no excuses.

The government’s arithmetic was supposed to so tight that it had even been forced to fly climate minister Graham Stuart all the way back from the Cop summit in Dubai for the vote. He was due to fly back to the Middle East again a few hours later.

[ Rishi Sunak faces trouble at every turn over Rwanda Bill ]

The 6½-hour debate in the Commons that presaged the vote was a passionate affair. Yet at times it resembled an internal Tory row as rebels such as Bill Cash and Robert Jenrick, who resigned last week as immigration minister over the Bill, made their case.

Other Tories including Geoffrey Cox, the former attorney general under Theresa May, made cogent arguments for why Sunak’s Bill had to be supported because it went as far as it legally could in tightening the grounds for asylum seekers to challenge their deportation.

In the end, the Tory mainstream prevailed. But the rebels are not dead yet, and will no doubt plot their next move over Christmas.

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