Rishi Sunak is facing the most perilous moment of his leadership so far as the Tory Party reels from last night’s resignation of immigration minister Robert Jenrick, Sunak’s friend and ally, and the man he specifically appointed to draw up a policy to “stop the small boats”.
Now the party is at war with itself once again over immigration. Jenrick – who backed Sunak in both leadership campaigns – quit in protest over Sunak’s re-vamped Rwanda plan, insisting the emergency legislation published yesterday doesn’t go far enough and its contents were a “triumph of hope over experience”.
Jenrick added that he refused to be yet another politician who makes empty promises to voters on immigration. (Read his resignation letter and Sunak’s response here).
This morning, Sunak’s vengeful former home secretary, Suella Braverman, wasted no time in stoking division further and dealing another blow to Sunak’s authority.
“Ultimately this bill will fail”, Braverman told the BBC, as she urged the PM to toughen his new Rwanda law. She warned that the PM is running out of time to fulfil his promise to stop the small boats, adding that if the government doesn’t pass a bill to stop the courts frustrating its Rwanda policy, it will face “electoral oblivion.”
Sunak’s re-worked Rwanda bill set out to be strong enough to provide a deterrent effect while avoiding the more radical option favoured by many on the Tory right of setting aside European human rights laws altogether. The government claims that even the Rwandan government itself stopped it going any further by insisting that Britain complied with international law.
According to Downing Street, the legislation “must operate within reality” and completely disregarding international law would collapse the Rwanda policy entirely.
But such reasoning has failed to quell dissent. This morning, Braverman declared there is “intellectual incoherence” in Sunak’s insistence that the Rwandan government wouldn’t accept anything which broke international law because the current bill already disapplied some elements of it.
A second reading vote on the emergency Rwanda bill is taking place in the Commons next week. If the Tory right joined with Labour to vote it down, Sunak’s authority will be in tatters. Conservative MPs could trigger a confidence vote in his leadership or the PM may be forced to call a a general election sooner than planned.
Just before Jenrick’s resignation last night, Sunak urged his party to “unite or die”, and fight Labour, not each other. The plea appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
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