The Tory civil war is about so much more than stopping small boats

Today’s rebellion is not just over the Rwanda policy; it is about how the party handles imminent defeat – which, by the looks of things, will not be very well, writes John Rentoul

Prime minister Rishi Sunak holds a cabinet meeting during another disaster week for his party (Simon Dawson/No 10 Downing Street)

The Conservative Party is close to giving up. Today’s infighting seems to be about the finer legal details of the government’s plan to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda – but it is really about how a group of people faces defeat.

In order to understand the debates and votes in the Commons today and tomorrow we need to look to sports psychology rather than to parliamentary procedure. This is about how a team that has fallen far behind comes to terms with the growing certainty of losing.

In sport, players have two main ways of dealing with adversity. One is to urge each other to try to secure a heroic comeback against the odds. The other is for them to turn on each other and blame someone, usually the goalkeeper, for the fact that they are losing.