Can Rishi Sunak rescue his Rwanda plan and will Labour really help him?

The prime minister is determined to push on with the policy despite right-wing resistance from within his own party and a hostile opposition, says Sean O’Grady

Sunak calls an emergency press conference at Downing Street on Thursday (Getty)

In what may prove to be an ill-advised strategy, the prime minister used an emergency press conference to press the case for his emergency legislation to rescue the Rwanda refugee deportation plan – and perhaps also end his personal political emergency. Rishi Sunak assured us his new bill will settle legal concerns raised by the Supreme Court. “We have blocked all the ways that illegal migrants will try and stay,” he said. “We have set the bar so high that it will be vanishingly rare to meet it.”

In doubling down on the Rwanda plan, and by trying to create a sense of urgency, Mr Sunak hopes to turn an embarrassing and expensive flop into an election winner. Despite sacking Suella Braverman, and suffering the damaging resignation of his former ally Robert Jenrick as immigration minister, Mr Sunak still seems determined to press on with the policy. He had already made “Stop the Boats” one of his five “people’s priorities” and has now further raised the profile of the immigration issue further. It may not have been wise.

What does Sunak want?

Not much, for a prime minister still in possession of a comfortable Commons majority. He is asking his own MPs to pass some government business in the usual manner, and to give his government the semblance of a coherent policy on migration. He would also like his party to display some unity and discipline, not least because the voters tend not to be impressed by divided parties.

Why is Sunak doing this?

Officially, because the Rwanda plan is supposed to be a key element in the government’s approach to irregular – “illegal” – migration. The Rwanda scheme, despite its modest size and practical doubts, has become not only a cornerstone of government policy but almost its entire raison d’etre.

In reality, it’s because immigration is an issue that especially concerns Conservative voters and the party is concerned its traditional support will stay at home or vote for Reform UK (or even Labour) at the next election. Party members are just as disillusioned; large sections of the right are noisily dissatisfied with Mr Sunak’s leadership on migration, which they care greatly about. They tend to be from the red wall constituencies, heavily represented in the 2019 intake, and are not easy to appease. Mr Sunak needs to make his policy work and win some credit for it.

Will he get it through the Commons?

It is going to be very difficult. Substantial cohorts on both wings of his party are threatening to vote against it, on different grounds. There is opposition on the right, which claims the policy is too weak and leaves UK membership of the European Convention on Human Rights in place; these MPs are represented by overlapping factions such as the European Research Group, the Common Sense Group and the New Conservatives. On the left of the party is a smaller band of rebels concerned about the erosion of human rights. The One Nation Group speaks for many of them. If both wings rebel at once, Commons defeat looks inevitable. The credibility of the Rwanda plan, migration policy, the authority of the government and Mr Sunak’s leadership would all be in serious doubt.

Because there is so much riding on it, Mr Sunak may decide to treat some of the votes on the bill as matters of confidence, which usually brings the rebels into line. Or he could follow a defeat with a formal parliamentary vote of confidence that he would easily win.

However, Mr Sunak has said those who vote against his Rwanda bill won’t have the Conservative whip removed, which makes the whips’ job harder. A more potent threat is the threat of an early general election and the lost seats (and jobs) that would surely follow.

Will Labour help Sunak?

Of course not. Mr Sunak has attempted to make the latest immigration bill into yet another political “dividing line”, a supposed trap for Labour by placing Sir Keir Starmer “on the side of the people traffickers” as Sunak says. Even if this were a potent line of attack, Labour has repeatedly said it opposes, and will scrap, the Rwanda plan. If Mr Sunak is using this pressure to try and get Labour votes to back his policy, he will be disappointed. On the other hand, it might be possible to persuade the Democratic Unionist Party to send their eight MPs through the voting lobbies to back Mr Sunak.

And the House of Lords?

The Conservatives don’t command a majority in the upper house, and there’s plenty of opposition to the Rwanda plan on all sides. The Rwanda plan wasn’t in the 2019 Conservative manifesto, and thus lacks a clear electoral mandate. Under the normal conventions, this means the peers will feel no compunction to pass the bill unamended. They have the power to delay the bill, and well beyond the next election.

Is the Rwanda plan now immune from legal challenge?

No. New clauses mean that it cannot be challenged under the 1998 Human Rights Act, but it remains subject to international law, especially the European Convention on Human Rights. Even if it became law individuals still have recourse to the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights.

Does Labour have a plan?

Mr Sunak says not, but Labour does have a policy, adumbrated on numerous occasions by Yvette Cooper: tackling criminal gangs with greater police resources; clearing the backlog by recruiting more case officers; and some sort of agreement on returns with the EU. Whether any or all of those would be practical or make a radical difference has to be open to question. But a Labour plan does exist.

Will this be ‘the immigration election’?

Mr Sunak had better hope not, given the chances of him actually stopping the boats or sending anyone to Rwanda by polling day are close to zero. Reform UK hopes to turn the general election into a kind of second edition of the 2016 Brexit referendum, or indeed the single issue “get Brexit done” 2019 contest, but general elections tend to be fought mainly on economic issues and public services. Migration is an issue that some care passionately about, but most people seem to think that none of the parties has much of an answer, and that a vote for the likes of Reform UK will be wasted.