Rishi Sunak’s new year resolution? To call his right wing’s bluff

After overpromising on ‘stopping the boats’, the prime minister has now rowed back on a key detail of his immigration policy – now, he has no choice but to take on his right-wingers and strong-arm them into supporting his Rwanda scheme, says Andrew Grice

Sunak’s shifting position on legal migration tells us how he intends to outmanoeuvre hardline critics in his own party (PA Wire)

The government’s climbdown over its plan to increase to £38,700 the income required for a UK citizen to bring a foreign partner or spouse to the country is more revealing than ministers acknowledge. Although Rishi Sunak won’t admit it, I think he has given us a sneak preview of his new year’s resolution: to take on his right-wing critics.

The new £29,000 threshold, smuggled out without fanfare last night while parliament is in recess, is welcome and thankfully will not be retrospective when people already in the UK renew visas. But from April, there will still be an increase from the current £18,600 figure, and more than half the population will be excluded from sponsoring a foreign spouse or partner, according to Reunite Families UK.

The U-turn follows a backlash against an “unconservative” move by the so-called “party of the family,” which was rightly accused of punishing people for the crime of falling in love. But I don’t think the change was due to an outbreak of peace and goodwill; it also reflects fears the government would lose a legal challenge over its original plan for not upholding family rights. Downing Street had brushed aside such fears when it formed part of a crackdown to cut net migration by 300,000 after Tory MPs were spooked by a rise to a record 745,000 in 2022.

The move on legal migration tells us something about how Sunak will escape from the maze of his own making on illegal migration and his flawed scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. His retreat on family visas has predictably upset right-wing Tory MPs. They have been assured a £38,700 threshold will be “phased in”, but I doubt it will be raised above £29,000 before the general election.

The prime minister will adopt the same approach when the Bill declaring Rwanda a safe country returns to the Commons in the new year: placate right-wingers with warm words, but outmanoeuvre them.

Ministers tell me he has no alternative but to call the right’s bluff and reject their demand for the Rwanda legislation to be toughened. As one explained, the right “only has one shot to kill the Bill” – on its third reading – while Tory moderates (who can just about live with it as currently drafted) are in a stronger position to amend it, by joining forces with opposition parties. The prime minister’s calculation is that the right will back down (again) rather than scupper the Bill completely. “They will realise that they cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” one minister said.

Even if right-wingers eventually capitulate, they will still enjoy another moment in the media spotlight and create more coverage about a divided party just as Sunak attempts a new-year relaunch based on the economy. He is frustrated the media doesn’t give him any credit – for example, for the 30 per cent reduction in Channel crossings this year – but it’s his own fault for overpromising to “stop the boats” and building a giant totem pole with the word “Rwanda” on it.

I suspect the House of Lords will block the Rwanda Bill once, but then let it pass at the government’s second attempt to sidestep a constitutional row. But even its passage would not remove Sunak’s headache on immigration. At the 2016 Brexit referendum, immigration was the top issue for voters across the political spectrum. But the vote to leave the EU led many people to conclude that box had been ticked; today, it is the top priority only for those on the right.

Sunak allies insist it offers a route to winning back the 2019 Tory supporters who have drifted away; many are now “don’t knows”. Yet the apparent obsession with the Rwanda scheme defeats the object. It has alienated both liberal Tory voters, for whom it goes too far, and those on the right for whom it doesn’t go far enough and who might be tempted to defect to Reform UK, successor to Ukip and the Brexit Party. Especially if Nigel Farage returns to a frontline role (which, of course, he will with an election coming, while pretending he is being dragged back reluctantly – pull the other one).

Voters across the political spectrum do not believe the Rwanda plan will “stop the boats” – and they are right. It raises the salience of an issue on which Sunak can’t deliver. So, while Tory strategists view immigration as Labour’s weak point, it’s no surprise that Keir Starmer’s party is seen by the public as the best party to handle asylum and immigration.

Whatever his new year’s resolution, Sunak’s previous mistakes mean he is doomed to carry on advertising his own failure on immigration in an election year.