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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow and Vivian Ho

Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resign over Rwanda bill – as it happened

​​Rishi Sunak Rwanda United Kingdom Miriam Cates United Nations Post Office

Closing summary

  • Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resigned as deputy chairs of the Conservative party after defying Rishi Sunak by backing rightwing challenges to harden up his flagship Rwanda deportation bill.

  • About 60 Tory rebel MPs – including the former home secretary Suella Braverman and the former prime minister Liz Truss – backed the series of amendments tabled by the veteran Tory Sir Bill Cash and Robert Jenrick when the bill returned to the Commons on Tuesday.

  • Soon after Anderson and Clarke-Smith rendered their resignations, Jane Stevenson resigned as a parliamentary private secretary to Kemi Badenoch in the Department for Business and Trade. Stevenson had spoken strongly in favour of the amendments: “All of us are united in wanting a bill that works,” she said.

  • As the bill goes in for its third reading, the question now is how the rebel Tory MPs will vote tomorrow – there is a chance that the bill may fail yet again because some in the party feel it is not strong enough.

Updated

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, called the night’s events “total Tory chaos” that displayed how the prime minister is “so weak he’s lost control of [the] asylum system, border security and the whole Tory party.”

Updated

The Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael told LBC’s Henry Riley that the prime minister had been “embarrassed by his own MPs”.

“Sunak’s Rwanda scheme just won’t work – even the deputy chairmen of his party know it,” Carmichael said, referring to tonight’s resignations of Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith after supporting amendments to the Rwanda bill. Jane Stevenson also resigned after voting in favour of the amendments.

“If the PM can’t settle squabbles in his own party, how can he be expected to run the country?” Carmichael said.

Updated

Here’s more from the joint resignation letter from deputy chairs Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith:

“Our support for the party and this Government remains as strong as ever and this is why we are so passionate about making this legislation work,” they wrote.

Lee Anderson and Anderson and Clarke-Smith’s resignation letter
Lee Anderson and Anderson and Clarke-Smith’s resignation letter Photograph: Conservative Party
Lee Anderson and Anderson and Clarke-Smith’s resignation letter
Lee Anderson and Anderson and Clarke-Smith’s resignation letter Photograph: House of Commons

Like Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, who resigned from their positions in the party earlier tonight, Jane Stevenson reiterated her support of the prime minister and the Rwanda policy in general ahead of rendering her own resignation.

“All of us are united in wanting a bill that works and allows the prime minister to deliver on his promise,” she said. “I absolutely trust the prime minister’s commitment to ensuring we stop the boats. I believe the Rwanda policy can be a deterrent.”

Updated

Third Tory MP resigns over Rwanda amendments

Jane Stevenson joined Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith tonight in resigning from her role in the Conservative party after voting for the Rwanda amendments.

Stevenson resigned as a PPS in the Department for Business and Trade.

Updated

The Labour amendment has been defeated by 336 votes to 262.

MPs are now voting on a Labour amendment, new clause 6, that would impose tighter conditions regarding whether Rwanda is considered safe. As Labour puts it in its explanatory notes, the amendment would place “the monitoring committee for the Rwanda treaty on a statutory basis, and places conditions on when the classification of Rwanda as ‘safe’ can be suspended in accordance with material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations under the Rwanda treaty”.

This will be the last vote of the night.

My colleague Vivian Ho is taking over now.

The government has won the vote on clause 4 by 330 votes to 55 – a majority of 275. Clause 4 remains part of the bill.

MPs are now voting on whether to keep clause 4 as part of the bill. Clause 4 is the one that allows individual appeals against deportation orders in some circumstances.

58 MPs back rebel Tory amendment tabled by Robert Jenrick further limiting rights to challenge deportation orders

The Robert Jenrick amendment (see 6.33pm) has been defeated by 525 votes to 58 – a majority of 467.

That is 10 fewer MPs voting for this rebel amendment than voted for the last one. (See 6.14pm.)

Updated

MPs vote on Robert Jenrick's amendment to further limit ability of individual asylum seekers to challenge deportation orders

MPs are now voting on amendment 19 – one of the many tabled by Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister. This one would, in the words of the explanatory statement he provided alongside it, “remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel”.

In other words, it would make it significantly harder for individual asylum seekers to challenge deportation orders than it already is under the bill as drafted by the government.

The government won the third vote, that clause 2 should “stand part” (see 6.18pm), by 331 votes to 262 – a majority of 69.

This one was basically a straight Tory v opposition contest.

60 Tory MPs rebelled on Cash amendment, division list shows - 58 voting for it, plus 2 tellers

Sixty Tory MPs rebelled against the government on the Bill Cash amendment, the division list shows. There were 58 Conservatives voting against, and Miriam Cates and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg acted as tellers.

Two former Tory MPs who are now independents, Scott Benton and Andrew Bridgen, also voted for this.

And the eight DUP MPs were in favour as well.

MPs are now voting on whether clause 2, which says Rwanda should be treated as a safe country for deportation purposes, should remain in the bill (or “stand part”, in the terminology).

68 MPs back rebel Tory amendment to add notwithstanding clause to bill

The Bill Cash amendment has been defeated by 529 votes to 68 – a majority of 461.

The DUP was planning to vote for this amendment, so eight of the 68 votes are probably their votes.

The other 60 votes are almost certainly all Conservative MPs – or independent MPs who used to be Tory but who have had the whip suspended for disciplinary reasons.

Updated

Anderson and Clarke-Smith tell Sunak in their resignation letter he has their '100% support'

Sam Coates has posted on X the joint resignation letter from Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith.

Their letter is about as conciliatory as you can imagine, in the circumstances. They say they are resigning because they want to support the amendments but they say they offer Rishi Sunak their “100% support” and that their support for the government “remains as strong as ever”.

(But he does not have their 100% support, because they signed the rebel amendment put to the vote just now.)

Updated

Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resign as Tory deputy chairs over Rwanda bill

Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith have resigned as Conservative party deputy chairs, Pippa Crerar reports.

They are both backing the Bill Cash amendment being voted on now. See 5.58pm.

(There is a third Tory deputy chair, Nickie Aiken, who has not resigned.)

MPs vote on Bill Cash's amendment to add notwithstanding clause to bill

MPs are now voting on amendment 10 – an amendment tabled by Sir Bill Cash that will add a “notwithstanding clause” to the bill. This would allow the government to go ahead with deportations to Rwanda regardless of what the European convention on human rights, and other international law, says.

Cash defended it in the debate earlier. (See 2.42pm.)

Updated

The SNP amendment (see 5.42pm) has been defeated by 337 votes to 66 – a majority of 271.

According to Christian Calgie from the Express, the chief whip, Simon Hart, is indicating that Tory deputy chairs, such as Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, and PPSs, such as Jane Stevenson, will be sacked if they do not back the government tonight.

BREAK: I understand that Chief Whip Simon Hart has made clear to any member of the Government payroll - including Party chairmen and PPSs - that their position will be untenable if they don’t support the Government this evening

Updated

Here is more on what was being said by the Tory rebels at their meeting this afternoon.

This is from the Mirror’s John Stevens.

Tory right wingers warn Rishi Sunak it would be mistake to sack Lee Anderson

Rebel source: “It would be deeply unfortunate, sad and politically unhelpful for the government to lose one of our most prominent and visible representatives of the Red Wall”

And this is from the Sun on Sunday’s Kate Ferguson.

Rebel source suggests they feel misled by Rishi Sunak

“We feel the government went into this negotiating process having said if you come up with workable amendments that meet the legal test and we’re amenable to accepting them

“We took the PM on his word on that”

MPs begin voting on Rwanda bill amendments

The voting has started.

The first vote is on the SNP’s amendment 45, that would change the clause in the bill saying decision makers (ministers, officials and courts) have to treat Rwanda as a “safe” country, so that they would have to treat it as an “unsafe” country instead.

Tomlinson has just finished his speech. He defended the bill, and did not offer anything in the way of new concessions to the rebels.

Alison Thewliss from the SNP, who opened the debate, is now winding up before the voting starts.

She begins by wondering how many of the Tory MPs speaking in the debate have even spoken to an asylum seeker.

They claim their asylum applications are bogus, she says. But most of the applications are granted, showing they are genuine, she says.

Updated

We are expecting up to six votes later. Only one of them is likely to be on a rebel amendment (amendment 19 – Robert Jenrick’s amendment that would severely limit the ability of people to appeal against decisions to remove them). But there may also be a vote on whether or not to keep the whole of clause 4, which allow appeals, and the Tory rebels could vote to try to take that out.

Updated

Rebel Tory MPs have been meeting outside the chamber, ahead of the votes tonight. Beth Rigby from Sky says there were about 40 MPs there ready to vote against the government.

NEW: Rebel source says 40 MPs in room to back Cash/Jenrick amendments. Says ‘govt continuing to negotiate & hope in the room is govt will see the strength of numbers and feeling” 1/2

Rebel source: “PM set tests which was any amendments need to be workable and have a resonance legal argument. We have proceeded in that spirit and negotiated in good faith with govt colleagues.” 2/2

Back in the Commons Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, is now addressing the arguments made by Edward Leigh. (See 3.52pm.)

He says migrants would need “compelling evidence” to successfully appeal against deportation.

Leigh warned about the risk of evidence being concocted. But that would not be compelling evidence, he says. And a tweet would not be compelling evidence, despite what Leigh suggested, he says.

In the House of Lords this afternoon David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said the Rwanda policy was “novel”, but compatible with international law. He said:

We do not believe the Rwanda scheme is contrary to international law.

How I would characterise it is to say that, look, things like the refugee convention was written for another age, written for an age when there wasn’t mass international travel, when there wasn’t the ubiquity of mobile phones.

And what we are saying is: yes. this is out-of-the-box thinking, yes it’s quite unorthodox, but you’ve got a choice, frankly, when you’ve got people arriving from a perfectly safe country to another safe country, you have to deal with that trade – and that requires some fresh thinking.

Now, it’s not possible to put people straight back on a boat and take them back to France so that is why the Rwanda scheme is being introduced.

It is within the law, it is novel, but I believe it can work.

Updated

Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson starts speech winding up Rwanda debate

Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, is now winding up for the government.

We should now find out whether the government is willing to make any concessions at all to the rebels.

Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservatives, told MPs that the UK was seen as a “soft touch”. There would only be a deterrent if migrants were swiftly deported, she said.

And she said the rebel amendments were needed to ensure that happened.

She also said polling published by the Telegraph showed the public was in favour.

Miriam Cates
Miriam Cates. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

Nigel Evans, the deputy speaker, said that he was only calling two more backbench speakers – Miriam Cates and Matt Warman.

That means the debate will not run for the full six hours. Voting is now expected to start around 5.45pm.

Jane Stevenson, a government PPS, says she is backing rebel amendments

Jane Stevenson, parliamentary private secretary to Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, told MPs that the small boats issue was raised with her by constituents more than almost any other issue.

Alison Thewliss from the SNP asks what option there is for people who are seeking asylum. There are no safe and legal routes available, she says.

Stevenson says people are fed up with opposition parties putting the interests of asylum seekers above the interests of Britain. She says Britain can never take all the people who want asylum.

Thewliss says no one is saying millions of refugees will come to the UK. Most refugees stay in their region, she says.

Stevenson disagrees.

She goes on to praise Rishi Sunak for what he said at a meeting in Italy in December where he talked about the need to amend international frameworks.

And she ends by backing the rebel amendments.

Given that she is a PPS, she would normally be expected to resign, or to be sacked, if she were to do that. But in her speech she does not address this.

Jane Stevenson
Jane Stevenson. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

Simon Clarke claims, if mainstream parties do not stop the boats, extremists will fill gap

Clarke says the Jenrick amendments would not rule out all appeal rights.

But they would end abuses of the system, he says.

And he says the bill must say, on the face of the legislation, that rule 39 injunctions from the European court of human rights will not have a binding effect in the UK. In his interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Rishi Sunak could not give that assurance. That is because he felt bound by the ministerial code, and advice from the attorney general, Clarke says.

Clarke says the bill’s best chance of success has been put at 50/50. That is not adequate, he says.

Referring to the announcement about new judges (see 4.12pm), he says he does not know where those judges will come from. It would be better to ensure those legal challenges do not happen, he says.

Clarke says this comes down to a question of in whose interests do MPs serve. If mainstream, democratic politicians cannot solve the problems facing the country, our politics will “move to extremes”.

He says they are at the limits of what is tenable. Polling suggests Labour will win. But Labour will have to confront these problems, and if they don’t act, “they themselves will be eaten by this issue”.

He says if the mainstream parties do not address the problems, then extremists will fill the gap.

He says MPs have already voted for two immigration bills. He cannot let them down again. By the time of the next election, this bill will have had contact with the court system, and he thinks it will have failed.

He says “a few token flights” may have taken off. But that won’t be enough to provide a proper deterrent.

Without amendments, he will vote against the bill at third reading. That is because the Tories must show total determination to deal with this, he says.

UPDATE: Clarke said:

And I warned during the debates on Brexit – which I had hoped were relegated now to the annals of history – that this House was playing with fire if mainstream democratic politicians do not or cannot resolve the problems which face this country, our political process will I’m afraid move inextricably to the extremes.

We’ve heard a lot of rhetoric, and it is rhetoric, from the opposition benches about how extreme the position that we are advocating is. Trust me, it will be as nothing compared to who will sit on these benches if we fail in our task because we are at the limits of the tenable when it comes to the feelings of the British public.

And if the Labour party win the general election that will be held later this year – which I freely admit the polling at the moment suggests that they will, in large part because of the frustration, frankly, that the British public feel about this issue – they will have to confront these same problems and if they are not willing to act any more than we have been willing to act then they themselves will be eaten by this issue just the same.

It is a certainty that this is a beast that we have to slay if it’s not to destroy all of the mainstream centre ground of British politics and leave it in the hands of people who will advocate genuinely radical and unacceptable solutions.

Updated

Back in the Commons Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, is speaking now. He is one of the Tories who has said he will vote against the bill if the rebel amendments are not passed.

He says the government has made some progress in reducing small boat numbers. But it must tackle the causes of the problem, he says.

The government is spending £8m a day on accommodation for asylum seekers, he says.

And there is a threat to security, because the government does not know who is coming in.

The test is not, is this the strongest legislation ever? Clarke says it is. But what matters is that it should work.

Lady chief justice says it's for her, not government, to decide if more judges available for asylum appeals, in rebuke to No 10

The government has announced plans to increase the number of court rooms and judges available to process asylum appeals in a move at least partly designed to assure Tory MPs that it won’t allow delays in the appeals process to hold up deportation flights. (See 9.46am, 11.22am and 12.48pm.)

But Lady Carr, who as lady chief justice is the most senior judge in England and Wales, has hit back at suggestions that ministers are in charge of how judges are deployed. In an implicit rebuke to No 10, she said it was for her and the senior president of tribunals to decide if more judges would be allocated to appeals hearings, not ministers.

In evidence to the Commons justice committee, she said:

Parliament has legislated, we – the judiciary – have acted in preparation for that legislation.

But to be absolutely clear, matters of deployment of judges, the allocation of work for judges, and the use of courtrooms, is exclusively a matter for the judiciary, and more specifically, a matter for myself and the senior president of the tribunals. And it’s really important that people understand that clear division.

In his Commons written statement on this Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, does say: “The decision on whether to deploy additional judges temporarily to the upper tribunal, including when they sit and the courtrooms they use, is for the independent judiciary and will be taken by the relevant leadership judges at the time and in the interests of justice.” But this nuance may not have been obvious to people following the announcement, first made public in the Times under the headline: “Sunak to draft 150 judges to fast-track Rwanda appeals.”

As PA Media reports, Dame Sue Carr was appointed to the role in October and is now known as Lady Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, sitting as a non-affiliated peer in the House of Lords. She is the first woman to serve as head of the judiciary of England and Wales since the inception of the lord chief justice in the 13th century.

Updated

Back in the Commons Sir Edward Leigh (Con) is speaking now. He is backing the amendments tabled by Robert Jenrick saying the bill should be made tougher, but he has also tabled two of his own, and he is specifically speaking to them.

The Leigh amendments would stop people arguing that it was unsafe to send them to Rwanda if they had intentionally done something to make Rwanda unsafe for them. As an example, he claims someone could make up a tweet for this purpose.

It’s so simple. You can manufacture some spurious opposition to the Rwandan regime. You could do a tweet – even I could do a tweet – you can do a tweet in five minutes saying that the president of a Rwanda is a dictator, or that he should be overthrown, and you’ve done it.

Alison Thewliss for the SNP intervenes. Clearly unimpressed by Leigh’s reasoning, she asks him when he last spoke to an asylum seeker. He does not reply to the question.

UPDATE: Leigh said:

You can concoct so easily a history of mental illness, it’s so subjective, it’s easy enough to find a doctor to sign a medical certificate saying that you have a history of mental illness, it’s easy to concoct a personal history. For instance if you come from Iran, that you allege that you are gay for instance, again no tribunal will export you to Iran if you say that you are gay. If you come from Iraq you can say that you are an activist Christian, whether you are or not.

I cannot see how anybody who has a right to go through the judicial process – given the ease that you create a history, personal history, which will make your own personal circumstances impossible in Rwanda – I can’t believe that any court or any tribunal will export somebody to Rwanda.”

They may not concoct it, it may be entirely true, we don’t know. But what we do know is that every single person who arrives in Dover will say, and we all know this is true, every single asylum seeker will say that they cannot be sent off to Rwanda because of their own personal history – and every single one of us would do the same thing.

Updated

UK withdrawal from ECHR would have 'dramatic consequences' for people in Northern Ireland, says senior MEP

“Dramatic consequences” for EU and UK citizens in Northern Ireland would result from any hindering or British withdrawal from the European convention on human rights (UNHCR), a senior MEP with oversight of post Brexit relations has warned.

“Such action would cast a shadow on the UK’s trustworthiness and ability to abide by international treaties and conventions it has ratified,” added Nathalie Loiseau, France’s ex-Europe minister and the European parliament’s chair of of a joint EU-UK forum set up under the post-Brexit deal struck between London and Brussels.

She sounded the warning in a letter to the Labour MP and chair of the Labour Movement for Europe, Stella Creasy, who had sought the views of EU representatives on concerns that Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill was incompatible with the convention.

The convention was at the heart of the Good Friday agreement, Loiseau replied, and full compliance with it was “a cornerstone” of the relationship the EU was building with the UK. She was worried by any statements aimed at hindering the application of the UNHCR, or calls for a withdrawal, adding that the EU would be “entitled to adopt any relevant measure to mitigate the risks”.

Creasy said the trade and cooperation agreement (TCA) between the UK and EU was up for review by 2026, and showing that Britain could “play by the rules and stick to it” would be crucual to getting a better deal. She added:

The timing of these proposals is terrible for making us seem like a nation others want to do business with.

Sam Coates from Sky has been keeping a tally and he says there are currently just five Conservative MPs saying they will vote against the government at third reading on the Rwanda bill if they don’t get the amendments they want.

5 Tories currently saying they’ll vote against at 3rd reading

Miriam Cates

Marco Longhi

Robert Jenrick

Suella Braverman

Simon Clarke

* Gvt formal majority 54

* So 28 (/2 +1) needed to defeat gvt

* Abstentions count as half

* But some independent Tories (Matt Hancock) expected to vote with gvt, while others staying away abstain, so real hurdle slightly higher than 28

Sir Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, is now speaking in the Commons. He is a Tory centrist and he has tabled six amendments of his own which are intended to make the bill more compliant with international law, not less.

(If the other Tory amendments are described as “toughening” the bill, arguably Buckland’s could be seen as “weakening” it – although doubtless he would not see it like that.)

One Nation Conservatives like Buckland want to discourage Rishi Sunak from accepting the demands of Robert Jenrick and his “five family” allies. But Buckland has not got any of his colleagues from that wing of the party putting their names to his amendments. “The One Nation agreed collective position was that we weren’t going to table any amendments. Robert Buckland is freelancing because he thinks it’s very important,” a Tory MP told Dan Bloom for Politico’s London Playbook.

Updated

Cash ended his speech by saying the government should note “the sheer anger and frustration” felt by people in the country about the small boats. The government should respond by accepting his amendment, he said.

UPDATE: Cash said:

I strongly urge the government to note the sheer anger and frustration demonstrated in opinion polls and public concern that we get this Bill right and make it work.

If not, this anger will continue up to and including the general election.

Would it not be wise for the government to reflect on the position, and that it would be better and wiser to come forward with their own amendments and use our majority, in line with our manifesto, granted to us by the general election in 2019, and in the national interest, and for the sake of all Conservative members of parliament whose seats will be so at risk if we do not do so?

Updated

In the Commons Cash is still speaking. The Hansard Society has published new research today saying that the speeches by MPs in parliament seem to be getting shorter. They may not have made allowance for Cash, who is never concise.

Updated

Sir Bill Cash (Con) is speaking now. He has signed all the main Tory rebel amendments, but he has also tabled his own – amendment 10 – and it’s a “notwithstanding clause” that would allow the government to go ahead with deportations to Rwanda regardless of what the European convention on human rights, and other international law, says.

He says he sent Rishi Sunak a briefing giving multiple examples of cases where countries had ignored international law without sanctions being applied.

This has happened in almost every jurisdiction, he says, including the EU, the US, France and Germany.

He says the UK has a dualist approach to international law. International law does not have a fixed status in domestic law, he says. He says the sovereignty of parliament prevails.

In Germany it is different, he says, because international law is an integral part of domestic law there.

Bill Cash speaking in the debate
Bill Cash speaking in the debate. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

In the Commons Robert Jenrick has just intervened again on Stephen Kinnock, and asked him to clarify whether Labour thinks Rwanda is or is not a safe country.

Kinnock says Labour accepts the judgment of the supreme court, which said Rwanda was not safe.

Stephen Kinnock
Stephen Kinnock Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

Pippa Crerar says that, even though Boris Johnson is backing the Tory rebels on the Rwanda bill, that does not mean they have got the clout to get Rishi Sunak to change his mind.

This could end up being another Windsor framework vote - when Boris Johnson led the charge against Rishi Sunak’s Northern Ireland border plans in March 2023 and just 22 Tory MPs rebelled. Both wings of party, and govt sources, currently saying they don’t think right has numbers.

There are more than 22 Tory MPs who have signed at least one of the rebel amendments. Miriam Cates puts the total number at 66. (See 9.46am.) But Labour is opposed to the Tory amendments – as Stephen Kinnock told the Commons just a moment ago – and so there is no risk to No 10 of those amendments being passed.

Robert Jenrick intervenes, and asks Kinnock if he can confirm a Times story published over Christmas saying Labour would consider offshore asylum processing. He says sending people abroad for asylum processing only to bring them back if asylum were granted would be even more expensive.

Kinnock says people applying for asylum under the Ukraine scheme have their claims processed offshore.

Labour condemns Rwanda policy as unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful

Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, is now making Labour’s case.

He starts by saying Labour is opposed to the bill in its entirety. He says the party wants to stop the boats and “fix our broken asylum system”. But he says Labour will “never support any proposal that is unaffordable, unworkable or unlawful”.

We on these benches will be proudly voting against the amendments that are being promoted by the benches opposite because the government’s Rwanda policy is unaffordable, unworkable and unlawful, because this bill is an affront to the values that we hold dear and because we will always stand up for the separation of powers, for the rule of law and for ensuring we can stand tall in the world.

He says the government has already committed £400m to this policy. But the Rwandan authorities have only got the capacity to take 1% of the 30,000 people who have arrived since the Illegal Migration Act was passed, he says. And that means it won’t work as a deterrent.

He also says the policy was ruled illegal by the supreme court. Referring to the way the new bill says Rwanda is a safe country, contrary to what the supreme court says, he goes on:

We find ourselves confronted by a government that is seeking to legislate for an alternative reality, because while ministers appear to believe that they can pass a bill which determines that the sky is green, and the grass is blue, that does not make it so.

Updated

Jenrick says Sunak should accept rebel Tory amendments because they all comply with international law

Jenrick says the government has said it will only accept amendments that have respectable legal arguments in their favour.

But he says the amendments he has tabled pass this test. He says he has an opinion from John Larkin KC, a former attorney general for Northern Ireland, saying all the amendments that have been tabled by him, and by Bill Cash, comply with international law.

He goes on:

Unless the goalposts have been shifted by the government, I see no reason why the prime minister and the minister couldn’t accept these amendments and enable us to strengthen this bill once and for all.

Robert Jenrick speaking in the debate
Robert Jenrick speaking in the debate Photograph: Parliament TV

Jenrick says the government cites Albania, and the large number of Albanian people who have been returned, as evidence the bill will work.

But he says almost all of the Albanians who have returned have been foreign offenders. The issue is different, he says.

Updated

Robert Jenrick tells MPs he does not accept government's claim Rwanda would not accept tougher bill

Robert Jenrick, the Conservative former immigration minister, is speaking now. He has tabled the key rebel amendments backed by Tories who want the bill to be tougher.

He says the bill as drafted will not work.

Ministers in other countries want the policy to work, because they want something in place to deter illegal migration, he says.

Chris Bryant (Lab) intervenes to say he agrees with Jenrick that the bill won’t work. But he says the danger of crossing the Channel ought to be the strongest deterrent possible, but that does not stop people coming. So why will the bill act as a deterrent?

Jenrick says ignores the point, and just argues that now there is no deterrent in place.

Jenrick is now talking about his amendment that would stop individuals appealing against removal. (It is amendment 21 – one of 16 amendments that Jenrick has either tabled or signed.)

He says the bill as drafted does tighten up the opportunity for legal challenges.

But it still allows legal challenges, and if someone makes a successful challenge, NGOs will school other asylum seekers into what they need to say to win an appeal.

He says the UK only has 2,000 spaces where it can hold people in immigration removal centres.

But 1,200 people arrived one day in August, he says.

That means the country does not have the capacity to hold all the people who arrive. They would have to be bailed to hotels, and then they would abscond. The scheme would be seen to have failed, he says.

Tim Loughton (Con) says this amendment might make the bill unworkable, at least in the eyes of the Rwandan government. (Rwanda said it would not support the policy if it broke international law.) What would happen then?

Jenrick says he does not accept this argument. He says Rwanda is not party to the European convention on human rights. And, if the policy were to be ruled illegal, that would be because of what was happening in Rwanda.

And he says, if the UK government was really concerned about this, it would not be proposing a policy deemed unlawful by UNHCR.

He says he is not blaming Rwanda. He says it was a mistake for the government to get Rwanda to issue the statement saying it would not back a tougher bill.

Updated

In her speech Alison Thewliss (SNP) says she is particularly opposed to the amendments tabled by Robert Jenrick and fellow Tory MPs. They imply asylum seekers “do not matter”, she says.

And she is also critical of Labour. She has Labour has not made it clear whether it is opposed to the Rwanda policy on principle, or just on cost grounds, and she challenges Labour to clarify.

Updated

SNP's Alison Thewliss opens debate on Rwanda bill saying it's 'irredeemably awful' and won't work

In the Commons MPs are finally starting the Rwanda bill debate.

Alison Thewliss, the SNP spokesperson for home affairs, is opening the proceedings. That is because the SNP amendment saying the bill should declare Rwanda unsafe, instead of safe, is the first amendment selected for debate.

Thewliss starts by saying that the SNP has tabled amendments not because they would support an amended bill, but because this is the only mechanism for getting their points debated. She says the bill is “irredeemably awful”. The bill will not work.

Sir Michael Fabricant (Con) intervenes, and asks how many “illegal asylum seekers” Scotland is hosting, compared with England. Thewliss says Fabricant should realise that there is no such thing as an illegal asylum seeker.

(Under international refugee law, people can apply for asylum in any country that has signed the refugee convention and so there is nothing illegal about their applying for asylum. The government does not talk about illegal asylum seekers. But it does talk about illegal migration, because it has legislated to say that arriving in the UK without authorisation is an offence.)

Alison Thewliss speaking in the debate
Alison Thewliss speaking in the debate. Photograph: Parliament TV

Updated

Prof Colin Rawlings and Prof Michael Thrasher, the psephologists mainly responsible for the research suggesting that Labour needs a swing of 12.7% to win a majority at the election (see 11.04am), have published a detailed explainer of their analysis. They say that calculation does not take into account changes in vote share affecting the smaller parties and that, in practice, a smaller swing might suffice. They explain:

A concentration on the direct swing between Labour and the Conservatives makes the implicit assumption that there will be no change in the share of votes cast for the Liberal Democrats and the nationalist parties. In practice this is unlikely to be true, especially in the case of the Scottish National party (SNP). For example, a 10% swing from the SNP to Labour in Scotland would yield that party 15 gains under the new boundaries and ease its path towards Downing Street.

Updated

The start of the Rwanda bill debate is being held up for about 15 minutes because MPs are voting on an Alba 10-minute rule bill motion saying the Scottish parliament should have the power to legislate for an independence referendum.

Sir John Hayes, chair of the Common Sense group of Tory MPs, has told Times Radio that it would be “very difficult” for him to vote for the Rwanda bill at third reading if the rebel amendments have not been backed. He said:

If the bill is unamended and not fit for purpose … it would be very difficult to vote for that wouldn’t it? I can’t see how you could.

I can’t see how having supported the amendments … I don’t think having done all that, you can then say the bill, which we regard as imperfect, should be supported. So that would be a difficult decision.

Hayes has put his name to 16 amendments to the bill.

Of course, refusing to vote for the bill at third reading is not the same as vowing to vote against it.

MPs debate on Rwanda bill

MPs will very soon start debating the Rwanda bill. The debate will run for up to six hours.

Today they are debating amendments related to clause 2, which is about the safety of Rwanda, and clause 4, which allows individuals to appeal against decisions to deport them.

The text of the bill is here, and the paper listing all amendments that have been tabled is here.

One of the amendments being debated is an SNP one changing the bill so that, instead of saying Rwanda is a safe country, the bill says it is an unsafe country. The grouping of amendments implies there will definitely be a vote on this.

In the Commons Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, has announced that on Thursday MPs will vote on the regulations making Hizb ut-Tahrir a proscribed organisation.

Lucy Powell, the shadow leader of the Commons, asked Mordaunt to confrim that the third reading of the Rwanda bill would definitely take place tomorrow. She said there have been some reports saying it could be postponed.

In response, Mordaunt just said the third reading vote would be dependent on the progress the bill made through the Commons.

Alex Chalk says allocating more courts and judges for asylum appeal will allow 'vast majority' of cases to be processed quickly

Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has issued a Commons written statement about the government plan to allocate more judges to deal with appeals by asylum seekers who are facing removal from the UK. (See 9.46am and 11.22am.) The Illegal Migration Act, which has been passed into law but not fully implemented (because it depends on the government being able to deport people to Rwanda) creates an accelerated system for appeals. In an announcement about how this will work, Chalk says:

The Ministry of Justice has been working to increase capacity in the justice system in preparation for the commencement of the Act. Additional hearing rooms have been prepared, making a total of 25 hearing rooms available within the existing Immigration and Asylum Chamber (IAC) estate in London. These rooms are set up with remote hearing technology, allowing for either in-person or remote hearings to maximise flexibility. Over 100 additional staff have been recruited to support the Upper Tribunal’s work and are currently undertaking training ready for the commencement of the Illegal Migration Act.

The Illegal Migration Act provides for First-tier Tribunal judges to be deployed to sit in the Upper Tribunal to hear Illegal Migration Act appeals. The judiciary have identified relevant judges, which could provide over 5,000 additional sitting days. The decision on whether to deploy additional judges temporarily to the Upper Tribunal, including when they sit and the courtrooms they use, is for the independent judiciary and will be taken by the relevant leadership judges at the time and in the interests of justice …

We are confident that, with the additional court room and judicial capacity detailed above, in line with projected levels agreed with the Home Office the vast majority of Illegal Migration Act appeal work will be dealt with by the courts in an expedited manner.

No 10 rejects claim from UNHCR that its Rwanda policy remains incompatible with international refugee law

The UN high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), which has repeatedly criticised the government’s Rwanda policy, has released a fresh analysis saying that, even with the new treaty signed with Rwanda, the government’s bill is incompatible with international law. In the report it says:

UNHCR has reviewed the updated UK-Rwanda scheme in light of the principles and standards set out in its 2022 analysis and summarised in Part I above. It maintains its position that the arrangement, as now articulated in the UK-Rwanda Partnership Treaty and accompanying legislative scheme does not meet the required standards relating to the legality and appropriateness of the transfer of asylum seekers and is not compatible with international refugee law.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the government did not accept this assessment. The PM’s spokesperson said:

I haven’t seen specifically what [UNHCR] have said, but we have set out the summary of our legal advice and obviously we are legislating to enable us to do this. The UNHCR also have a partnership with Rwanda ensuring they can safely take in migrants, I think from Libya, including a number quite recently.

According to Alex Wickham from Bloomberg, government whips think only around five to 10 Tory MPs would vote against the Rwanda bill at third reading.

The big question next 48 hours: are govt whips right that there are only 5-10 right-wing rebels willing to vote against the bill and challenge Sunak?

More than 60 Tory MPs have signed at least one of the various rebel amendments to the Rwanda bill tabled by hardliners. But very few of them have said publicly that, if the amendments are not passed, they will definitely vote against the bill at third reading. Suella Braverman and Miriam Cates are among the diehards in this category. But Simon Clarke, in his ConservativeHome, only says, that, if the bill is not changed, he will not vote for the bill at third reading, implying he would abstain.

In an interview with Sky News, Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who has tabled the rebel amendments attracting most support, said he was “prepared” to vote against the bill at third reading. He said:

I am prepared to vote against the bill … because this bill doesn’t work, and I do believe that a better bill is possible.

So the government has a choice. It can either accept my amendments … or it can bring back a new and improved bill, and it could do that within a matter of days because we know the shape of that bill.

That form of words suggests he is still hoping for some sort of compromise offer that will enable him to justify not voting against the bill at third reading.

Updated

The debate on the Rwanda bill is due to start soon after 12.30pm. Government sources have indicated that talks are still going with backbenchers over amendments, and have not ruled out accepting some of them.

The full list of amendments is here. While some of them would be totally unacceptable to No 10, others are less problematic. For example, Robert Jenrick’s amendment 23, intended to ensure that European court of human rights’ injunctions do not stop deportations, is very close to what Rishi Sunak said on this topic yesterday.

Updated

Tory papers mostly back Sunak, not hardline rebel MPs, ahead of key votes on Rwanda bill

The main opposition to Rishi Sunak in Tory circles comes from the so-called “five families” – a nickname used by at least some of the leader of the five groups wanting to toughen the bill: the New Conservatives, the European Research Group, the Common Sense group, the Conservative Growth Group and the Northern Research Group.

But there are another “five families” whose views are important in Tory politics. They are the five main Conservative-leaning papers: the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Times. (The Times is not quite as pro-Tory as the others – historically, it is more pro-establishment than pro-Conservative – but it is not aligned with Labour.) Broadly, these papers have all been calling for tougher action to tackle the problem of small boats. But, on the Rwanda bill, four out of five of them in their editorials are backing Sunak rather than the Tory rebels now being supported by Boris Johnson. That is to a large extent because they are worried that a bitter split will be bad for the party’s prospects at the general election.

In its editorial today the Daily Mail says Tory rebels “must park their differences and get behind their leader in these critical months before the election”.

The Daily Express says in its editorial: “We strongly wish Mr Sunak to succeed … We concur with Tory chairman Richard Holden, who said it’s time to get the legislation ‘across the line’.”

In an editorial yesterday the Sun said Conservative MPs “must come together this week and back the prime minister’s plan – however imperfect they consider it to be – to help stop future tragedies”.

And in an editorial yesterday the Times said the bill was “a sensible balance, respecting the will of parliament and the rights of the individual” and that MPs should support it.

The only paper backing the rebels, or at least partly backing them, is the Daily Telegraph. In its editorial today it says Sunak should accept some of their demands. It says:

[Sunak] could plough on and assume the rebels cannot muster the votes needed to defeat him or try to meet them halfway. There is scope to accept that individual appeals against deportation orders should be allowed only in the most extreme circumstances. That might stop the legal process being abused to clog up the system so that no flights to Rwanda ever leave the ground.

An amendment that would automatically block the European Court of Human Rights from granting last-minute injunctions to suspend flights, known as Rule 39 orders, should also be accepted.

There is a wider point here. Successive Tory governments have promised both to stop the boats and curb legal migration and have yet to do either.

The voters are telling pollsters that this failure is one reason why they are not planning to support the Tories, even if they are not especially enthused by Labour. Mr Sunak needs to find a way to show them he understands their concerns.

Updated

Here is more from the story in the Times by Steven Swinford and Matt Dathan on Rishi Sunak’s plan to bring in more judges to stop asylum appeals clogging up the system and delaying flights to Rwanda. (See 9.46am.) They report:

Ministers are preparing to announce plans to move 150 judges from the first-tier tribunal to the upper tribunal, the body that will hear appeals under the new legislation.

The judges are being given additional training and will be paid more to sit on evenings and weekends. The government has also brought in 100 extra officials to process claims and will create additional hearing rooms.

This is designed to fast-track the process of considering individual legal appeals lodged by migrants. The Home Office believes 99.5% of individual legal challenges will fail but there is still a risk that large numbers lodging appeals will clog up the system sufficiently to delay and frustrate their removal. A government source said the extra manpower will ensure that in the “very unlikely scenario a claim proceeds, it will be dealt with swiftly and not clog up the system”.

Updated

The new analysis about the swing Labour needs to win a general election (see 11.04am) is based on the new constituency boundaries. If you want to see if your constituency has changed, and, if it has, how it would have voted in 2019 on the basis of the new boundaries, we have an online tool that will tell you. It’s here.

Labour needs record swing to win general election on new boundaries, analysis suggests

Labour will need a record swing at the next general election to win a majority, the BBC is reporting. Peter Barnes, the BBC’s elections and political analyst, says:

The next election will be fought on new constituency boundaries, redrawn to reflect population changes and to try to even out voter numbers in each area.

An analysis of these changes for BBC News, ITV News, Sky News and the Press Association suggests Labour needs a national swing of 12.7% to win with just a small majority.

That’s considerably higher than the 10.2% achieved by Tony Blair in 1997 and higher even than the 12% achieved by Clement Attlee in 1945.

The swing from the Conservatives to Labour would need to be uniform, to follow the same pattern everywhere, with other parties seeing no change in performance since 2019.

The report has been welcomed by Labour figures worried about yesterday’s YouGov MRP poll suggesting the Labour is on course for a majority of 120 seats. This is from Alastair Campbell, the former No 10 spin doctor who is now a star podcaster.

After all the ballyhoo created by the right wing ecosystem yesterday re Telegraph/Frost poll, might I suggest this analysis nearer the mark. Ps also on polls, Tories now talking of “private polls”. Ignore any stories re them too.

“Record swing” does sound like a near-impossible hurdle. But it is worth pointing out that, when Tony Blair achieved his 10.2% swing in 1997, that was a swing from the results in 1992, when Labour came quite close to winning. Keir Starmer’s swing will be benchmarked against the 2019 result, when Labour recorded its worst result since 1935.

It is also the case that voters are more willing to switch parties when they vote at elections than in the past. This chart, from a recent report from UK in a Changing Europe, illustrates this.

How voters are more likely to switch parties at elections
How voters are more likely to switch parties at elections Photograph: Uk in a Changing Europe/UK in a Changing Europe

UPDATE: A couple of readers have been in touch to point out that, although Labour’s election result in 2019 was the worst since 1935 in terms of number of seats won, it wasn’t the worst since then in terms of vote share, which is more relevant for a discussion of swing. One wrote to me to say:

The 2019 Labour result was not the worst since 1935 in terms of vote share (which is what you are discussing). The Labour share was lower than 2019 in 1983, 1987, 2010, and 2015.

And other said:

Surely vote swing is measured against vote share, not seats won? And of the 10 elections prior to 2019, Labour’s vote share was higher in 6 (one of those under Corbyn) and lower in 4. On that basis, far from the ‘worst since 1935’; actually only the worst since 2015.

All this is true. But the broad point – which is that bouncing back from a bad defeat is easier than bouncing back from a narrow defeat – still stands.

Updated

Gove says he is 'pretty sure' Lee Anderson will still be Tory deputy chair at next election

Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, has told Times Radio that he is “pretty sure” that Lee Anderson will still be a Conservative party deputy chair at the time of the next election.

He made the comment when asked if he thought Anderson would be sacked for saying he will vote against the government on the Rwanda bill. As the Guardian reports, Anderson announced this in a post on X last night.

The Rwanda Bill.

I have signed the Cash & Jenrick amendments.

I will vote for them.

Brendan Clarke-Smith, another Tory deputy chair, is also planning to rebel.

When I was elected in 2019 I promised my constituents we would take back control. I want this legislation to be as strong as possible and therefore I will be supporting the Jenrick/Cash amendments. These are arguments I have consistently made and will continue to make

Asked what action might be taken against Anderson, Gove replied:

Well, I think we might be getting ahead of ourselves because I think that, and Lee is a friend and I’m a big admirer of his, the concerns that Lee has about the bill are the concerns that the country has about migration more broadly.

And I think the bill does address them. I think the bill does make sure – it’s one of the toughest pieces of migration legislation to come before the House of Commons if not the toughest – and it makes sure that ministers can quickly and clearly send people to Rwanda because it deals with all of the concerns that the supreme court had.

Conservative party deputy chairs and vice-chairs (vice-chairs are more junior) are not members of the government, but they are considered part of the “payroll vote” and expected to vote with the government. In the past people have been sacked from these posts for rebelling, as Stephen Hammond was after a Brexit vote in 2017.

Updated

Boris Johnson backs Tory rebels trying to strengthen Rwanda bill, saying it should be 'as robust as possible'

Boris Johnson, the former PM, has backed the rebel Tory MPs pushing amendments designed to make the Rwanda bill tougher. In his first post on X this year (he does not often use it), he says:

Governments around the world are now trying to imitate the UK Rwanda policy for tackling illegal people trafficking. This bill must be as legally robust as possible - and the right course is to adopt the amendments

The Rwanda policy, which involves banning people arriving on small boats from claiming asylum in the UK and deporting them to Rwanda, supposedly as a deterrent to stop future migrants paying people smugglers for a place on a small boat, was conceived and announced when he was PM. At the time Sunak had doubts as to whether it would work, according to a recent leak to the BBC.

Johnson was commenting on a tweet posted by Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, linking to an article Clarke has written for ConservativeHome on this topic. In the article Clarke says:

At the moment, the government’s own assessment is that the bill as drafted has only a 50/50 chance of success. For me, that’s simply not good enough.

There are no guarantees in politics, as in life, but I owe it to the people who send me to Westminster, who have put their trust in me to act as I know they wish to be represented, to be able to look them in the eye and say that I sincerely believe our new law will work.

If our amendments are rejected, and I can’t do that, then I can’t vote for it.

I don’t know yet how this week will unfold. All outcomes are possible and I hope sincerely that the government will accept improvements to the legislation.

But if things go wrong, there are a number of us who have shown before, just as we did on Theresa May’s soft Brexit legislation, that we won’t hesitate to act on principle to actually get things done.

We were right then and we were right now. The public is absolutely exhausted of politicians who are only prepared to offer half measures, and to see our country limp along in a stupor of inaction and failure.

Enough. We either amend this bill so that it will work, or we face utter disaster when it becomes clear over the months ahead that it does not deliver. Many of us will not stand idly by and let that happen.

Julia Kollewe is covering the Post Office Horizon scandal hearings today on a separate live blog. It’s here.

Leading Tory Rwanda rebel says PM’s plan for extra judges shows bill will not stop appeals

Good morning. MPs will this afternoon start two days of debate on Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill, and the proceedings, and votes, are going to be an interesting trial of strength between Sunak and the rightwing faction in his party that does not rate him and wants him out. At one point there was talk in hardline Tory circles about the rebellion triggering a leadership contest, with Kemi Badenoch lined up to be installed as the Tories’ sixth PM since 2010. No one is expecting that now. But over the next two days we will find out quite how many Conservatives are willing to vote against the government on Rwanda, and quite how vitriolic they are willing to be about Sunak’s strategy. We’ll also find out whether Sunak feels he is strong enough to sack the two Tory deputy chairs who say they will vote against the government, or whether their revolt will be tolerated.

The debates will also set the stage for a significant “I told you so” moment in Tory politics later this year. The rebels say, without significant amendment, the bill will fail to “stop the boats”. Sunak claims it can and will work. Mainstream legal opinion is probably with the rebels at this point. No one knows for sure, but by the time of the election it will be easier to say whether or not the bill has worked.

This morning the Times is reporting that, in a further effort to get his MPs to support the bill, Sunak is planning to “fast-track migrant appeals against deportation to Rwanda by drafting in 150 judges and freeing up courtrooms”.

The proposal has not impressed Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservatives, a rightwing Tory group calling for drastic cuts to immigration and withdrawal from the European convention on human rights. She told the Today programme:

All that this drafting in of more judges shows is that the government is expecting a large number of legal claims. And don’t forget that they can then go to appeal. And then the idea of the deterrent doesn’t work because people know that they can stay in this country for a large period of time – their claims may be heard, they may be kept in this country for a long period of time.

The point of a deterrent is that everybody who arrives here is swiftly detained and deported. We’re not saying that people should not be able to make legal claims. What we’re saying is that those claims need to be made in Rwanda, people will still have, under our amendments, those full rights of appeal in Rwanda. But the point is they need to be deported to Rwanda in order to have this deterrent.

Cates also said she would vote against the bill at third reading (on Wednesday evening) if the proposed rightwing amendments were not passed or accepted. She said she did not know how many colleagues would do the same, but that 66 Conservatives had signed at least one of the rebel amendments.

I will be focusing mostly on this story all day. There are also important Post Office Horizon scandal hearings taking place, but we will cover those on a separate live blog.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

10am: Rajbinder Sangha, a former member of Fujitsu’s fraud team, gives evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.

10am: Lord Arbuthnot, the Tory peer and former MP, and Neil Hudgell, a lawyer, who both backed victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal, give evidence to the Commons business committee about the scandal. The committee is taking evidence from many key figures this morning including Alan Bates and Jo Hamilton (victims and campaigners) at 10.30am; Nick Read, chief executive of the Post Office, and Paul Patterson, director of Fujitsu Services, at 11am, and Kevin Hollinrake and Carl Creswell, business resilience director at the Department for Business and Trade, at 11.30am.

10am: The UK Covid inquiry starts hearings in Edinburgh, with opening statements from counsel.

10am: Eluned Morgan, the Welsh government’s health minister, and Judith Paget, chief executive of NHS Wales, hold a press conference on the impact of the junior doctors’ strike in Wales.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.30pm: MPs start a six-hour debate on amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

After 3pm: David Cameron, the foreign secretary, takes questions in the Lords on Israel and Gaza, UN sustainable development goals, the rules-based order and the Rohingya refugee crisis.

If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

Miriam Cates in the Commons.
Miriam Cates in the Commons. Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

Updated

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