In two weeks’ time, the Conservative party faces the prospect of heavy local election losses in England. If they are severe enough, the losses could shatter the fragile faith that Rishi Sunak has managed to instil among his MPs that he is their best bet for survival. Talk of Boris Johnson’s return, stilled for the past month, would rekindle. Mr Sunak and his advisers are deeply aware of the imminence of this moment of political vulnerability. That awareness explains the dirty deal that the prime minister made this week with his rightwing critics on the illegal migration bill.
The Tory critics think that the bill – which attempts to deter asylum seekers from crossing the Channel and gives the government powers to send them to a third country that the home secretary deems safe, such as Rwanda – is too feeble and risks being ineffective. Among several changes they seek to the bill, they want the home secretary to have powers to ignore interim injunctions by the European court of human rights (ECHR) to halt such deportation flights.
This week, Mr Sunak caved in to the critics. He did so, in part, because he has staked his own credibility on “stopping the boats” and does not want to risk a public fight in which he is cast by the Tory press as too weak on the issue. Amendments to the bill were due to be published on Thursday and are set to be voted on next Wednesday.
The bill was already inhumane. It had already ridden roughshod over Britain’s historic commitments to the rights of refugees. These amendments go further still. They are a deliberate challenge to the rule of law. They are a clear attempt to spit in the eye of the ECHR. They deliberately deny due process to some of the most vulnerable and exploited people arriving on this country’s shores. They will certainly be challenged in the House of Lords next month.
Mr Sunak did not have to take this course. If he had followed the advice of his chief whip, he would have played hardball with the critics. He could have challenged his backbenchers to get behind him at a crucial moment, banking that most would swing his way, as happened last month over the Northern Ireland protocol vote. He could have held the line on the rule of law. Instead, he chose not to. His decision will encourage the fanatics to make even more demands.
Mr Sunak is either weak or unprincipled, or both. It is hard not to suspect that his readiness to concede to the critics is connected to the local elections. He wants to fire up the Conservative electorate over asylum seekers, not least in the week when inflation failed to fall as sharply as the government had hoped. He is happy to taunt the human rights court for being the playground of “London lawyers” – for whom read Keir Starmer – and “Strasbourg judges”, for whom read foreigners.
He is also prepared to let the home secretary, Suella Braverman, make the big calls for the government on this issue. That might be just about excusable if the home secretary had a strong and trustworthy reputation for upholding justice and due process. This home secretary is the very opposite. She is only in the government because, in spite of breaching the ministerial code and being forced to resign last year, her support in the leadership contest last autumn mattered more to Mr Sunak. He did a dirty deal back then. He did another one this week.
