Rwanda bill rebellion takes heavy toll on Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak’s election supremo Isaac Levido this week issued a stark warning to Tory MPs, telling them: “Divided parties fail.” But the Conservative rebellion over the government’s Rwanda asylum bill over the last 48 hours is an ominous sign for the prime minister that the warning is not being heeded.

Tory MPs may have pulled back from voting down the bill in its entirety. But asked about the revolt by 60 Conservative MPs, who defied Sunak by trying to toughen it up, one former cabinet minister pulled an imaginary pistol from his pocket and took aim at his two feet.

Sunak expects the Rwanda bill to eventually reach the statute book after a battering in both the House of Commons and House of Lords, but its passage into law is taking a heavy toll on his authority.

A small number of Tories believe Sunak is so badly damaged that he should be replaced — presenting the country with its fourth Tory prime minister of this parliament. But this is a minority view. “Bollocks,” said one cabinet minister.

However, that the discussion is taking place at all is a sign of the febrile nature of Conservative politics, where the party’s warring factions barely bother to conceal their dislike of each other.

In the Commons on Wednesday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer mocked Sunak’s policy to dispatch asylum seekers from the beaches of Kent to east Africa as “a farce not a policy”.

Even Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame, whose government has so far been paid £240mn by the UK to take some of Britain’s asylum seekers, is tiring of the drama. “There are limits to how long this can drag on,” he said in Davos.

The danger for Sunak is that the Rwanda policy is becoming synonymous with a failure to grip illegal migration, rather than evidence of a tough “deterrent” being deployed to stop the small boat crossings over the English Channel.

Polling by Savanta on Wednesday found that 72 per cent of adults thought Sunak’s “stop the boats” plan had gone badly.

Allies…