Rishi Sunak should ‘pull the Rwanda bill’ now, says Tory right-winger
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Rishi Sunak will host an emergency breakfast in Downing Street with members of the New Conservative group of backbenchers on Tuesday after a difficult day in Westminster over the Rwanda Bill.
A spokesman for the right-wing group said the Rwanda Bill needs “major surgery or replacement” and the party would be “making that plain in the morning to the PM at breakfast and over the next 24 hours”.
It comes as Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group (ERG), has told Mr Sunak there was a “consensus” among right-wing Tory MPs that he should “pull” the Rwanda bill.
The senior rebel said No 10 should “come up with a revised version that works better than this one which has so many holes in it”.
David Jones, the ERG deputy chair, added that he agreed that the current Rwanda bill was “not easily amendable” at the committee stage – even if goes through the first hurdle on Tuesday.
The so-called “star chamber” of lawyers for the ERG said the bill “provides a partial and incomplete solution” but does not go “far enough to deliver the policy as intended”.
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Government accused of ‘choosing to ignore’ advice from senior lawyers over Rwanda
The Government has been accused of “choosing to ignore” advice from senior lawyers over its stalled Rwanda plan.
Described as a rare move in a bid to win over critics, the Government published a summary of its legal position in support of the scheme on Monday.
The document concludes that there is a “clear lawful basis on which a responsible government may proceed” with a “novel and contentious policy”.
But a leading Tory rebel said: “The Government is choosing to ignore advice from senior lawyers that there are good legal arguments for blocking off individual claims and all Strasbourg Rule 39 injunctions.
“Migrants can still make individual claims but these would continue in Rwanda. The Government should ensure that only those who are under 18 or medically unfit to fly are exempt from removal.
“It’s open to Parliament to block or restrict individual legal challenges and the courts will uphold this.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain12 December 2023 05:00
Ben Wallace makes rare intervention as he urges Tory MPs not to ‘wreck’ government by voting down Rwanda Bill
Ben Wallace has made a rare intervention as he warned Tory rebels not to “wreck” the government by voting against the emergency Rwanda legislation.
The former defence secretary urged the government to “not let Keir Starmer off the hook by turning [Tuesday’s] vote into an exercise of making the perfect (but unrealistic) the enemy of the good”.
He added in his article for The Telegraph: “Strong deterrence has to be built brick by brick.”
(PA Archive)
Maryam Zakir-Hussain12 December 2023 04:00
Tory peer Baroness Helic, a former adviser to William Hague who fled to the UK from war-torn Bosnia in the 1990s, said: “When we ignore our commitments, it gives other countries cover to do the same.”
Labour former shadow attorney general Baroness Chakrabarti said: “The Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill dishonours the great work of the generation that established the declaration and the subsequent treaties that were always intended to protect its values with binding law.”
Responding to the debate, Tory frontbencher Baroness Swinburne said: “We are committed to upholding human rights everywhere including in countries that we work very closely with.
“Rwanda is deemed a safe and secure country with respect to the rule of law.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain12 December 2023 03:00
The Anglican cleric also pointed out Home Secretary James Cleverly had been unable to state on the front of the legislation whether it was compatible with the UK’s human rights obligations.
He said: “In producing such a Bill we are disregarding the humanity of asylum seekers as fellow human beings. Fellow human beings who are equal in dignity and possess the same freedoms as ourselves.
“This is not an issue of boats. It is an issue of people.
“As a nation, we have a proud history of upholding and promoting human rights across the globe. These human rights apply no matter the nationality a person is born to, no matter their methods of travel or entry to a country, no matter how many siblings they have.
“Human rights also always implies human responsibility – responsibility for one another.
“If we each want these rights then we also each must defend them for others.
“We cannot decide to remove rights from others without diminishing ourselves and accepting that we thus remove those rights from ourselves.
“We have been at the forefront since 1948 of promoting human rights, will the Government commit to lead the way rather than as currently appears step backwards from that leading role?”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain12 December 2023 02:00
Raising his concerns over the Government’s actions, the senior bishop said: “Though the UN’s declaration of human rights is not totally legally binding, it is a declaration of the core values that underpin the human rights agreements the UK has since committed to in a range of international agreements and in the foundation of many of our laws.”
Mr Butler told the upper chamber Rwanda was a country “close to his heart”, having visited it 20 times since 1997.
He said: “It has a deeply painful history of suffering. Yet I have observed first-hand how, as a nation, it has rebuilt itself in the past 30 years, bringing those who violated the human rights of others in the past to justice.
“However, considering reports from the Human Rights Watch as well as the United States Government on the violation of human rights within Rwanda in recent years, questions are now raised that our Government can simply rule that Rwanda is a country that is indeed safe for refugees and asylum seekers to be sent to.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain12 December 2023 01:00
Rwanda Bill disregards humanity of asylum seekers, senior bishop warns
Government legislation aimed at sending small boat migrants to Rwanda disregards the humanity of asylum seekers, a senior bishop has warned.
If people want human rights then they must defend them for others, the Rt Rev Paul Butler told Parliament.
The Church of England cleric levelled his strong criticism ahead of a crucial first Commons vote on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
In a bid to avoid further legal setbacks to the stalled deportation plan, the controversial legislation allows ministers to disapply the Human Rights Act.
However, the Bill does not go as far as overriding the European Convention on Human Rights, which is being demanded by the Tory right.
The Rwanda scheme is a key part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s plan to “stop the boats” by acting as a deterrent for people seeking to cross the English Channel.
The bid to press ahead with the policy came as the House of Lords held a debate to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN in 1948.
The bishop said: “Though we are 75 years on, promoting the human rights laid out in the declaration remains as vital today as it did in 1948.”
He added: “It is essential if we are to promote human rights globally that we uphold them in our own nation.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain12 December 2023 00:00
Robert Jenrick hits out again at ‘fundamentally flawed’ bill
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick is proving a thorn in the side of Rishi Sunak in the push to get his bill over the line on Tuesday.
Mr Jenrick, who met a group of 40 hardliners this evening, said the “leaked” analysis produced by the government to suggest the vast majority of legal challenges would be rejected was “outdated”.
“Even on its own optimistic terms, it’ll take months to remove illegal arrivals,” he tweeted. He added on X: “The proposed bill is both legally and operationally fundamentally flawed.”
Maryam Zakir-Hussain11 December 2023 23:00
Actors, TV personalities and campaigners call for scrapping of Rwanda scheme
Succession star Brian Cox and television presenter Gary Lineker are among high-profile signatories to a letter calling for the Government to scrap its Rwanda scheme and for political leaders to come up with a “fair new plan for refugees”.
They branded Britain’s refugee system “ever-more uncaring, chaotic and costly”, and said asylum policies are not working.
The correspondence, also signed by women’s rights campaigner Helen Pankhurst, Hotel Rwanda star Sophie Okonedo and television chef Big Zuu, who is the son of a refugee from Sierra Leone, comes in the week MPs will debate and vote on the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
Maryam Zakir-Hussain11 December 2023 22:00
What is Sunak government’s new Rwanda plan and could it trigger an election?
Rishi Sunak has introduced legislation and staged an emergency press conference in a bid to salvage his Government’s Rwanda policy and reassert his authority over a fractious Conservative Party.
Last month, the Supreme Court ruled the policy was unlawful and could not go ahead as it was, concluding there was a real risk that genuine refugees sent to Rwanda could be returned to their home country, where they would face “ill-treatment”.
In an effort to address the court’s concerns, Home Secretary James Cleverly travelled to the country’s capital Kigali on Tuesday to sign a fresh treaty before setting out details of the accompanying Bill in the Commons on Wednesday.
Maryam Zakir-Hussain11 December 2023 21:00
Sunak to host emergency breakfast in desperate bid to persuade Tory MPs ahead of key vote
Rishi Sunak will host an emergency breakfast in Downing Street with members of the New Conservative group of backbenchers on Tuesday after a difficult day in Westminster.
It comes after a spokesman for the right-wing group said the Rwanda Bill needs “major surgery or replacement” and the party would be “making that plain in the morning to the PM at breakfast and over the next 24 hours”.
(PA Wire)
Maryam Zakir-Hussain11 December 2023 20:46