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Rishi Sunak has promised rightwing Tory MPs that he is open to “tightening” the UK government’s Rwanda bill in order to secure their backing ahead of a crunch vote on Tuesday night.
The prime minister made assurances as part of an eleventh-hour pitch to would-be rebels to back down from a revolt during a dawn breakfast meeting in Downing Street, according to several MPs present.
The discussions came as an asylum seeker housed by the government on the Bibby Stockholm barge was reported dead on Tuesday.
Richard Drax, Conservative MP for South Dorset where the barge is located, said the individual had died by suicide.
In the wake of Sunak’s breakfast meeting with MPs, some Tories on the right of the party said the bill was likely to pass.
One rightwing Conservative admitted they were planning to abstain or vote against the bill but nonetheless believed Sunak would win, though not without suffering damage to his authority.
Noting that some colleagues on the right had agreed at the last minute to support the legislation, the MP said: “I can’t see the government losing the vote tonight, but the PM won’t get the majority he’d like to signal strength.”
Others on the Tory right insisted it was still possible for them to inflict defeat on the government if they acted as a bloc.
In a sign ministers felt under pressure, the chief whip met with some of the leaders of the five factions representing the party’s right flank. The whips were accused by Tory insiders of threatening there would be “consequences” for MPs who did not back the legislation.
Sunak’s hints about his willingness to toughen up the legislation also risk alienating MPs in the moderate One Nation caucus, who have indicated they will vote for the bill as it stands but would not tolerate it being strengthened.
One MP in the centrist caucus said they were “hacked off” with Sunak’s offer to the right. “If he moves there’ll be big trouble,” they warned, adding the bill was already “right at the line” of what was acceptable to moderate Conservatives.
“As a group we feel thus far and no further,” said Sir Robert Buckland, MP for South Swindon and a member of One Nation, adding that “if anything, this bill needs to be drawn back the other way”.
It would take only 29 Tory MPs voting with the Labour opposition to defeat the bill on its crucial second reading. No government has lost such a vote at this stage of its parliamentary proceedings since 1986.
If some Tory MPs decided to abstain, that would reduce the number of Conservatives needed to vote against the legislation with Labour to defeat it.
As the House of Commons debate on the legislation got under way on Tuesday, home secretary James Cleverly argued that the bill pushed the envelope of international law.
However, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick accused the government of “sophistry”, suggesting ministers were being deceptive about the extent to which the legislation would empower them to ignore attempts by the European Court of Human Rights to ground flights taking asylum seekers to Rwanda.
In a sign that the vote could go down to the wire, the Conservative, Labour and Scottish National parties have all withdrawn permission for their MPs to be away from the Commons on Tuesday.
The UK’s climate change minister Graham Stuart left the COP28 summit in Dubai to return and vote on the government’s Rwanda deportation bill, despite critical climate negotiations still to be completed.
Party grandees including Lord David Cameron, foreign secretary, David Davis, former Brexit secretary and Sir Geoffrey Cox, former attorney-general, have been urging Tory MPs to back Sunak’s bill.
Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, on Tuesday attacked the Conservative party for the “charade” of its policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Starmer said that £290mn of taxpayers’ money had been spent on the scheme in “a failed exercise in Conservative party management”.
Sunak brought forward the legislation to declare Rwanda a “safe” country after the Supreme Court ruled that his migration scheme was unlawful.
The bill declares that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers and disapplies parts of the UK’s 1998 Human Rights Act, but migrants could still lodge appeals on the basis of individual circumstances.
The Labour party, which is currently leading in the opinion polls by about 20 points, has said it will scrap the scheme if it wins the general election expected next year.
Additional reporting by William Wallis
