Government wins critical vote to go ahead with Rwanda scheme | UK News

The government’s Rwanda immigration plan – one considered inhumane by campaigners and not tough enough by the hard right – has passed in a 313-269 vote.

This was a comfortable but not big majority of 44 in a ballot largely seen as yet another test to Rishi Sunak’s shaky leadership.

More than 29,000 people have crossed the English Channel to seek asylum in the UK so far this year, down from 46,000 in 2022.

The government has made ‘stopping the boats’ a key policy pledge, with its solution being placing asylum seekers crossing via ‘irregular routes’ on a one-way flight to Rwanda.

But no one has yet been sent to the country despite the £260,000,000 plan being proposed last year, with the Supreme Court seemingly dealing it a knockout blow last year when it ruled it was unlawful.

The top court ruled that Rwanda was unsafe for asylum seekers and that some might be sent back to their countries of origin where they could be in danger.

Eager to get this law in the books still, Sunak proposed the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week to address these concerns – though critics say it would still override some human rights laws and come close to breaching international agreements.

Today’s vote was just approving the emergency legislation in principle, called a general. The chit-chat about whether it’s bill-worthy usually goes without a hitch.

Only 29 Conservatives voting against the Rwanda bill would have tanked it.

A Labour amendment that would have effectively stopped the bill from getting any further was defeated in a 337-269 vote.

Now both chambers will get plenty of chances to amend the bill as it heads to committee for MPs to scrutinise.

The PM has described it as the ‘toughest ever anti-illegal immigration legislation’.

But to some, like the former immigration minister Robert Jenrick who resigned over the draft law, it’s not tough enough.

The European Research Group of Conservatives, a bloc of hard-right Tories, said the UK should even be prepared to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if necessary to ensure asylum seekers have next to no legal routes to challenge deportation.

The chairman of the group, Mark Francois, told reporters minutes before the vote that he and four other Tory blocs decided they could not back Sunak’s bill.

Others, such as the One Nation Group, a caucus of about 100 centre-right Tories, said they felt breaching international law was a tad too tough for their liking.

The group had said they’d vote for the bill regardless tonight but would likely poke holes in it during the committee stage.

Labour refused to back the bill from the get-go, with the opposition party’s leader, Keir Starmer, saying Sunak’s plan is too costly and ‘won’t work’.

When the Conservatives first came to power 13 years ago, David Cameron vowed to limit net migration to ‘tens of thousands’ of people a year.

Net migration – the number of people migrating to Britain minus the number emigrating – climbed to almost three-quarters of a million people in 2022.

The deal has been seen by human rights groups as inhumane and the hard right as not going far enough.

Brexit-backers within the Conservatives have not been best pleased about this. After all, a sales pitch for leaving the EU was ‘taking back control’ of Britain’s borders.

Everyone who decides whether someone can seek sanctuary in the UK – think immigration officials, the home secretary and the courts – will be made to ‘conclusively treat the Republic of Rwanda as a safe country,’ according to the bill.

Sunak’s proposals would see people have their asylum claims heard by authorities in the East African nation – if given refugee status, they would be allowed to live in Rwanda but not Britain.

Courts will also be told to more or less ignore emergency orders from the European Court of Human Rights to suspend a flight as has been done before.

The number of people crossing the English Channel by boat – typically rickety, unseaworthy vessels – has been steadily increasing over the years but remains small compared with net migration overall and to the rest of Europe.

Almost three-quarters of those who cross the choppy stretch of ocean – many being vulnerable people fleeing from persecution, poverty and worse – would be allowed to stay in the UK as a refugee.

Experts also say that Sunak’s Rwanda plan is impractical and doesn’t fix the wider issues in Britain’s asylum-seeking system, such as a years-long backlog that they chalk up to mismanagement and a lack of safe routes.

Since Boris Johnson first floated the idea in 2022, human rights activists and legal experts have made their thoughts on the government’s signature immigration policy all too clear.

Amnesty International UK has called Sunak’s plan an ‘outrageous attack on the very concept of universal human rights’, while Liberty says the idea of the UK voluntarily leaving the ECHR ‘would put everyone’s rights at risk’.

As the party trails in the polls, top Tories have chosen tackling immigration as their focus ahead of a General Election next year.

While Westminster has for months been filled by rows around immigration, the British people aren’t as fussed as the politicians that represent them, apparently.

Asked what the most pressing issue facing the country is by YouGov, three in 10 Britons said the economy remains a top worry as the cost of living crisis continues to grind their bank accounts.

Two in 10 say immigration hangs heavily on their minds, with the pollster noting the issue is the number one concern among Tory voters.

While swing voters tend to care more about their bank balances than borders, YouGov polls of 2019 Tory voters suggest they don’t think the ruling party is their best option when it comes to immigration.

Nearly nine in 10 think the government is handling immigration badly, while another poll for The Times found less than two in 10 feel Sunak himself best reflects their views on the topic.

The majority of Britons (39%) said in November that given the Supreme Court ruled the Rwanda policy unlawful, the bill should just be scrapped altogether.

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