Beth Rigby: There are still battles the PM can win – but he’s already lost the war
Rishi Sunak is a prime minister who has always found it easy to build consensus on the world stage.
But when it comes to his own backyard, this premiership tells a very different story.
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With voters, he is struggling to build any sort of coalition, still bumping along 18 or so points behind Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour after 15 months in office, while this week he finds himself battling 60 of his own MPs convinced his flagship Rwanda plan won’t work.
And to hammer home the knock-on effect of that failure to deliver on the small boats promise, new polling by YouGov points to a Tory wipeout worse than in the Blair landslide of 1997, with Mr Sunak’s Conservatives predicated to win just 169 seats, while Labour would win 395, giving Sir Keir a majority of 120 seats.
The message from the Tory right is clear: sort out illegal migration or face electoral oblivion.
To that end, rebel MPs are pressing the prime minister to toughen up his Rwanda bill.
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Calls to ‘strengthen’ Rwanda bill
For now, Number 10 seem to be standing its ground – after all, amendments which the right argues strengthen the bill could provoke a rebellion on the One Nation centrist wing of the party, or even the Rwandan government, which has warned London the bill must stay within international law.
There is going to be a lot of rows, noise, and tension over the coming 48 hours, but even on the rebel side, there is a sense MPs won’t torpedo the entire bill should the government refuse to accept the amendments laid by former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, which aim to tighten the bill around getting planes off the ground in the face of injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights, or asylum seekers being allowed to make individual claims.
As one senior rebel put it to me the other day, it’s one thing to abstain, or vote for rebel amendments, and another to collapse the whole bill entirely.
So far, only Suella Braverman has come out to say she will vote down the bill if it’s not amended.
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The bigger problem for the PM is the rot. Even if he manages to pass the bill, the can is only kicked down the road.
His government will face individual court battles and perhaps a tussle with the court in Strasbourg. He might win in the Commons this week, but if the policy doesn’t work, he’ll face the wrath not just of many of his MPs but many former Conservative voters too.
Last December, after much drama, Mr Sunak headed off a Conservative revolt over his flagship bill, when – despite all the noise – the government won the vote with a majority of 44, with 37 MPs either abstaining or absent and not one voting against.
But even if the prime minister can carry his plan through the Commons this week, the question on all the minds of MPs – amplified by the polling out today – is whether it can even dent Labour’s lead.
As a senior minister lamented to me last December during those Tory rows over Rwanda: “This is the week our hopes of 1992 turned into 1997.”
In other words, even if Mr Sunak can win the battles with his rebel MPs, he has lost the war with a party irreconcilably divided and a public that’s tuned out.
His best hope is that steady progress – on the boats, the economy, NHS waiting lists – can slowly turn the tide.
Sir Ed Davey has written to King Charles to explain why he believes he has to refuse his invite to a state banquet for Donald Trump.
The Lib Dem leader said on Wednesday he will be boycotting the dinner next month during the US president’s second state visit to the UK because of the situation in Gaza.
He told Sky News on Thursday: “I’ve written to him [the King] personally explaining my thinking.
“And it’s with deep regret that I’ve had to take the decision, but I feel with what is going on in Gaza, it’s the best way I can get my voice heard.”
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Sir Ed said the “sad truth” is Mr Trump is the “one man” who has the power to stop the “horrible famine in Gaza, could get the hostages released, could bring an end to this horrendous humanitarian crisis”.
He said the US president could do that by phoning up Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and telling him to stop.
The Lib Dem leader said Mr Trump could also call up the Qatari government and other Gulf states to get them to put pressure on Hamas to release the remaining 50 Israeli hostages (20 living, 30 dead) they took on 7 October 2023.
The King and Donald Trump during his first state visit in 2019. Pic: Reuters
He emphasised that he has “huge respect” for the King and it was a very difficult decision he “really wrestled with” and involved him talking to his wife and praying about it.
Sir Ed denied it was political posturing and instead is one of the only ways he could get Mr Trump to listen.
“I didn’t want him to come to the UK without being reminded, as best I can, that he has that moral responsibility, frankly,” he added.
“And from what I’m picking up from many people, there are people across the political spectrum who agree with me and the Democrats that it is Donald Trump, it is the United States who has this power over Netanyahu, over Hamas, albeit indirectly, to stop this horrendous situation.”
Publicly refusing the King’s invite is “the best way I can get my voice heard,” Sir Ed said.
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King Charles will host a state dinner for Donald Trump. Pic: PA
Tony Blair at White House Gaza meeting
While Sir Ed is choosing to snub Mr Trump to get his voice heard, former Labour prime minister Sir Tony Blair has been asked by the US president for help on Gaza.
Sir Tony joined a White House meeting on Wednesday, chaired by Mr Trump, to discuss the war in Gaza and post-war plans for the Palestinian territory, a senior White House official confirmed.
They were joined by Mr Trump’s former Middle East envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to also discuss the hostage crisis and plans to escalate food aid deliveries.
The official described it as “simply a policy meeting”.
In July, the Financial Times reported the Tony Blair Institute had participated in a project to develop a post-war Gaza plan, with the think tank having “had many calls with different groups on post-war reconstruction of Gaza but none included the idea of forcible relocation of people from Gaza”.
Sir Ed called on Sir Tony to be quizzed in parliament about his discussions with the Trump administration.
“If he has special insight into Trump’s intentions, it’s only right that parliament and the government are made privy to this,” he said.
“We must leverage all the information and resources at our disposal to make Trump do the right thing.”
The change is part of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s “crypto sprint,” an initiative to overhaul regulations in response to proposals from the Trump administration.
The US government announced on Tuesday that it is publishing economic data onchain to boost transparency for government spending.
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