Rwanda bill: Relief for Rishi Sunak as legislation passes final Commons hurdle

Published

2 years ago

January 18, 2024

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Rishi Sunak has seen off a Tory rebellion after his controversial Rwanda bill passed its final hurdle in the Commons.

The bill, which aims to declare that Rwanda is a safe country to deport asylum seekers to, passed by 320 votes to 276 – a majority of 44 for the government.

In total only 11 Tory MPs voted against the bill, including former home secretary Suella Braverman, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, Sir Bill Cash, Sir Simon Clarke, Sarah Dines, James Duddridge, Mark Francois, Andrea Jenkyns, David Jones and co-chairs of the New Conservatives, Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates.

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How did your MP vote on the bill? Find out here

Eighteen Conservative MPs abstained on the bill, including Lee Anderson – who resigned as deputy party chair in protest over the legislation yesterday – former prime minister Theresa May and veteran MP Sir John Hayes.

The bill’s passage came despite the threat of a revolt among Tory MPs, with seven initially saying they would vote against it at third reading, including Ms Braverman and Mr Jenrick.

Mr Sunak had been prepared for a collision with right-wing Tories over the bill, which is aimed at reviving his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda if they attempt to come to the UK via small boat crossings in the Channel.

The bill, which is designed to enable parliament to confirm Rwanda is a “safe country”, gives ministers the powers to disregard sections of the Human Rights Act, but does not go as far as allowing them to dismiss the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) entirely – a demand of some on the right.

However, speaking to Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, one of the rebels, said he ultimately decided to vote in favour of the bill because it was “better than the status quo”.

“After the difficulties of the last few days, the Tory party has come together,” he added.

“Almost everybody in the Tory party wants people who’ve come here illegally to be removed to Rwanda, that is a point of unity.”

Although the bill has passed its third reading, one Tory source also told Sky News ahead of the vote that the prime minister was “by no means out of the woods”.

After passing the third reading in the Commons, the bill will now go through the same process in the House of Lords, where peers are expected to amend the legislation, which will then be debated and voted on.

A process known as parliamentary “ping pong” is likely to ensure when the legislation bounces between the Commons and Lords – where the government does not have a majority – while being amended.

During the debate on the legislation on Wednesday night, MPs considered a series of amendments designed to toughen up the bill before voting on the bill as a whole.

One, proposed by Mr Jenrick, demanded that rule 39 orders from Strasbourg judges should not be binding for the UK.

In June 2022 it was a rule 39 order – which have been referred to as “pyjama injunctions” for the late time at which they are often issued – that prevented the first flight to Rwanda from taking off.

While MPs overall rejected Mr Jenrick’s amendment by a majority of 469 votes, the rebellion was significant – with 67 MPs voting for it.

That included 61 Tory MPs, including the two tellers who verify the count, in an expression of their unhappiness with elements of the bill.

Downing Street had been engaging with MPs with doubts about the legislation after Mr Sunak suffered the resignation of three MPs – Mr Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, deputy chairs of the Conservative Party, and Jane Stevenson, a parliamentary private secretary in the Department for Business and Trade.

The MPs resigned after they backed amendments put forward by veteran MP Sir Bill Cash and Mr Jenrick on Tuesday night.

A Number 10 spokesman said the passing of the bill “marks a major step in our plan to stop the boats”.

“This is the toughest legislation ever introduced in parliament to tackle illegal migration and will make clear that if you come here illegally you will not be able to stay,” they said.

“It is this government and the Conservative Party who have got boat crossings down by more than a third.

“We have a plan, we have made progress and this landmark legislation will ensure we get flights off to Rwanda, deter people from making perilous journeys across the channel and stop the boats.”

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Nigel Farage’s deportation plan relies on these conditions – legal expert explains if it could work

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3 hours ago

August 26, 2025

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Nigel Farage's deportation plan relies on these conditions - legal expert explains if it could work

Explaining how they plan to tackle what they described as illegal migration, Nigel Farage and his Reform UK colleague Zia Yusuf were happy to disclose some of the finer details – how much money migrants would be offered to leave and what punishments they would receive if they returned.

But the bigger picture was less clear.

How would Reform win a Commons majority, at least another 320 seats, in four years’ time – or sooner if, as Mr Farage implied, Labour was forced to call an early election?

How would his party win an election at all if, as its leader suggested, other parties began to adopt his policies?

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Highly detailed legislation would be needed – what Mr Farage calls his Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.

But Reform would not have a majority in the House of Lords and, given the responsibilities of the upper house to scrutinise legislation in detail, it could take a year or more from the date of an election for his bill to become law.

Reform’s four-page policy document says the legislation would have to disapply:

• The United Nations refugee convention of 1951, extended in 1967, which says people who have a well-founded fear of persecution must not be sent back to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom

• The United Nations convention against torture, whose signatories agree not expel, return or extradite anyone to a country where there are substantial grounds to believe the returned person would be in danger of being tortured

• The Council of Europe anti-trafficking convention, which requires states to provide assistance for victims

According to the policy document, derogation from these treaties is “justified under the Vienna Convention doctrine of state necessity”.

That’s odd, because there’s no mention of necessity in the Vienna Convention on the law of treaties – and because member states can already “denounce” (leave) the three treaties by giving notice.

It would take up to a year – but so would the legislation. Only six months’ notice would be needed to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, another of Reform’s objectives.

Mr Farage acknowledged that other European states were having to cope with an influx of migrants. Why weren’t those countries trying to give up their international obligations?

His answer was to blame UK judges for applying the law. Once his legislation had been passed, Mr Farage promised, there would be nothing the courts could do to stop people being deported to countries that would take them. His British Bill of Rights would make that clear.

Courts will certainly give effect to the will of parliament as expressed in legislation. But the meaning of that legislation is for the judiciary to decide. Did parliament really intend to send migrants back to countries where they are likely to face torture or death, the judges may be asking themselves in the years to come.

They will answer questions such as that by examining the common law that Mr Farage so much admires – the wisdom expressed in past decisions that have not been superseded by legislation. He cannot be confident that the courts will see the problem in quite the same way that he does.