Adam Boulton: Do the Conservatives have a death wish?
Isaac Levido, the man in charge of the Conservative general election campaign, did not hold back.
“Let me be clear,” he briefed Tory MPs at a closed-door meeting last Monday, “divided parties fail”. A fat lot of good that did the prime minister.
The next day 60 Conservative MPs voted, fruitlessly, for an amendment in defiance of the government’s bill to keep the proposed Rwanda removal scheme broadly compliant with the law.
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The rebels included former home secretary Suella Braverman, her deputy Robert Jenrick and three resigners from payroll jobs, including Lee Anderson, the loud-mouthed party deputy chairman.
The revolt shrunk at the substantive “third reading” on Wednesday.
More than 40 of them caucused before the vote and pulled back from bringing down the bill, and probably themselves and the government with it. Only 11 rebelled.
Still, it was a stretch for the prime minister to boast “the Conservative Party has come together” at a specially convened news conference the following day.
Sources informed Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby that several “letters had gone in” from Tory MPs demanding a vote of no confidence in Sunak.
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What next for Rwanda bill?
Such behaviour prompts the question: “Do the Conservatives have a death wish as a party of government?” To put it another way: “Do they sincerely want to win the next election?”
The public notices when a party is divided. The latest figures for December are Conservatives divided 70%, united 8%.
The polling company YouGov runs a survey tracking that issue for the Conservatives. The jaws of disillusionment sprung wide in January 2022, the height of the “partygate” revelations, and have stayed gaping wide ever since.
Labour’s large lead in the opinion polls has also been in place for the past two years.
Two YouGov polls in the past week suggest that, if anything, it is getting bigger.
A large survey in key constituencies, commissioned by a newly formed right-wing faction calling itself the Conservative Britain Alliance, plotted the party on course to lose 196 seats, down to just 169 MPs to Labour’s 385.
Next the regular monthly poll for The Times, conducted this week, gave Labour an increased lead of 27 points in voting intention, 47% to 20%, with Nigel Farage’s Reform in third place on 12%.
In such dire circumstances, the prime minister at least is now sticking to Isaac Levido’s advice and claiming that the Conservatives are united.
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Sunak warns Lords over Rwanda Bill
He is only managing to keep them together by constantly shifting closer to the position of the rebels on the right. He has declined to punish, or remove the party whip, from those who voted against the government on the Rwanda bill.
Instead, Sunak confirmed this week that he will order civil servants to ignore last-minute, so-called “pyjama orders” from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) under Rule 39, to halt deportations.
He and his ministers have adopted the nativist rhetoric of describing the ECHR as a “foreign court”. The UK has been a founder member of the international court since 1959 and a Briton sits as one of its judges. It is not an EU institution.
Some of the rebels are veterans of the post-referendum Brexit deliberations which brought down Theresa May. Whatever moves she made in their direction were never enough.
Others, like Lee Anderson, were elected in 2019 on Boris Johnson’s coattails. Bathetically Anderson abstained in the final vote because he couldn’t stand the mockery from Labour when he entered the “nay” voting lobby.
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Boat carrying migrants seen crossing the Channel
That was a momentary weakness. The rebels have no interest in compromise and are already pressing for the UK to withdraw from the ECHR come what may, placing this nation alongside Russia and Belarus in Europe.
The prime minister claims that his Rwanda plan is the “will of the people”. It was not in the Conservative Party’s manifesto in 2019, although Boris Johnson subsequently floated the idea.
A majority of the general public, 53%, say it wouldn’t “be effective”. 40% want it abandoned, compared to 37% who say press ahead.
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Tory MP on why he voted for Rwanda
The cross-Channel migrants are a dramatic manifestation of people coming into the UK but are only a fraction of the record net total, over 600,000 a year, currently coming into the UK.
By common admission the number who would be sent to Rwanda, if the scheme were established, is smaller still. Sunak’s “Stop the Boats” policy is almost a diversion from the complex issues raised by mass migration.
Sunak is drawing attention to Labour saying it would scrap the Rwanda scheme “even if it was working”. He is continuing to tell voters that Labour has no plan, whatever policy they develop. As yet this does not seem to be damaging either Starmer or his party.
But 46% of Conservatives voters in 2019 said the Rwanda scheme would be effective, even more of them, 63%, want the government to continue with the policy.
In truth, Sunak appears more concerned with keeping the majority of his electoral base together than delivering “the will of the people”.
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Immigration is a major concern for some voters, but all categories and classes say the economy and cost of living matter more to them.
Here again, Conservative MPs are divided and feuding among themselves, with constant demands that the prime minister and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt go further with tax cuts than they feel the country can afford.
The Budget on 6 March will be a test of whether they resist or succumb to this pressure.
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Many Tory MPs think their “narrow path” to election victory is all but disappearing. As such winning has ceased to be a priority. They are more interested in what happens to their party and their own careers after a defeat.
At least 54 of them have given up and are retiring. Those shouting loudest about the threat from Reform want to drive party policy in Farage’s direction.
Farage appears to be more popular than Sunak with the ageing party membership who will choose the next Conservative leader but he is not eligible to stand.
Braverman, Jenrick, Badenoch and others are already positioning themselves for the vacancy which they think defeat will create.
Those on the other, One Nation, side of the party, and who managed to survive the Johnson era purges, are loyal but out of sympathy with the direction in which it is moving. They do not expect to win the next election.
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MP makes Rwanda gaffe during Commons debate
Some feel that the Conservatives will need to elect another extremist as leader, and lose again, before they can “get their party back ” – as Labour’s Neil Kinnock once put it.
Interestingly, the new roster of Conservative MPs is likely to be more moderate, given the preponderance of centrist new candidates now being selected, coupled with the likely defeat of many “red wall” Tories.
Sunak is hoping to stay in power at least until the autumn. Before then the Conservatives face parliamentary by-elections in Wellingborough and Kingswood and probably Blackpool North.
All will be tough to hold on to the party’s recent electoral form. Then there are the local elections in London and elsewhere. Such tests are as likely to divide as unite his party behind him.
Something may turn up. Labour needs a record swing to form a majority government and nobody, least of all Keir Starmer and his team, expect they will do as well on election day as in current opinion polls.
Still, as things stand, Issac Levido’s warning and the Conservatives’ dismissive reaction to it, may well be written into a chronicle of a political death foretold.
UK
Man and boy arrested on suspicion of arson after restaurant fire leaves two in critical condition
A 54-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy have been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a restaurant fire in east London on Friday.
Three people were taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition after the fire at the Indian Aroma in Ilford.
Two remained in a critical condition on Sunday morning, according to the Metropolitan Police.
The restaurant suffered extensive damage in the blaze.
Two further victims are thought to have left the scene before officers arrived, Scotland Yard said.
Woodford Avenue from above. Pic: UK News and Pictures
Police are still trying to identify them.
CCTV footage seen by the PA news agency appears to show a group of people wearing face coverings walk into the restaurant and pour liquid on the floor.
Seconds later, the inside of the restaurant is engulfed in flames.
“While we have made two arrests, our investigation continues at pace so we can piece together what happened on Friday evening,” said the Met Police’s DCI Mark Rogers.
“I know the community [is] concerned and shocked by this incident.
The moment the fire broke out.
“I would urge anyone with any information or concerns to come forward and speak to police.”
Hospital porter Edward Thawe went to help after hearing screams from his nearby home.
He described the scene as “horrible” and “more than scary and the sort of thing that you don’t want to look at twice.”
He said: “I heard screaming and people saying they had called the police.”
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The 43-year-old said he saw a woman and a severely burned man who may have been customers.
Another witness, who did not want to be named, said he saw three “severely burned” people being doused by the emergency services and given oxygen.
“I can only imagine the pain they were going through,” he said.
On Saturday, the London Ambulance Service told Sky News: “We sent resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, an advanced paramedic, an incident response officer and paramedics from our hazardous area response team.
“We treated five people for burns and smoke inhalation. We took two patients to a major trauma centre and three others to local hospitals.”
The police investigation is continuing.
UK
Fast-track asylum appeals process to be introduced – as average time for decisions is more than one year
A new fast-track asylum appeals process will be introduced to speed up the process of deporting people without a right to remain in the UK, the home secretary has said.
As it currently takes, on average, more than a year to reach a decision on asylum appeals, the government plans to set up a new independent panel focused on asylum appeals to help reduce the backlog.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said “completely unacceptable” delays in the appeals process left failed asylum seekers in the system for years.
There are about 51,000 asylum appeals waiting to be heard.
The new independent body will use professionally-trained adjudicators, rather than relying on judges.
Ministers are introducing a new 24-week deadline for the first-tier tribunal to determine asylum appeals by those receiving accommodation support and appeals by foreign offenders.
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Police clash with protesters in Bristol
But they believe the current tribunal system, which covers a wide range of different cases, is still failing to ensure failed asylum seekers can be returned as swiftly as possible, nor can it accommodate a fast-track system for safe countries.
It comes amid protests about the use of hotel accommodation for migrants.
The home secretary said the overhaul would result in a system which is “swift, fair and independent, with high standards in place”.
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She said: “We inherited an asylum system in complete chaos with a soaring backlog of asylum cases and a broken appeals system with thousands of people in the system for years on end.
“That is why we are taking practical steps to fix the foundations and restore control and order to the system.
“We are determined to substantially reduce the number of people in the asylum system as part of our plan to end asylum hotels.
“Already since the election, we have reduced the backlog of people waiting for initial decisions by 24% and increased failed asylum returns by 30%.
“But we cannot carry on with these completely unacceptable delays in appeals as a result of the system we have inherited which mean that failed asylum seekers stay in the system for years on end at huge cost to the taxpayer.”
Official figures released earlier this month showed a total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
‘Waving immigrants through even faster will not fix the problem’
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “I think this goes nowhere near far enough.
“The underlying rights, which allows most illegal immigrants to stay here, are not changing. Simply waving illegal immigrants through even faster to full housing and welfare rights will not fix the problem.”
Chris Philp
He added: “Immigration judges will still apply ever expanding common-sense defying definitions of ECHR rights to allow foreign criminals and illegal immigrants to stay here.”
But the Liberal Democrats have been more positive in their response, with shadow attorney general, Ben Maguire, saying: “A faster application process would mean that those with no right to be here are sent back swiftly and those who do have a valid claim can get a job, integrate and contribute to the community.”
Asked for his thoughts on the policy, immigration lawyer Harjap Singh Bhangal told Sky News that it “definitely sounds like some sort of solution”.
He pointed that the backlog of asylum seekers waiting for a decision is “huge”, around 51,000 people – and that during this time, they are not allowed to work.
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A new fast-track asylum appeals process will be introduced to speed up the process of deporting people without a right to remain in the UK.
He said: “The equivalent would be saying that imagine if A-level students this year sat the exams and were told ‘well, hold on, you’re not going to get your results for two years’ time. But in the meantime, you can’t go to university.’
“You’d have mayhem, and it’d be pandemonium in the street. You’d have broken people idle with nothing to do. Essentially, this is what’s happening to asylum seekers.”
He added that one of the reasons it takes so long for cases to be heard is because asylum seekers have to represent themselves in court, which can mean upwards of half a day is spent translating and explaining everything to them.
Mr Bhangal also said the immigration system is “broken”, because “they take ages to make a decision which could be made in one week”.
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