Whole Tory cabinet knew Rwanda Bill wouldn’t work, Robert Jenrick says

Published

10 months ago

October 30, 2024

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‘Everyone in cabinet’ knew the Rwanda deportation bill would not work, according to Conservative leadership hopeful Robert Jenrick.

Speaking to the Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge, the former Home Office minister implied that every senior government minister in the last administration didn’t think the plans to send asylum seekers to Kigali would work.

Mr Jenrick resigned from Rishi Sunak’s government at the end of 2023, saying he did not believe the plans went far enough.

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Speaking to Sky News, Mr Jenrick explained why he left government: “There was a choice for me at the time: take a bill through parliament which I knew didn’t work and which, frankly, everyone in cabinet knew didn’t work; or leave the government and make the case in parliament, where I was honest with myself and with the public.”

Asked to confirm if he thought everyone in the cabinet – which includes the prime minister, home secretary and all senior ministers – thought the Rwanda Bill would not work, he said: “I think everybody involved in that decision knew perfectly well that that policy was not going to succeed, but they turned a blind eye to it.

“I wasn’t willing to be a minister like that.”

Mr Jenrick would not give specific names of who in cabinet – aside from himself – did not think the plans would work.

He has said he wants a legally enforced cap on migration, and also to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Mickey Mouse mural

Sophy Ridge also asked Mr Jenrick about one of the most controversial moments of his time in the Home Office – when he ordered a mural of Mickey Mouse at a reception centre for young asylum seekers be painted over.

During the leadership race he has said he would not do the same thing again – but he has so far refused to apologise.

“I would never want to do anything that was anything other than compassionate towards children,” he said.

“When I was a minister responsible for immigration, I did a lot to try and ensure that we were looking after unaccompanied children properly.

“When I came into office, we were housing them in rudimentary hotels in seaside towns. [We] closed them down and got those young people into foster care and more appropriate accommodation.”

Mr Jenrick says he was concerned about “a large number of adults” entering the UK and posing as children – “placing actual children” in “real danger”.

Jobs for the old rivals

Another topic touched on in the in interview was whether Mr Jenrick would give other MPs who wanted to be leader a job in his shadow cabinet, should he win.

“I want to get the best players on to the pitch,” Mr Jenrick said.

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He added that the other member of the final two, Kemi Badenoch, “should get a senior position in which she can play a full part in restoring and renewing the Conservative Party”.

And James Cleverly, who came third, would be welcome to serve as Mr Jenrick’s deputy if he wishes, as he’s “a unifying presence”.

Politics

Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage ‘kneejerk’ migrant deportation plan won’t solve problem

Published

10 hours ago

August 30, 2025

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Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell tells Nigel Farage 'kneejerk' migrant deportation plan won't solve problem

The Archbishop of York has told Sky News the UK should resist Reform’s “kneejerk” plan for the mass deportation of migrants, telling Nigel Farage he is not offering any “long-term solution”.

Stephen Cottrell said in an interview with Trevor Phillips he has “every sympathy” with people who are concerned about asylum seekers coming to the country illegally.

But he criticised the plan announced by Reform on Tuesday to deport 600,000 people, which would be enabled by striking deals with the Taliban and Iran, saying it will not “solve the problem”.

Mr Cottrell is currently acting head of the Church of England while a new Archbishop of Canterbury is chosen.

Phillips asked him: “What’s your response to the people who are saying the policy should be ‘you land here, unlawfully, you get locked up and you get deported straight away. No ifs, no buts’?”

Mr Cottrell said he would tell them “you haven’t solved the problem”, adding: “You’ve just put it somewhere else and you’ve done nothing to address the issue of what brings people to this country.

“And so if you think that’s the answer, you will discover in due course that all you have done is made the problem worse.

“Don’t misunderstand me, I have every sympathy with those who find this difficult, every sympathy – as I do with those living in poverty.

“But… we should actively resist the kind of isolationist, short term kneejerk ‘send them home’.”

Asked if that was his message to the Reform leader, he said: “Well, it is. I mean, Mr Farage is saying the things he’s saying, but he is not offering any long-term solution to the big issues which are convulsing our world, which lead to this. And, I see no other way.”

You can watch the full interview on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News from 8.30am

Mr Farage, the MP for Clacton, was asked at a news conference this week what he would say if Christian leaders opposed his plan.

“Whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, I think over the last decades, quite a few of them have been rather out of touch, perhaps with their own flock,” he said.

“We believe that what we’re offering is right and proper, and we believe for a political party that was founded around the slogan of family, community, country that we are doing right by all of those things, with these plans we put forward today.”

Sky News has approached Mr Farage for comment.

Farage won’t be greeting this as good news of the gospel – nor will govt ministers

When Tony Blair’s spin doctor Alastair Campbell told journalists that “We don’t do God”, many took it as a statement of ideology.

In fact it was the caution of a canny operator who knows that the most dangerous opponent in politics is a religious leader licensed to challenge your very morality.

Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, currently the effective head of the worldwide Anglican communion, could not have been clearer in his denunciation of what he calls the Reform party’s “isolationist, short term, kneejerk ‘send them home'” approach to asylum and immigration.

I sense that having ruled himself out of the race for next Archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend Cottrell feels free to preach a liberal doctrine.

Unusually, in our interview he pinpoints a political leader as, in effect, failing to demonstrate Christian charity.

Nigel Farage, who describes himself as a practising Christian, won’t be greeting this as the good news of the gospel.

But government ministers will also be feeling nervous.

Battered for allowing record numbers of cross- Channel migrants, and facing legal battles on asylum hotels that may go all the way to the Supreme Court, Labour has tried to head off the Reform challenge with tougher language on border control.

The last thing the prime minister needs right now is to make an enemy of the Almighty – or at least of his representatives on Earth.

Politics

Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

Published

12 hours ago

August 30, 2025

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Supreme Court opened crypto wallets to surveillance; privacy must go onchain

Crypto transactions are vulnerable to warrant-free surveillance, making privacy-enhancing tools essential for blockchain’s future.

Politics

Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

Published

15 hours ago

August 30, 2025

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Indian court sentences 14 to life in Bitcoin extortion case

A former BJP legislator and 11 police officials have been convicted for the 2018 abduction of a Surat businessman in a plot to seize over 750 Bitcoin.