Rwanda ruling could reopen splits in the Tory party – and the stakes are now even higher for PM | Beth Rigby

Published

1 year ago

November 15, 2023

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Monday brought us the marmalade dropper reshuffle with the return of former prime minister David Cameron.

But when it comes to the fate of Rishi Sunak’s government with voters, Wednesday could well prove a much more consequential moment.

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Because today the Supreme Court will rule on whether the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful. Mr Sunak hung his premiership on stopping small boats and made deportation to Rwanda the centrepiece of this immigration plan.

And one person who knows the enormity of this moment is former home secretary Suella Braverman, who for the past year has been trying to work out the policy.

Her incendiary post-sacking letter to Mr Sunak on Tuesday was a pre-emptive strike against the prime minister.

For all the astonishing turns of phrase in the letter, the aim of it was simple: What she was trying to do was pin any failure of the Rwandan policy on the PM, accusing him of failing to come up with a Plan B in the event the court rules against them.

“In the event of defeat, there’s no hope of flights this side of an election,” she said. “You have no appetite for doing what is necessary, and therefore no real intention of fulfilling your pledge to the British people.”

So even before the verdict is in the political challenge for the prime minister tonight is even more intense, and while the debate will rage about whether the Rwanda deal can really fix the small boats issues anyway, what has been put into play is the reputation of a prime minister on a flagship policy that he championed.

He needs to show lapsed or wavering 2019 Conservative voters that he is fighting tooth and nail for them on immigration, and the visual of asylum seekers being boarded on to flights and sent out of the country to Kigali is his antidote to the image of those people arriving on the south coast in small boats.

Perhaps pessimistic that the ruling will not go in the government’s favour today (the verdict is back from the court far sooner than originally suggested), Home Office minister Robert Jenrick took a pre-emptive strike on Tuesday, telling the Daily Telegraph the policy will go ahead “no ifs, not buts”, arguing that the plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda was at the heart of the government’s promise to “stop the boats in their entirety”.

One Whitehall figure told me that Mr Jenrick, who distanced himself from Suella Braverman on style, was aligned with her on the substance of the Rwanda policy and is prepared – as she was – to do whatever it takes to make Rwanda work.

“If the court goes against the government…, the question is: what now? How firm is the government willing to be? Will the PM be willing to do whatever it takes? That is the big unknown.”

The new Home Secretary James Cleverly has publicly made it clear he doesn’t want to pull out of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), in contrast to his predecessor Ms Braverman.

Mr Jenrick is also thought to be supportive of leaving or derogating from the ECHR in order to get flights off the ground. The scheme was put on hold in June last year after the ECHR granted a last minute injunction, blocking the first planned flight.

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However, with the ECHR unpinning the Good Friday Agreement and devolution, this is something the prime minister has been perhaps more reluctant to pursue, instead pushing world leaders at a summit with the president of the ECHR earlier this year to win backing for UK attempts to overcome rules that blocked flights.

Government figures argued on Tuesday that if they lose the court judgment, withdrawing from the ECHR at this stage is not on the cards.

But what is on the cards is a re-opening of Tory battle lines. A ruling against the government was always going to open up these divides within the Conservative Party on quitting the ECHR, and Ms Braverman is not just making it clear she wants to lead the charge from the backbenchers but is also accusing the prime minister of letting Conservative voters down.

Already a pivotal moment for him, now the stakes are even higher.

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Rachel Reeves lands in China amid pressure to cancel trip over market turmoil

Published

22 hours ago

January 11, 2025

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Rachel Reeves lands in China amid pressure to cancel trip over market turmoil

Making Britain better off will be “at the forefront of the chancellor’s mind” during her visit to China, the Treasury has said amid controversy over the trip.

Rachel Reeves flew out on Friday after ignoring calls from opposition parties to cancel the long-planned venture because of market turmoil at home.

The past week has seen a drop in the pound and an increase in government borrowing costs, which has fuelled speculation of more spending cuts or tax rises.

The Tories have accused the chancellor of having “fled to China” rather than explain how she will fix the UK’s flatlining economy, while the Liberal Democrats say she should stay in Britain and announce a “plan B” to address market volatility.

However, Ms Reeves has rejected calls to cancel the visit, writing in The Times on Friday night that choosing not to engage with China is “no choice at all”.

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The chancellor will be accompanied by Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and other senior executives.

She will meet with her counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, in Beijing on Saturday to discuss financial services, trade and investment.

She will also “raise difficult issues”, including Chinese firms supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns over constraints on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, the Treasury said.

But it did not mention whether Ms Reeves would raise the treatment of the Uyghur community, which Downing Street said Foreign Secretary David Lammy would do during his visit last year.

On Friday, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy defended the trip, telling Sky News that the climbing cost of government borrowing was a “global trend” that had affected many countries, “most notably the United States”.

“We are still on track to be the fastest growing economy, according to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] in Europe,” she told Anna Jones on Sky News Breakfast.

“China is the second-largest economy, and what China does has the biggest impact on people from Stockton to Sunderland, right across the UK, and it’s absolutely essential that we have a relationship with them.”

Read more – Ed Conway analysis: The chancellor’s gamble with China

However, former prime minister Boris Johnson said Ms Reeves had “been rumbled” and said she should “make her way to HR and collect her P45 – or stay in China”.

While in the country’s capital, Ms Reeves will also visit British bike brand Brompton’s flagship store, which relies heavily on exports to China, before heading to Shanghai for talks with representatives across British and Chinese businesses.

It is the first UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) since 2019, building on the Labour government’s plan for a “pragmatic” policy with the world’s second-largest economy.

Sir Keir Starmer was the first British prime minister to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping in six years at the G20 summit in Brazil last autumn.

Relations between the UK and China have become strained over the last decade as the Conservative government spoke out against human rights abuses and concerns grew over national security risks.

Navigating this has proved tricky given China is the UK’s fourth largest single trading partner, with a trade relationship worth almost £113bn and exports to China supporting over 455,000 jobs in the UK in 2020, according to the government.

During the Tories’ 14 years in office, the approach varied dramatically from the “golden era” under David Cameron to hawkish aggression under Liz Truss, while Rishi Sunak vowed to be “robust” but resisted pressure from his own party to brand China a threat.

The Treasury said a stable relationship with China would support economic growth and that “making working people across Britain secure and better off is at the forefront of the chancellor’s mind”.

Ahead of her visit, Ms Reeves said: “By finding common ground on trade and investment, while being candid about our differences and upholding national security as the first duty of this government, we can build a long-term economic relationship with China that works in the national interest.”