Rishi Sunak leaves no doubt he’s staking premiership on Rwanda flights plan

Published

2 years ago

April 22, 2024

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The prime minister wouldn’t put a number on how many asylum seekers he intended to send to Rwanda to have their claims processed.

But Rishi Sunak‘s news conference on Monday left no doubt this is the policy on which he is staking his premiership.

He didn’t talk today about the odd flight getting off the ground. Instead, he talked about a regular rhythm of flights beginning in July, deporting perhaps thousands of migrants.

Politics live: Lords vote for amendment to government’s Rwanda bill again

He refused to give us a number of how many people he wanted to send to Rwanda but doubled down on his promises.

When I asked him whether passing his Safety of Rwanda bill was a moment of success, he immediately replied that “success is when the boats have been stopped, that is what the country expects”.

It seems a near-impossible task.

Boat crossings this year have risen 25% against 2023, with 6,265 people, and there is obvious scepticism as to whether flights to Rwanda would really deter asylum seekers from making the crossing.

There is also plenty of scepticism that the government won’t be hamstrung by legal challenges again.

But Mr Sunak said he was “confident” the plan complied with all international obligations, hinting he would be prepared to ignore the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

“If it ever comes to a choice between our national security – securing our borders – and membership of a foreign court, I’m of course always going to prioritise our national security,” the prime minister said.

There are still plenty of legal and political risks, but Mr Sunak was crystal clear: the flights will continue as long as the boats keep coming and he will deliver on this pledge to make the Rwanda scheme fully operational.

“The PM is on the front foot on this,” said one senior government figure. “He’s all over it and determined to deliver the policy”.

To that end, commercial flights have been organised, an airfield put on standby and 500 officials trained to escort migrants to Rwanda.

Around 2,200 detention spaces have been reserved for those the government plans to remove and 25 courtrooms reserved to deal with legal challenges to get the flights away in 10 to 12 weeks.

‘Doomed to fail’

But after all the false starts, will it really happen?

There are those on his own benches – Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick and a couple of dozen of others – who voted against this bill and simply think it won’t work.

Lord Carlisle, the lawyer and crossbench peer, told me the prime minister “is doomed to fail”.

“The boats have not been stopped,” he said. “The number of people arriving on boats has increased, despite blanket publicity for this policy the government is trying to push through.

“The way you stop the boats is dealing with the criminal gangs and by the government increasing the administrators that will look at which asylum seekers and refugees are dealt with. It’s not rocket science.

“What they are doing at the moment is near to the realms of fantasy.”

But for the prime minister, still so far behind in the polls, what has he got to lose?

He’s staked his reputation on this policy and has no other option to try to make it a success. Tackling small boats will be the pledge he’s judged on when the general election comes.

Talk of flights through the summer into autumn, as well as a mooted fiscal event later in the year, point to an election in the autumn (with two senior figures telling me in recent days December is now being talked up too).

But none of this comes in time for the more imminent ballot box test of next week’s local elections, which could not only put him back on his heels, but into freefall once more.

He clearly has the plan, whether he will have the political space to implement it is another matter

Politics

Ray Dalio warns Fed is stimulating the economy into a bubble

Published

36 mins ago

November 6, 2025

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Ray Dalio warns Fed is stimulating the economy into a bubble

Current fiscal and monetary policies will cause hard asset prices to rise, but both are signs of late-stage economic decay, Dalio said.

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Circle weighs in on GENIUS Act implementation: ‘Simple, strong rules’

Published

3 hours ago

November 6, 2025

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Circle weighs in on GENIUS Act implementation: ‘Simple, strong rules’

The US Treasury Department accepted comments related to the implementation of the stablecoin bill until Tuesday as part of the law’s planned rollout.

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Labour’s dilemma: The two-child benefit cap

Published

4 hours ago

November 6, 2025

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Labour's dilemma: The two-child benefit cap

The two-child benefit cap: To scrap or not to scrap?

There is an ongoing row in the Labour Party about welfare spending and how to cut it while maintaining protections for the most vulnerable.

Those on the left are suspicious of anything that may look or smell like balancing the books on the backs of the poorest in society.

Those on the other side point to an unsustainable welfare bill that has been allowed to balloon under the Conservatives and looks set to continue under Labour.

Rachel Reeves will have to weigh up finding between £3bn and £4bn to scrap the cap, or face the wrath of Labour MPs on small majorities who believe they were elected to deliver on ‘Labour values’ like lifting this very cap.

But perhaps there is a compromise the chancellor could opt for, which may placate the left of her party while needing less cash.

For example, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, lifting the cap from two to three children would cost £2.6bn; or a tapered system, where parents got the full amount for the first two kids and then half the amount for any subsequent children, would cost around £1.8bn.

But Labour big beast David Blunkett – the only senior Labour figure against lifting the cap – wants to see a more nuanced approach.

Blunkett believes the cap ought to remain, but he wants there to be exemptions for disabled children and parents who have been widowed, and he would prefer the government to focus on anti-child poverty measures and improving pathways to work for parents, all paid for by a tax on gambling – something former prime minister Gordon Brown has been agitating for.

At a time when the government perpetually reminds us of how little money it has and how much strain public finances are under due to austerity, finding several billion to scrap a policy that is broadly popular with the public may seem like an unwise move.

According to the latest polling from YouGov, 59% of the public are in favour of keeping the cap in place, and only 26% thought it should be abolished.

But politically, the chancellor is aware of the strength of feeling within her party about reducing child poverty as soon as possible, and her colleague, the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, has stressed the party has a “moral mission” to tackle child poverty.

Irrespective of what Reeves chooses, her political woes do not end there.

Taxes are set to go up in the budget later this month, and Reeves has refused to rule out breaking her manifesto promise of not raising taxes on working people.

This combined with persistently disappointing voter intention polling for Labour, could spell deep dissatisfaction among the public.

A decision to lift the two-child benefit cap may boost morale among Labour MPs, but if it’s not enough to prevent the loss of hundreds of political foot soldiers in May’s local elections, Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer will need to find more red meat to throw to their party before too long.