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Round one to Rishi Sunak. His emergency Rwanda bill that will probably not “stop the boats” saw off its first parliamentary ambush. A rightwing revolt fizzled out.
The preening rebels had reprised the political protection racket they ran so well during the Brexit debates, threatening to vote down the entire bill if it was not strengthened to their taste. There is at least one other wrecking opportunity in the new year but this felt like the moment of maximum danger.
And yet this abortive revolt was never really about the plan to send clandestine cross-Channel migrants to Rwanda. This is a battle for control of the post-election Conservative party. It is also about whether the Tories follow other western right-of-centre groupings in becoming defined primarily as an anti-immigration party.
Few deny that the tens of thousands of illicit asylum-seekers are a genuine issue. But it is also one the Tories chose to play up for electoral reasons — and now they cannot meet their rhetoric. Sunak has cut numbers by about a third via a deal to return Albanian migrants, though that specific trick may be unrepeatable. Hence Rwanda.
But for all the fulminations, the Rwanda plan is political performance art. The new home secretary, James Cleverly, admits it is “not the be-all and end-all”. Cabinet ministers privately acknowledge that there will be “no planes” taking off before the election. The policy, as it stands, will secure hundreds rather than thousands of removals.
Yet the irreconcilable right is still gaining ground despite Tuesday night’s feeble revolt. Sunak’s hardline bill already takes the Tories up to the very edges of observing the rule of law. It attempts to reverse a Supreme Court ruling against the policy simply by declaring that Rwanda is safe (I wonder if there is a similar legislative solution for that dark passageway that always unnerves me on my walk home?) and restricts deportees’ right to legal challenges. The rebels are right that it fails to wrest all authority on immigration issues from the European Court of Human Rights but this is hardly a milksop measure. Last week also saw new curbs on legal migration.
This revolt was indeed about taking back control; but it was the control the Brexit ultras lost when Sunak became leader and insisted on sprinkling some realism into the government.
The rebels were never serious about Rwanda itself. They knew their demands would increase the likelihood of the bill’s defeat in the House of Lords. But this was always about the bigger game. This perhaps explains why moderate Tories held their nose and backed Sunak despite huge reservations.
For Sunak’s rebels don’t so much want the win as the issue. A failure to control both legal and clandestine immigration is their battering ram for the takeover of the party. Their purism will also help build their narrative of any defeat — that Sunak is a tax-raising globalist afraid to stand up to the liberal elite by pulling the UK out of the ECHR. Rebellion is a win-win. Either they force Sunak on to their territory or they get to blame his “moderation” for defeat.
This story will help browbeat future leadership contenders into committing to withdrawal from the ECHR — the logical next step for Leave ideologues for whom Brexit will never be done. It will fuel those who see immigration as the defining issue of the next decade and who want to see the Tories shrug off the bindings of international law and emulate the populist nativism seen in Italy, among US Republicans and even increasingly autocratic Hungary. Many also dream of a political union with Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party both frightens and attracts them.
This is also a battle over whether the Tories wish to be a serious party of power or one of simple solutions that do not deliver but pack an emotional appeal. Sunak, for all his flaws, has shown in his premiership that he is not prepared to see his party entirely divorced from the hard realities and trade-offs of government. That abandoning the ECHR would undermine the Good Friday Agreement, EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and other extradition and security agreements is brushed aside by those already acting with the freedom of being in opposition.
Further evidence that post-election positioning is dominating all thinking comes from Sunak’s one-time ally, Robert Jenrick, who resigned last week as immigration minister over what he saw as the bill’s failings. Resignations on principle are normally a mixture of sincerity and calculation. Would Jenrick really have walked if he believed Sunak would win the next election and that he would finally receive what he considers to be his overdue promotion?
Sunak has shown both this week and in the past that he has the courage to defy his hardliners, though there were vague promises on Tuesday to consider amendments. But as the election nears without signs of revival, the revolts are going to increase. He must not just defy his wreckers but find ways to ensure they take their rightful share of blame — not least for the Liz Truss interlude — after the election.
This rebellion was small. But the numbers deceive. Intransigent minorities have set the agenda and dragged the party their way for decades. Sunak won this tussle. But the Rwanda revolt was a sideshow, a skirmish in a larger war that has left mainstream Tories permanently playing defence.
robert.shrimsley@ft.com