James Heale

The next 48 hours could be among the most important of Rishi Sunak’s premiership. His flagship Rwanda Safety Bill will get its second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday, with MPs expected to vote on it in the evening. But before that there will be a day of tense meetings in rooms across the parliamentary estate as various Tory tribes gather to discuss the Bill and whether they can support it. Much of the attention is focused currently on the right of the party. A quintet of factions will meet at noon on Monday under the auspices of the European Research Group to hear the conclusions of its ‘Star Chamber’ of lawyers.

After the resignation of Robert Jenrick last night, Rishi Sunak sought to get on the front foot this morning with a press conference in No. 10. The Prime Minister cut a somewhat frustrated figure as he defended his new Rwanda legislation, insisting that it ‘blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights.’ ‘The only extremely narrow exception will be if you can prove with credible and compelling evidence that you specifically have a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm’ Sunak told reporters. If the government face challenges from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, Sunak repeated that he would not allow a foreign court to block flights.

Three weeks after the Prime Minister's ‘emergency legislation’ to make the Rwandan scheme viable, tonight it is finally here. The seven-page Bill was published shortly before Rishi Sunak's address to the 1922 Committee and James Cleverly's statement to the House of Commons. The Bill's solution to the Supreme Court verdict last month is to disapply elements of the Human Rights Act which would have exposed the government to legal challenges, while also declaring in law that Rwanda is a 'safe country.' It will let ministers override European Court of Human Rights edicts to block planes from taking off – like the so-called 'pyjama injunctions' of June 2022.

'Migration to this country is far too high and it needs to come down', began James Cleverly at the despatch box this afternoon. It has been a difficult three weeks since his appointment as Home Secretary, with the Supreme Court's rejection of the Rwanda scheme and then the publication of record migration numbers. It was the latter subject of legal migration that dominated this afternoon's debate in the Commons, ahead of Cleverly's expected visit to Kigali in the coming days. The Home Secretary's tone was hawkish on the subject, with repeated reference to migration being too high. That reflects a concern in his party that Rishi Sunak's government is too blasé about the 1.2 million people who arrived in the country between June 2022 and June 2023.