Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan is a massive gamble – and might have to call a snap election if rebels defy him
RISHI SUNAK will call a snap summer election if rebel peers torpedo his plan to declare Rwanda a safe haven.
The PM is braced for an “almighty row” with lawyers, lefties and Tory peers next week over a new law classifying the Central African republic as secure.
“We promised the British people we would get this done,” says a source.
“The new law defining Rwanda as a safe haven will be tightly drawn.
“It will be passed by our democratically elected Parliament. No challenge will be allowed under the Human Rights Act — either to the Supreme Court or any other court in Britain.”
The law will be drafted within days and rammed through the Commons where the Tories have a majority.
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It will then move to the House of Lords, which is stuffed with hand-wringing wets of all parties who see anti-immigration moves as “racist”.
“We are facing a colossal battle,” says the source. “But any bill that passes easily through the Lords is not worth having. The crunch will come by mid-March.”
The PM has been stung by criticism from sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman amid talk of yet another Tory leadership coup.
He also faces a threat from Nigel Farage, whose anti-immigration Reform Party is already mopping up votes.
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Polls show voters are fed up with a Tory regime which let in 2.25 million legal migrants in just two years.
This is a huge gamble for Rishi.
Government whips are on standby to head off threatened ministerial resignations.
Letters of protest about his leadership have been handed in to party managers.
Rishi believes lawmakers can draft new legislation to stymie human rights protesters, Labour and the Lib Dems and the Home Office Blob.
Yet every attempt so far has been thwarted, not least by a Supreme Court ruling that Rwanda is unsafe.
The bombshell verdict came even as the United Nations, Germany, Austria and other EU states were making their own plans to use Rwanda.
Downing Street was not helped by a remark from new Home Secretary James Cleverly that “Rwanda is not the be-all and end-all” of small boats policy.
Bombshell verdict
Yet mass immigration, aggravated by demonstrations week after week over Gaza, remains at the top of voters’ worries
No other major party has a policy to deal with it.
Border Force has completely lost the plot, allowing 17,316 illegals to disappear without trace.
“We have no idea where they are,” Home Office mandarin Simon Ridley told MPs last week.
Immigration staff could not care less.
They assume Labour will win the next election and open the floodgates.
“They accept the view that immigration cannot and should not be controlled,” wrote an anonymous whistle-blower in the Daily Telegraph.
“Many see their role as being part of the resistance to what they see as a radical right-wing Government determined to punish innocent migrants.
“This culture of defiance is so widespread that any suggestion of border controls is sneered at or ignored.
“If I were to suggest reducing migration or ask how we could deport small boat arrivals or foreign criminals, my colleagues might ring the mental health services to check on my sanity.”
Screams of fury
We may be a tolerant, welcoming country but a majority of voters have had enough.
With obstacles like this in his path, it is hard to see Rishi bulldozing his way through to a vote-winning immigration policy.
With the Tories trailing by a massive 20 percentage points in the polls, at least he would win the credit for going down fighting.
A heroic last stand, dying in a ditch amid screams of fury from defiant Remainers might do the trick.
It’s a glorious image. I just don’t think Rishi is up for that kind of fight.
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But I would love to see him do it.
This article, now amended, originally said that the UK had accepted "1.3 million legal migrants in just two years". In fact, that figure represents overall net migration in the period, during which 2.25 million legal migrants arrived in the UK.
U-turns
LABOUR’S Keir Starmer is an ocean-going, copper-bottomed hypocrite.
He has U-turned on every policy he once embraced, especially his years-long support for anti-Semitic Trot Jeremy Corbyn.
In the process he has conned enough daft voters to offer him the keys to Number Ten next year.
But his latest stunt, hailing Tory pin-up Margaret Thatcher for her “driving sense of purpose” and dragging Britain out of its militant left-wing “stupor”, takes the biscuit.
That has gone down like a cup of cold sick with both Labour and Tories.
Just the reaction he might have had before he got a sniff of election victory.