Sunak in desperate bid to avoid Rwanda bill defeat

Rishi Sunak is engaged in a desperate lobbying push to persuade Conservative MPs to back his Rwanda bill as he tries to avoid a defeat that could fatally undermine his authority.

- Kiran Stacey Rajeev Syal

The prime minister was to host an emergency breakfast in Downing Street with members of the rightwing New Conservatives group of backbenchers this morning in an effort to reassure wavering MPs.

Danny Kruger, the co-chair of the New Conservatives, was one of a number of senior Tories to warn yesterday that they did not support the bill in its current form.

A Tory source said MPs would use the meeting to tell the prime minister the bill needed "major surgery or replacement".

Downing Street held a series of meetings yesterday involving ministers and factions from the right and left of the party amid frenetic activity in Westminster reminiscent of the Brexit fights of 2017-19.

One person close to the talks described the government's whipping operation as "belated, 4 panicked and intense".

Sunak spent yesterday testifying at the Covid-19 inquiry, but Downing Street dispatched the home secretary, James Cleverly, and the illegal migration minister, Michael Tomlinson, to hear MPs' concerns.

Cleverly said after one meeting: "We're determined to get [the bill] through. It's important legislation." If ministers were to be defeated at second reading stage it would be the first time a government has lost such a vote since 1986, when dozens of Conservative MPs rebelled to defeat a plan by Margaret Thatcher to end Sunday trading restrictions.

Labour is planning to vote against the bill, meaning it would need 57 Tory MPs to abstain or 29 to vote against it entirely to defeat the government. Tory officials say they expect any rebellion to be much smaller, and were buoyed by an announcement last night that centrist MPs intended to vote in favour.