Rishi Sunak has faced down rebels within his own party to win a showdown Commons vote as he fights to save his flagship Rwanda policy. MPs passed the embattled prime minister’s controversial deportation bill by 320 votes to 276, after most Conservative rebels “wimped out” of a threatened revolt.
Losing the vote could have imperilled Mr Sunak’s leadership and even sparked a general election, as Labour mocked the Tories for what it called their “farcical” divisions over asylum policy. But in the end just 11 Tory MPs voted against the government, including former home secretary Suella Braverman and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick.
The PM still faces a lengthy battle over the legislation in the House of Lords and the courts, however, as the government refused to say when flights to the African country might finally take off.
It came as:
• Rwanda suggested it could “refund” some of the £240m cost if no asylum seekers are ever sent there
• Rebels undermined the PM by publishing their own last-minute alternative to his Rwanda bill
• Robert Jenrick claimed Mr Sunak didn’t have “the guts” to throw a policy “grenade”
• Sir Keir Starmer compared the Tories to “hundreds of bald men scrapping over a broken comb”
However, Mr Sunak did suffer a rebellion on an ultimately unsuccessful amendment to the bill, as 59 Tory MPs backed a proposal designed to allow UK ministers to ignore emergency injunctions by European judges.
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