The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, faces this third day a rebellion by the Conservative Party’s direct wing over his plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda, which will ultimately have to be voted on in Parliament. pm.
The proposed law aims to revitalize the Government’s plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda that was rejected by the Supreme Court last month due to security concerns.
The text affirms that Rwanda is a safe country and repeals much of the British Human Rights Act, but maintains the right of migrants to appeal individually if they can demonstrate that sending them to the African country would put them at risk of “serious and irreversible harm.” .
The proposed legislation does not take the UK out of the reach of the European Court of Human Rights, but clause five gives the Government the final say on the Strasbourg court’s decisions, and British courts cannot take these measures into account.
Many on the party’s right wing, including former Sunak ally Robert Jenrick and former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, remain unconvinced the bill is legally airtight and will not face challenges from deportees. .
“The proposed law has legal and operational flaws,” Jenrick proclaimed.
This faction believes that London should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and other international treaties to prevent any legal challenge from succeeding.
The more centrist and moderate wing was willing to approve it at this stage, on the condition that the text was not modified to violate international law.
Deputies’ options are reduced to supporting the bill in the general vote to modify it later, abstaining or voting against.
The vote represents the biggest test of the mandate of Sunak, who has made the fight against illegal immigration across the English Channel a priority.
Internal divisions threaten to implode the Conservative Party’s absolute majority, a year after Rishi Sunak took office and just a few months before the legislative elections, scheduled for 2024.
It only takes 29 conservative MPs voting against, or 57 abstaining, for the prime minister to lose, while the opposition parties will vote against.
The last time a government lost an overall vote was in 1986, when dozens of Conservative MPs rebelled and defeated a plan by Margaret Thatcher to end restrictions on Sunday shopping.
Sunak insisted last week that the number of successful complaints against deportation will be “massively reduced” because the threshold of serious and irreversible harm to allow an appeal is so low.
The conservative leader also warned that the entire plan could founder if it goes any further because the Rwandan government has threatened to step aside if there is any violation of international law.
In June 2022, the first flight that was supposed to take a first group of migrants to Kigali was canceled at the last minute following a precautionary measure from the European Court of Human Rights.
Around 29,700 people arrived in the United Kingdom this year in small boats crossing the English Channel, compared to 45,700 in 2022, a decrease that the Government attributes to the deterrent effect resulting from the tightening of its anti-immigration policy.
Source: TSF
