PM set to face backlash in New Year over Rwanda plan
Right-wing tory MP's say the plans don't go far enough
Rishi Sunak faces a new year showdown over his Rwanda deportation policy after right-wing Conservative MPs said they could vote emergency legislation down if it is not tightened.
The Prime Minister on Tuesday won a crunch vote on the Safety of Rwanda Bill after spending the day in talks with potential rebels to avoid a defeat on his flagship "stop the boats" pledge.
The efforts to bring people on side worked, with MPs approving the Bill at second reading by 313 votes to 269, giving the UK Government a winning majority of 44.
But right-wing Tory factions said they reserved the right to vote against the draft law when it returns to the Commons next year if its contents are not strengthened to ensure asylum seekers can be deported to Rwanda before the next election.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman and former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who resigned last week following publication of the Bill, were among the high profile Tories to abstain on Tuesday, despite being issued a three-line whip to vote in support of the Government.
Dozens abstained but no Tory MP voted against the Bill, with former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith and former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg among those to back it.
A piece of government legislation has not failed to pass a second reading, the first Commons hurdle, since 1986.
Mr Sunak said the victory in the Commons for the Bill would pave the way for him to deliver his pledge of stopping boats of migrants from crossing the Channel.
After the result, the Prime Minister tweeted:
"The British people should decide who gets to come to this country - not criminal gangs or foreign courts.
"That's what this Bill delivers.
"We will now work to make it law so that we can get flights going to Rwanda and stop the boats."
The emergency legislation, introduced after the Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda proposal is unlawful as written, is designed to prevent migrants who arrive via unauthorised routes from legally challenging being deported to Rwanda.
The Bill seeks to revive the stalled deportation plan by attempting to prohibit legal challenges based on the argument that Rwanda is unsafe.
It allows ministers to disapply the Human Rights Act but does not go as far as overriding the European Convention on Human Rights, something which Tory hardliners have urged is needed for the policy to be enacted.