Tory mood 'sulphurous' as Jenrick resigns over Rwanda plan

Robert Jenrick's shock resignation from the government has put Rishi Sunak's political future in 'peril'

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The government has been plunged into crisis by the resignation of the immigration minister hours after the publication of emergency legislation designed to revive the Rwanda deportation plan.

In his resignation letter, Robert Jenrick said the new legislation "does not go far enough", and that "stronger protections" were needed to end "the merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme".

At a news conference today called by Rishi Sunak, the prime minister insisted the new legislation "blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off".

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The emergency legislation, published yesterday, declares Rwanda to be a "safe" country and sets aside parts of the UK's Human Rights Act to prevent further legal challenges that could stop the plan from going ahead. This, the government hopes, will allow it to get around the ruling by the UK Supreme Court that the scheme is "unlawful".

Ousting courts could 'collapse entire scheme'

But the draft legislation does not go as far as Jenrick and other MPs on the right of the party – including former home secretary Suella Braverman – would like.

They want the bill to completely disregard the Human Rights Act as well as override the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Refugee Convention and other aspects of international law.

In a letter thanking Jenrick for his service in government, Sunak wrote that he feared his former ally's departure was "based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation".

"If we were to oust the courts entirely, we would collapse the entire scheme," said Sunak. "The Rwandan government have been clear that they would not accept the UK basing this scheme on legislation that could be considered in breach of our international law obligations," he wrote.

PM faces his 'biggest crisis' to date

Sunak is seeking a plan to deal with asylum seekers that is "legally, practically and politically navigable", said the BBC's political editor Chris Mason. But the "blunt truth" is that we now know his immigration minister "thinks he's destined to fail, again".

Sunak has acted as a "cork in the bottle of Conservative chaos" during his tenure as prime minister, but Jenrick's resignation "has the potential to send that cork whizzing over the No10 garden wall".

The question now is what happens to the prime minister "as he confronts the biggest crisis he has faced by a country mile", said Sky News' political editor Beth Rigby. With his party "deeply divided" over how to proceed with the emergency laws, Sunak is now facing a "vicious backlash" from the right of his party after the departure of two of its stalwarts, Braverman and Jenrick.

There are up to 100 MPs in right-wing groups, such as the ERG, the New Conservatives, and the Common Sense Group, who met earlier this week to discuss strategy and hoped to convince Sunak to pull out of the ECHR, a step they believe is "necessary to start the flights" to Rwanda.

When the emergency bill comes to a vote in the Commons early next week, not all of them will be willing to rebel – but up to 30 could vote against it, which would be "enough to sink Sunak's majority". The mood among Conservative MPs is "sulphurous", added Rigby.

Jenrick's resignation has created a "dangerous moment" for Sunak, agreed Eleni Courea in Politico's London Playbook newsletter. There are whispers that Sunak could soon face a leadership challenge and that "Jenrick and Braverman are among those positioning themselves for the future".

Conservative whips will now be on "high alert" for more resignations and letters of no confidence to then1922 committee chair Graham Brady.

The fact that Sunak called a press conference today at such short notice "is evidence that he and his team do grasp the political peril he is now in", although he "wasn't keen to acknowledge it at the podium", said the BBC's Henry Zeffman.

But the press conference did contain one "crucial admission". Sunak said that the vote on the emergency legislation would not be treated as a confidence vote, meaning that MPs could defy him without having the Conservative whip withdrawn. The fact that he is "not wielding the ultimate threat" suggests that "as it stands he is not that confident in his prospects of success".

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Sorcha Bradley is a writer at The Week and a regular on “The Week Unwrapped” podcast. She worked at The Week magazine for a year and a half before taking up her current role with the digital team, where she mostly covers UK current affairs and politics. Before joining The Week, Sorcha worked at slow-news start-up Tortoise Media. She has also written for Sky News, The Sunday Times, the London Evening Standard and Grazia magazine, among other publications. She has a master’s in newspaper journalism from City, University of London, where she specialised in political journalism.