LONDON — Another week, another crisis for the U.K. Conservative Party. This one could yet prove existential for Rishi Sunak.
The prime minister’s beleaguered Tories are at war over how to deal with emergency late-night orders from Europe, blocking the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda.
In an effort to turn around his struggling premiership — and make inroads into the opposition Labour Party’s huge poll lead — Sunak has vowed to finally get his plan to deport thousands of undocumented migrants to Africa off the ground.
But the British PM’s latest attempt to stave off legal challenges to his policy faces a bitter struggle in the House of Commons, amid a rebellion from Tory right-wingers who think the emergency laws he is proposing to bypass judges’ concerns do not go far enough.
Much of the fight is centered around what critics have dubbed “pajama injunctions” — emergency blocking powers, often issued late at night, by the European Court of Human Rights. Such injunctions have already thwarted multiple deportation flights to the African nation, even as they sat on the runway ready to depart.
More than 50 Conservatives rebelled in a first set of votes Tuesday evening, warning Sunak’s beefed-up laws will still be overriden by the Strasbourg court.
Sunak will try to face down the rebels — who count former PMs Boris Johnson and Liz Truss among their number — and force through the legislation unchanged in a further crunch vote Wednesday night.
Defeat on a flagship piece of legislation looks unlikely, but could yet spell the end of his premiership.
‘Pajama injunctions’ explained
The European Court of Human Rights issues “Rule 39” orders on an exceptional basis — where it judges there to be a real risk of “serious and irreversible harm” to an individual.
Such orders are “interim measures” and apply only for a limited amount of time. They can be issued in the dead of the night — hence the “pajama” moniker — once all other options to block a government’s actions have been exhausted.
To the U.K. government’s chagrin, the Strasbourg court issued just such an injunction in June 2022, grounding the first flight due to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda just as it was about to take off. The judges ruled Rwanda was not a safe country in which to process migrants. A year and a half later, not a single deportation flight has left the U.K.
Sunak insists his new emergency laws will override such human rights concerns — but mutinous Tory MPs don’t believe the legislation goes far enough.
Sixty Conservatives opted to rebel against the government and vote for an amendment aimed at stipulating that neither U.K. nor international law can be used to ‘prevent or delay the removal to Rwanda of any individual.’ Two Conservative Party deputy chairmen — Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith — resigned their posts on Tuesday to vote against Sunak.
A further 59 Tory MPs backed a separate amendment put forward by the former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick aimed at thwarting pajama injunctions altogether. He wants to make the issue of respecting Rule 39 orders a matter purely for British ministers.
The amendments failed despite the huge rebellions, however, with opposition parties refusing to join Tory right-wingers in their efforts to toughen up the legislation.
All eyes on Wednesday night
But Tuesday evening’s drama was only a preview — with MPs set to vote on the bill’s final Commons stage on Wednesday evening.
At that point Labour and the other opposition parties will vote against the bill — and Tory rebels must decide if they want to join them and bring down the entire bill.
Such an outcome would be humiliating for Sunak, who has staked his authority on the deportation plan. The last time a U.K. government bill was defeated at its final stage was in 1977.
In a bid to win over his critics, Sunak has toughened up his language. Asked directly, in an interview with the right-wing broadcaster GB News, if he would overrule judges from Strasbourg, Sunak said: “I won’t let a foreign court stop us from getting flights off and this deterrent working.”
According to the Times newspaper, Sunak is also planning to draft in 150 judges and free up courtrooms to deal with an anticipated flood of appeals from asylum seekers set to be sent to Rwanda.
Whether such measures are enough to bring the Tory rebels back onside — and to save his premiership — remains to be seen.