Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Sunak wins the Rwanda vote – but the battle is far from over

The government has won Tuesday’s vote on the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ Bill comfortably at 313 votes to 269 against. This means Rishi Sunak has managed to pass his Bill at second reading after a day of negotiations with the various Tory tribes. Not a single Tory MP voted against the Bill. Thirty-eight conservative MPs abstained in total of which 29 Tory MPs abstained on principle. If the 29 had all voted against the Bill, this would have been enough to block it at second reading. The result comes after various sceptic Conservative factions – including the European Research Group (ERG) and the New Conservatives – advised their members to abstain.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

There’s no good option for Sunak over the Rwanda Bill

There is a lot more trouble to come on the Rwanda Bill, whatever happens tonight. When James Cleverly told MPs earlier that the emergency legislation complied with international law but was ‘very much pushing at the edge of the envelope’, he was trying to suggest that there was something for everyone. So far all the speeches in the debate on the second reading have suggested that there will be a lot of abstentions, with no Tory MP yet saying they will vote against. The five groups of traditional Tories have just said they ‘cannot support the bill tonight’ – which again is not an instruction to vote it down, and Mark

Steerpike Steerpike

Danny Kruger proves to be a thorn in Sunak’s side

Oh dear. For a while now, Danny Kruger has established himself as one of the more troublesome Tory MPs from No. 10’s perspective. The 2019 MP served as political secretary to Boris Johnson before entering parliament. Yet in recent months he has tended to adopt positions that cause Downing Street a headache. He helped found the ‘New Conservatives’ – a Tory caucus largely made up of 2019 intake MPs in red wall seats. While Kruger’s seat is very much in the blue wall category, he has warned repeatedly that Sunak must keep the 2019 election coalition of voters alive. This morning, Kruger was one in a group of ‘New Conservatives’

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The Tories created this Rwanda Bill mess

Climate change minister Graham Stuart is flying back to Britain from the UAE for a matter of hours so he can cast his vote tonight for the Safety of Rwanda Bill. It’s not a great look from the green perspective, and even worse from the political one. The government is so concerned about the numbers tonight that every vote must count. This includes flying one in. Even the best case scenario for Rishi Sunak this evening is rife with problems (Katy Balls lays out all the possible outcomes here). If the Bill passes today, it will face more hurdles at the committee stage. Neither the right nor centre is particularly

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Robert Jenrick tears into the Rwanda Bill

Robert Jenrick has just given a furious speech against the Rwanda Bill in the Commons. It was a very well delivered speech, and highly persuasive. The former immigration minister not only took apart the flaws of the legislation as he saw them: he also explained why he had apparently adopted a much harder line while working in the Home Office. He said he had been to Dover to see ‘constituents whose homes have been broken into and whose lives have been ruined by illegal migrants’, and to Bournemouth, where an asylum seeker who posed as a child was convicted of murder. Jenrick framed this Bill as being one of the

Steerpike Steerpike

Net zero minister forced to fly back for crunch vote

It’s been a rather difficult week for Rishi Sunak, and it’s still only Tuesday. After being grilled by the Covid Inquiry yesterday, today Sunak is having to fend off a right-wing rebellion on his Rwanda plan. And now the government’s net zero minister Graham Stuart has been forced to fly back from Dubai’s COP28 for tonight’s vote before, er, flying back again afterwards. So much for those environmental commitments… Stuart’s departure means that the UK now has no ministerial representation at the international conference as final talks commence. And Labour’s Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has cottoned on to this somewhat sub-optimal set of events. She mocked the hasty return

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Does a fifth of the population think we should still be in lockdown?

That shutting people away in their homes for weeks on end was going to have a bad effect on mental health was clear from the start of the pandemic, even if the Covid Inquiry doesn’t seem to think it a proper subject to cover the negative consequences of lockdowns. But a poll published this week by the organisation More in Common reveals just how debilitating an effect the pandemic continues to have on a remarkably large section of the population. More in Common asked the following question: ‘Thinking of the current health situation in the UK would you support or oppose the government reintroducing each of the following Covid-19 restrictions

Kristian Niemietz

Where is the solidarity with Guyana?

On Monday, the Stop the War Coalition (StWC), the environmentalist group Just Stop Oil (JSO), the Socialist Campaign Group (SCG), which is a group of ‘Corbynite’ MPs, and Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project, held a joint press conference. With differences in emphasis, they all strongly condemned the moves of Venezuela’s dictator-president Nicolas Maduro to annex the Essequibo region of neighbouring Guyana.  ‘The last thing the world needs right now is another imperialist war for oil’, a StWC spokesman said. JSO were particularly dismayed by Maduro’s announcement that he would immediately ‘grant operating licenses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas and mines in the entire area of our

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Asylum seeker dies on board migrant barge

An asylum seeker has died on the Bibby Stockholm boat. The identity of the migrant who lost his life on board the barge in Dorset, which has been used to house those awaiting the outcome of their asylum application, has not been confirmed. A spokesman for the Home Office said: ‘We are aware of reporting of an incident. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time’. Steve Smith, CEO of refugee charity Care4Calais, said: ‘Our thoughts are with the person who has lost their life, their family and their friends.’ News of the death came hours before a crunch Commons vote on the government’s plan to send migrants

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron suffers a ‘stunning’ setback over his immigration crackdown

Emmanuel Macron refused to accept the resignation of his interior minister on Monday evening after the government’s immigration bill was thrown out of parliament. It was a crushing humiliation for Gerald Darmanin, as well as Macron, and a moment of exquisite pleasure for their many political opponents.  In an unprecedented show of unity, right and left came together to adopt by just five votes a motion proposed by the Green Party to reject the bill without even debating it. They did so, however, for different reasons. In the eyes of the left, the bill is ‘racist and xenophobic: they particularly object to the proposal to cut welfare benefits and expel

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What if Rishi Sunak loses his crunch Rwanda vote?

13 min listen

Rishi Sunak faces the first major test of his premiership today over the second reading of the Rwanda bill. How could the day play out? And what will happen if the Prime Minister loses the vote? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale.

Steerpike Steerpike

Cleverly takes a swipe at the Spartans

Christmas party season is in full swing and last night it was the turn of the Onward think tank. Old survivors and bright young things gathered in the Georgian splendour of the Royal Society of Arts to hear from star speaker James Cleverly. Though the mood in government is grim, the Home Secretary betrayed little trace of that, listing to assembled wonks, hacks and assorted grandees his colleagues’ achievements in office, including ‘doubling the number of immigration ministers’. But it was a classical allusion that caught Steerpike’s ear when Cleverly sought to channel his inner Boris Johnson with a slight dig at the self-identifying ‘Spartans’ of the European Research Group.

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Have we really lost hundreds of thousands of workers since Covid?

The jobs market appears to be slowing down, but can we trust the figures? Vacancies have fallen for the longest continuous period on record, according to data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). But there are still just under 950,000 jobs on offer which is well above the pre-lockdown norm. Meanwhile, despite British workers receiving real-terms pay rises in the three months to October, wage growth seems to have peaked. This will please Bank of England rate setters who feared that spiralling wage demands could worsen inflation. Average weekly earnings (including bonuses) fell slightly to 7.2 per cent on the year, down from 8 per cent. Because of

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What if Rishi Sunak loses his crunch Rwanda vote?

Rishi Sunak faces the most important vote of his premiership this evening when his ‘Safety of Rwanda’ bill has its second reading in the Commons. The bill seeks to finally get migrant flights off the ground by declaring Rwanda to be ‘safe’. If passed, the legislation will also mean that some international laws will have no effect, making a legal challenge – such as the Supreme Court’s verdict last month that the government’s previous version of the Rwanda scheme was unlawful – less likely. However, Sunak’s third way has led to both the right and left of the party voicing concerns and doubts over whether it will pass at second

Steerpike Steerpike

‘Division will be punished’: Tory MPs urged not to rebel on Rwanda

Can Rishi Sunak persuade wavering Tory MPs not to vote down his Rwanda bill this afternoon? The European Research Group has already delivered its withering verdict: its so-called ‘star chamber’ of legal experts say the bill – which the government hopes will give the green light to send migrants to Africa – offers a ‘partial and incomplete solution’ to the problem of legal challenges being used to delay flights. The New Conservatives group has also waded in to declare that the bill requires ‘major surgery or replacement’. Rishi Sunak is holding a breakfast meeting this morning to try and persuade his MPs not to vote the bill down. Meanwhile, heavyweight

Jawad Iqbal

There’s only one winner in Egypt’s sham election

After three days of voting, the polls close today in Egypt’s presidential elections. The result is expected on 18 December, but voters already know there can be only one winner: president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has been in power for nearly a decade. The other candidates for the presidency (those permitted to stand against him) aren’t really running to win but are simply there to make up the numbers and help create the impression that voters are being offered a choice. This sham of an electoral process reveals much about Sisi’s iron grip on the country and its main organs of state, including the much-feared security services. After seizing power

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Gary Lineker slips up (again)

Will Gary Lineker ever learn? The BBC Sports pundit is now facing criticism after signing an open letter calling for the government to end the Rwanda plan and create a ‘fair new plan for refugees’. It comes just nine months after he sparked a huge row over describing government rhetoric as being not dissimilar from, er, 1930s Germany. So much for that famed BBC impartiality… Far from being chastened, the left-wing centre forward it at it again. Quote-tweeting Jonathan Gullis MP on Twitter — who criticised Lineker’s impartiality rule breach — the Match of the Day presenter sneered: ‘Jonathan hasn’t read the new guidelines…or, should I say, had someone read

Natasha Feroze

What Sunak really said about lockdown

14 min listen

It was Rishi Sunak’s turn at the Covid Inquiry today. The Prime Minister faced questions on Eat Out to Help Out, his relationship with No.10, tiers and PPE procurement. How did the former Chancellor come across? And how has his tone changed because he is now Prime Minister? Natasha Feroze speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews. 

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sunak’s strange Covid Inquiry appearance

Rishi Sunak had a strange pandemic. He spent a lot of it in government meetings, the details of which he could not recall, and with people who he always got on with. That was the overall thrust of his evidence to the Covid Inquiry today. The only phrase that came up more than a variation on ‘I do not recall the specific details’ was ‘referring to the Spectator article’ (you can re-read this now vital piece of inquiry evidence here).  There was one thing the Prime Minister can recollect in sharp detail from his time as chancellor, though, and that’s that absolutely no one raised any concerns with him about

Sam Meadows

Is Javier Milei abandoning his radicalism already?

When Labour’s Liam Byrne left a note for the incoming coalition Treasury team in 2010 which said ‘I’m afraid there is no money’, it was meant as a joke. When Argentine president Javier Milei sent a similar message in his inauguration speech on Sunday, it was far from comedy. It was an honest assessment of the seriousness of the situation faced by South America’s second-largest economy. Milei won last month’s election thanks to an anti-establishment campaign in which he heavily criticised the country’s political classes and promised drastic change. It was his penchant for cloning dogs and bringing a chainsaw to campaign rallies that earned him international headlines, but it was something