Politics

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

Katy Balls

Sunak and Suella clash over Rwanda plan B

For a brief moment this morning it looked as though Rishi Sunak had finally had some good luck. Inflation figures, which came out today, show that the government has met its pledge to halve inflation this year as the rate fell to a two-year low of 4.6 per cent. But that’s about where the good news stops for Sunak. Just a few hours later, the Prime Minister and his government were dealt a significant blow when the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that his Rwanda scheme is unlawful. As Alexander Horne explains on Coffee House, the Supreme Court upheld a previous decision from the Court of Appeal that the policy was unlawful. It

Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Sunak struggles to defend David Cameron

The House of Lords is like a bag of doughnuts in the lap of a traffic policeman. There’s always room for one more. The newest peer, David Cameron, was the subject of much amused scorn at PMQs. Rishi Sunak wasn’t prepared for an obvious query about his new Foreign Secretary: what is Dave’s greatest feat on the international stage? Kevin Brennan, of Labour, put this question, and he asked Rishi to name a specific achievement. ‘Many, many,’ said Rishi, floundering in shallow waters. In search of a highlight from Dave’s CV, he said that he ‘hosted one of the most successful G8 summits of recent times.’ Rishi didn’t enlarge. Several

The Rwanda judgment was not a foregone conclusion

This morning, the Supreme Court upheld the Court of Appeal’s judgment on the Rwanda plan and declared that the scheme is unlawful. The Court of Appeal had said that the principle of sending asylum seekers to foreign countries was unexceptionable. But the courts had to decide if Rwanda was likely to be a safe country which would not mistreat asylum seekers, or send them on to third countries where they would face mistreatment. It determined that Rwanda was not safe. The Supreme Court’s decision was, broadly, that the Court of Appeal had been right to take that line, and that the justices agreed with it.  This decision is not particularly

Katy Balls

Back to the future: Sunak’s big gamble

On Remembrance Sunday, former prime ministers are given ceremonial roles. When everyone assembled last weekend, it was a reminder of the recent mayhem within the Tory party. Labour’s 13-year era seemed neat by comparison: Tony Blair, then Gordon Brown. The Tories’ 13 years in power were represented by a more chaotic line-up: David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak. If Tory rebels have their way, they might even try to squeeze someone else in before time runs out. ‘I was the future, once,’ the now Lord Cameron said on his last day in office in July 2016. He did himself a disservice: he is the future once

Charles Moore

Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle weakens his government

Rishi Sunak thinks David Cameron will be a round peg in a round hole in the Foreign Office. I think (as I have written elsewhere) that he is right. If foreign secretaries could be bought at Harrods, Mr Cameron is the model discerning customers would prefer. But the underlying problem, which provoked this reshuffle, is at the Home Office. This was a personal one, because Suella Braverman, though she did not breach government policy, had defied the wishes of the Prime Minister about what her article in the Times should say. It is also, which matters much more, a national and political problem, because anti-Semitism, Islamism, immigration policy and confidence

Rod Liddle

The Establishment wins again

There is something a little spooky about writing off one’s car and wrecking one’s shoulder by driving into a tree and then, suffused with codeine and alcohol, watching incredulously as the government does kinda the same thing a week later, except faster and with a bigger and more intransigent tree. Metaphorically, I should add, for the more literal-minded of you. On Monday morning I had been asked by TalkTV to guffaw at Rishi Sunak’s decision to sack Suella Braverman and disinter David Cameron from whatever shiny morgue he has been resting in and make him Foreign Secretary. I duly guffawed and suggested that nobody north of Letchworth would vote Conservative

Why the Supreme Court demolished the Rwanda scheme

In its simple and comprehensible judgment, the Supreme Court has dealt a crushing blow to the Home Office’s Rwanda policy this morning.   The court upheld the decision of the Court of Appeal that the policy was unlawful. It reached that view because it believed there were substantial grounds to think that asylum claims would not be properly determined by the Rwandan authorities. That would mean that asylum seekers might be returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened, or where they would be subject to a risk of torture or inhuman or degrading treatment.   The plan now looks dead in the water This would be

James Heale

Supreme Court rules Rwanda scheme unlawful

11 min listen

The Supreme Court has ruled that the government scheme to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda is unlawful. Why? And how will Rishi Sunak respond? Will he try to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Al-Shifa won’t be the last hospital Israel raids in Gaza

Late on Tuesday night, about a week after the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) encircled Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, Israeli forces entered the complex in what has been described as a ‘targeted operation against Hamas’. IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that troops are operating specifically within the western area of the hospital, one of the largest medical facilities in Gaza. The IDF’s military operation within the hospital, and other hospitals in Gaza, has been a highly contentious issue in the international community. The US – Israel’s closest ally – declared that Israel operate with extreme care in hospitals, making sure that patients and staff do not get caught in the crossfire. 

Patrick O'Flynn

Don’t blame ‘lefty lawyers’ for the Rwanda debacle

There is no point in critics of our activist judiciary kicking off about today’s Supreme Court’s decision that the government’s Rwanda policy is unlawful. This isn’t a case of ‘lefty lawyers’ thwarting honest politicians, but of incompetent politicians seeking to wish away the United Kingdom’s international treaty obligations without having the bottle to withdraw from them. This PM promised to do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop the boats and yet has failed to do so More precisely, it wholly vindicates Suella Braverman’s accusation of Rishi Sunak engaging in ‘magical thinking’ when rejecting her advice to push through more radical legal changes. The judgment, read aloud by Supreme Court President Lord

James Heale

Supreme Court rules Rwanda scheme unlawful

The Supreme Court has this morning concluded that the Rwanda scheme is unlawful, ending 18 months of legal battles in UK courts. In a succinct 10-minute summary, the court ruled against the flagship scheme because of the risk that genuine refugees could be returned to countries from which they have fled. Delivering the verdict, Lord Reed, the Supreme Court’s President, said that there are ‘substantial grounds to believe asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulment’ – that is being sent to their home nations – something which happened under a ‘similar’ deal with Israel between 2013 and 2018. The Supreme Court judges were ‘unanimously of

Time is running out for Israel to defeat Hamas

Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza is making steady progress. They moved into the strip on 27 October after a sustained air campaign which paved the way for infantry, armoured and engineering units to enter. Despite military analysts predicting that Israel would sustain heavy combat losses, because of decent intelligence gathered in the preceding three weeks, they remain relatively low (46 dead at the time of writing).  The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are now operating inside the Al-Shifa hospital, beneath which Israel believes the main operational headquarters of Hamas is located. According to Israeli media sources, five Hamas fighters were killed in the course of the IDF’s raid into a part of the hospital

Kate Andrews

Sunak meets first pledge as the rate of inflation halves

Inflation has slowed significantly, according to the latest update from the Office for National Statistics. The headline rate was 4.6 per cent in the year to October, down from 6.7 per cent the previous month. The sharp slowdown is largely attributed to last year’s hikes in energy prices dropping out of the data with the figures now reflecting Ofgem’s price cap reduction.  This major slowdown in the inflation rate allows Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt to say that one of their five pledges for the year has been delivered. In January, the prime minister promised to ‘halve inflation’ by the end of the year. The rate in January was 10.1 per cent

Saudi Arabia’s Israel dilemma

The war in Gaza presents a major challenge for Saudi Arabia. The Saudi leadership is trying to placate two different camps: its own population along with the publics of the Arab and Muslim worlds as well as the US administration and influential westerners. The former are horrified by the killings of Palestinians in Gaza whereas the latter want some acknowledgment of Israel’s right to self-defence. This effort to keep everyone happy was on full display over the past weekend at the joint summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that was held in Riyadh. At the event, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman (MBS) gave

Could Britain learn from Italy’s migrant plan?

Italy has become the first European Union country to bite the bullet and set up a scheme to off-shore migrant asylum seekers to a country outside the bloc. Italy’s right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni says she hopes the scheme, signed off in Rome last week with Albania’s left-wing prime minister, Edi Rama, will become a model copied across the EU.  It is similar to the Tory government’s troubled Rwanda scheme, but more practical and less vulnerable to legal challenge. Italy will process asylum requests in Albania where it plans to send tens of thousands of migrants a year. Britain, meanwhile, plans to hand the task of deciding who gets asylum to Rwanda

Stephen Daisley

Suella Braverman hit Sunak where it hurts

Sacked ministers seldom have nice things to say about the boss but Suella Braverman’s letter to Rishi Sunak is a ferocious assault on the Prime Minister, his character and his style of leadership. If she’d taken a flamethrower to the man he’d have come away less severely burned. She claims they had a deal – a written agreement – that he would pursue certain policies in No. 10 in return for her backing him as leader following the Liz Truss debacle.  According to the former Home Secretary, Sunak undertook to cut legal migration by tightening the rules on international students and driving up work-visa salary thresholds; to legislate ‘notwithstanding clauses’ so that efforts to stop the

Ross Clark

Is the trade agreement with Florida a Brexit win?

A trade deal with the US has long been a holy grail for Brexiteers, not least because it is something that the EU has failed to achieve. Barack Obama told us we would have to go to the back of the queue, then Donald Trump told us we were at the front of the queue. Unfortunately, though, Trump wasn’t minded to serve anyone before being replaced by Joe Biden, who has shown a similar lack of interest in trade deals. Indeed, Biden has returned the US to an age of protectionism through his bizarrely-named Inflation Reduction Act, which offers grants and subsidies to green industries – so long as they