A battle over Rishi Sunak’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is looming which MPs say could lead to a snap election or the shattering of the Tory party.
The Prime Minister will hope that a Christmas truce holds between the factions in his party but both sides are braced for a showdown in the New Year.
A Tory critic of the emergency legislation to ensure legal challenges do not stop flights taking off predicted there will be a “mighty tug of war between the moderates who seek to uphold international law and those on right content in ignoring it”.
Mr Sunak wants the first flights to land in the African state in the spring but the former minister warned that “as things stand there is no common ground and the Lords will ensure this bill is delayed for months”.
Pressing for the Bill to be dropped, they said that in a worst case scenario there is the danger of “our party splintering into two”.
Members of the so-called “Five Families” of Right-wing Tory MPs who are convinced that tougher legislation is needed to ensure that people who have come to the UK illegally are sent to Rwanda are expected to try to make changes to the Bill when it returns to the Commons next month.
However, any further weakening of human rights legislation would be strongly resisted by those on the Left of the party – many of whom are members of the One Nation Group.
There is talk in Labour circles of the Prime Minister facing a political crisis which leads to a snap election.
A shadow minister said: “Rishi is soon going to be faced with the situation where he has to press the nuclear button. He’s either going to face a confidence vote or he’s going to have to go to the country – and I think of the two he’ll go to the country and try to use the Rwanda vote and immigration as a wedge issue to try and win the election.”
There are signs of unease within the Right of the party about the hardline stance taken by some Brexiteer MPs.
One MP fears the Right risks losing credibility with the Prime Minister because of the antagonistic stance adopted by some colleagues, saying: “To crash the Government now is just crazy.”
A senior Right-winger made light of the divisions in the party, stating: “It’s time for a Christmas truce. The Five Families and members of the One Nation Group are contemplating a charity football match in no man’s land between Christmas and New Year.”
Alp Mehmet of the Migration Watch campaign group was downbeat about the chances of the Rwanda scheme becoming a reality in the near future, predicting “cases will get mired in the courts”.
He said: “Flights to Rwanda are a long way from getting off the ground, if they ever do. However much scope for appeals against removal is reduced, gaps will remain, to be exploited at every turn.”
Meanwhile, former Labour frontbencher Barry Gardiner set out the depth of opposition to the Rwanda plan in his party.
He said: “It legislates a legal fiction, reversing the Supreme Court’s factual assessment of the risk of harm in Rwanda, without properly addressing the Court’s concerns about the Rwandan asylum system and ousting our domestic courts’ jurisdiction to consider the issue; it is an abuse of Parliament’s role…”
“It is an attack on judicial scrutiny, undermining our constitutional separation of powers. It threatens the UK’s role as a global leader in championing the rule of law, democracy and human rights.”
A senior Labour source said they hoped moderate Conservative MPs would “do the right thing” when the Bill goes through Parliament and “help to put an end to this madness”.
They said: “Rishi Sunak should have quietly shelved this harebrained idea as soon as he took over from Liz Truss, but instead he has dug himself into a hole with this madcap Rwanda bill, which is yet another example of him being pushed around by his backbenchers.”
