Truss joins Tory rebels pushing Sunak to toughen his Rwanda Bill
‘We keep being thwarted by legal loopholes ... exploited by activist lawyers’
‘The Prime Minister’s got within an inch of what I would regard as acceptable’
LIZ TRUSS, the former prime minister, has joined Tory rebels demanding Rishi Sunak toughens his Rwanda Bill as the number of backbench MPS supporting the changes reached 40.
Ms Truss is among nine former Cabinet ministers backing amendments that aim to limit virtually all legal challenges by migrants against their deportation to Rwanda and block any attempt by Strasbourg judges to halt the flights.
It sets up a showdown next week between the Right-wing MPS and Mr Sunak when the Bill returns to the Commons on Tuesday and Wednesday for its line-by-line scrutiny in its committee stage on the floor of the Commons.
The 40 MPS are enough to overturn Mr Sunak’s 56-seat majority although the crunch will not come until the third reading when they will have to decide whether to vote down the entire Rwanda Bill.
They claim the current legislation will not work and that their proposed changes are more likely to end the “merry-go-round” of legal challenges blocking illegal migrants’ removal from the UK. “We have told the British people time and again that we intend to crack down on illegal migration yet keep being thwarted by a range of spurious legal loopholes being exploited by activist lawyers,” said Ms Truss.
“It is essential that the legislation we are passing is watertight and closes all those possible loopholes, which is why I am backing this raft of amendments.”
Her intervention came as Sir Robert Buckland, the former justice secretary, prepared to table counter-amendments to protect the legislation against breaches of international law. Sir Robert is working on new amendments that would remove key clauses that seek to exempt the Rwanda deportations from legal challenges under international and human rights laws.
The Prime Minister is caught between the two factions as the centrist One Nation group of 106 MPS have warned they could vote against the Bill if he goes “an inch” further in denying individual migrants’ rights to appeal and sidelining international treaties.
Damian Green, the chairman of the One Nation group, said: “The Prime Minister’s got within an inch of what I would regard as acceptable. Almost all our members voted for a second reading with the clear message of ‘thus far and no further’ and ‘don’t take that extra inch’, which some colleagues of the right of the party want us to do.”
No10’s spokesman said yesterday that Rishi Sunak and ministers will consider all amendments to the Rwanda Bill “carefully.” Ministers have previously warned there is a “very narrow landing strip” for changes to the Bill, and have told rebels they are not going to lay any amendments.