Downing Street is celebrating but Sunak has not solved his small boats problem

Once the Bill becomes law it will be open season on legal challenges to Rwanda deportation flights

In politics, as in sport, a win is a win. Rishi Sunak has avoided what would have been a hellish fallout from last night’s crunch vote if his Rwanda Bill had been defeated at its third reading.

It would have thrown his flagship illegal immigration plan of deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda into disarray, with no clear path to finally getting flights off the ground.

It would have delivered a hammer blow to his prime ministerial authority, with enough Tory rebels ignoring his pleas to “stick with the plan” by instead ripping it up into pieces.

And it would, inevitably, have escalated mutterings about leadership with the Conservatives still the best part of 20 percentage points behind Labour in an election year.

None of that came to pass. And so, Downing Street will be breathing a sigh of relief and popping the corks.

For all the hot air and tub-thumping of the Right, the “emergency” legislation passed the Commons without a single word changed from the draft first tabled in December.

But clearing that hurdle does not mean it is a straight road for Mr Sunak on Rwanda flights, a critical part of his promise to “stop the boats” .

For one, the parliamentary battle is not over. It is the House of Lords’ turn to take a pencil and eraser to the text.

In the second chamber the dynamic in the House of Commons is reversed. The Tories have no overall majority and it is those seeking to water down the Bill who have the upper hand.

Opposition parties have already signalled their willingness to challenge the legislation’s declaration that Rwanda is a safe country, likened by critics to saying “black is white”.

Peers could also have an impact on timing, dragging their heels with long debates and lengthy amendments just as the Prime Minister’s team clamours for speedy approval.

The fact the Rwanda deportation policy was not in the Tories’ 2019 election manifesto is a complicating factor, meaning the so-called “Salisbury Convention” which protects such pledges from being overhauled by the Lords does not apply.

Yet it is unlikely the Lords would fully block the legislation. And given any amendments must be approved by the Commons, where Tory rebels want a harder Bill, major alterations are not expected to ultimately be passed.

But once the Bill becomes law, all of Downing Street’s assurances – that the wording is tight enough to stop almost all individual challenges to deportation, for example – get put to the test.

It will be open season on legal challenges once the Home Office arranges a deportation flight to Rwanda, which No10 wants to take off in the spring. If individual appeals clog up the courts for weeks or

months, pushing back the start date of flights, it will reinforce the Tory rebels’ criticisms.

Another major test may well come if the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg chooses to intervene to block flights with an interim injunction, fearing it breaches their convention.

Those so-called Rule 39 orders, nicknamed “pyjama injunctions” by critics, have been much discussed in recent weeks. It was how the first Rwanda flight in June 2022 was grounded. Rebels wanted a promise such a demand would be ignored written into the Bill.

Mr Sunak, under pressure from his party’s Right wing, this week explicitly said he would consider ignoring such an injunction. But would he really ignore the request?

Leaked internal legal advice indicates that Victoria Prentis, the attorney general, believes that would breach the UK’S European Convention of Human Rights obligations.

So would Mr Sunak follow through on his threat to ignore “foreign judges”? Or blink, if it means doing something he has steadfastly refused to do to date – potentially defying international law?

Mixed in with all of this is an uncomfortable dynamic. Some of the most prominent Tories pushing for a tougher illegal immigration approach are now outside the tent.

Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, the pair who headed Mr Sunak’s Rwanda plan just over two months ago, have now become ardent and vocal critics of his approach.

And now this week, Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chairman seen by party strategists as a “secret weapon” for their election campaign, has quit in protest at Mr Sunak’s Bill.

They are not alone. In the weeks ahead, as the Prime Minister hopes to turn fire on Labour over immigration, fellow Tories will undercut the attacks by arguing his own plan will not work.

Finally, add in the leadership dynamic. Those, like Mrs Braverman, who hope to one day lead the Tories know a contest to replace Mr Sunak could be under way come Christmas if an autumn election is lost.

That gives critics hoping to inherit the Tory crown an incentive to stay tough on migration as they try to appeal to the party members who will pick the next leader.

All of which means, even with the win last night, dark clouds still hang over the Prime Minister’s Rwanda deportation plan.

Some victories, after all, prove pyrrhic. If Mr Sunak’s new law ends up getting clogged in the courts, with Rwanda flights delayed, expect his Tory critics to gleefully declare “told you so” and escalate their plotting about what comes next.

Critics hoping to inherit the Tory crown have an incentive to stay tough on migration