PM Sunak could be next victim of Tory infighting
Rishi Sunak backed the winning side in the U.K.’s pivotal vote to leave the European Union, fueling a rise that ultimately made him premier. Now he’s fighting to avoid becoming the latest Conservative leader consumed by the resulting civil war in the governing party.
The British prime minister faces a crucial two weeks if he is to control feuding Tory Members of Parliament and lead them into a general election expected next year. The latest fight is about whether the government should bend or ignore domestic and international laws so the U.K. can deport asylumseekers to Rwanda without considering their claims.
But the schism runs far deeper, posing questions about the Conservative Party, the relative power of the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the judiciary, as well as U.K. sovereignty and its place in the world.
When lawmakers vote Tuesday on the anti-immigration legislation Mr. Sunak says will get Rwanda deportation flights in the air, those old Brexit dividing lines that brought down former Prime Minister Theresa May will return to the fore. That contradicts the political brand he’s tried to build since taking power last year following the chaotic premierships of Ms. May’s successors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss: stability after years of turmoil.
“Brexit is undoubtedly the origin of this, but actually the split has got much worse,” former Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who was ejected from the party in 2019 after rebelling against Mr. Johnson, told BBC TV. “What we’re now watching is a split between people who believe in the rule of law and people who don’t.”
The Rwanda plan has been intrinsically linked to one of the pledges Mr. Sunak wants voters to judge him by, to stop asylum-seekers arriving in small boats across the English Channel. Ministers see the deportation program as a necessary deterrent, even as they tried to convince the courts that the African nation is a safe place to send deportees. The U.K. Supreme Court decided last month it isn’t, ruling Mr. Sunak’s plan unlawful and triggering the Tory disarray.
The issue is becoming one of political purity, especially for rightwing Tory MPs. There is considerable overlap between the lawmakers who demanded the hardest possible divorce from the EU and those demanding Mr. Sunak override U.K. law and take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights so asylum-seekers have no legal venue to appeal.
There are also Tory MPs deeply uncomfortable with the U.K. overriding laws for political gain.
“If there’s any prospect of any British bill or act of Parliament bypassing international law, then I will not support it,” Tobias Ellwood, who has advocated the U.K. rejoining the EU single market, told Times Radio. “We uphold international law. We don’t break it.”
There was a moment Wednesday when Mr. Sunak appeared to have threaded the needle between the rival camps. A new treaty with Rwanda ministers said guaranteed deportees couldn’t be forcibly moved back to their home countries, coupled with legislation to disapply elements of UK human rights law and declare Rwanda “safe,” would allow flights to proceed, he promised.
But the relative calm vanished dramatically with the resignation of immigration minister Robert Jenrick, taking Downing Street by surprise. People familiar with the matter said the impact was immediate on both sides of the argument.