Rishi Sunak's authority has been dealt a damaging blow after two deputy chairs of the Conservative party resigned and 60 Tory MPs rebelled over his Rwanda deportation bill. Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith stood down after backing rightwing amendments designed to toughen the legislation, in what is the largest revolt of the prime minister's leadership.
The rebellion centred on two amendments: one from veteran Tory Bill Cash to prevent UK and international law from delaying removals to Rwanda, and another from former immigration minister Robert Jenrick to restrict individual asylum seekers' appeals. Both were defeated with Labour opposition, but were backed by prominent figures including Suella Braverman, Jenrick and Liz Truss. A third Conservative, Kemi Badenoch's parliamentary private secretary Jane Stevenson, also resigned after voting against the whip.
Despite the scale of the revolt, government insiders suggested there was little panic, with the view that the rightwing bloc lacked the numbers to inflict a fatal blow on Sunak. Wednesday will see a key vote on the bill's third reading, where just 29 rebels could cause it to fall, though only about a dozen Tories have publicly said they will vote against.
In their joint resignation letter, Anderson and Clarke-Smith said they had consistently argued for watertight legislation and believed the current bill would not work. They wrote: "We have already had two pieces of legislation thwarted by a system that does not work in favour of the British people." Anderson later told GB News: "I can't be in a position to vote for something I don't believe in."
The resignations came as the Lady Chief Justice, Sue Carr, criticised government plans to recruit and train 150 judges for the Rwanda scheme, saying judicial deployment should be "exclusively a matter for the judiciary". Separate reports suggested civil servants could be instructed to ignore emergency European court orders halting flights, a move likely to anger unions.
