Suella Braverman issued a public ultimatum to Rishi Sunak - making stern demands of his immigration plan if he wanted to keep her support.
The Former Home Secretary set out her red lines, warning the Conservative Party faced “electoral oblivion in a matter of months” if the plan fails. “Do we fight for sovereignty, or do we let our party die?” she said in a ‘personal statement’ in the House of Commons.
In words that many will seen as a challenge to Mr Sunak’s leadership, she added: "I may not have always found the right words in the past, but I refuse to sit by and allow us to fail.” The former Home Secretary said the Government’s “emergency” legislation on the Rwanda deportation scheme must be exempted from Human Rights law to be acceptable to her.
It comes as speculation mounted that Mr Sunak could face a leadership challenge - led by Ms Braverman - within days if the Rwanda bill is not sufficiently hardline to satisfy the Tory right wing. Ousted ministers are entitled to make a ‘personal statement’ without interruption in the Commons - which is often used by disgruntled MPs to take a swipe at their party leader.
The draft legislation, published tonight, compels judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country after the Supreme Court ruled the plan was unlawful last month. The Bill gives ministers the powers to disregard some sections of the Human Rights Act.
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The ex-Home Secretary made a string of demands for Rishi Sunak's Rwanda bill (PA)Home Secretary James Cleverly states on the front page of the Bill, that he cannot guarantee that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. But it does not go as far as providing powers to dismiss the European Convention on Human Rights, as Tory right-wingers had demanded.
The Bill is likely to meet significant resistance from MPs and peers on all sides, who must approve it for it to become law. But the PM may hope to have neutralised some anger by pursuing a less hard-line strategy.
A source close to Mrs Braverman said it "doesn't come close" to meeting her tests, arguing asylum seekers will still be able to make human rights appeals against removals. "It is fatally flawed," the ally said.
"It will be bogged down in the courts for months and months. And it won't stop the boats. It is a further betrayal of Tory voters and the decent patriotic majority who want to see this insanity brought to an end."
But the One Nation group of centre-right Tory MPs welcomed the Bill. Tory MP Stephen Hammond, of the One Nation group, said: “We welcome the government’s decision to continue to meet the UK’s international commitments which uphold the rule of law."
Earlier, Ms Braverman, who was sacked by Mr Sunak last month, used her Commons statement to paint a picture of a migration “emergency”, with “thousands of mostly young men, many with values and social norms at odds with our own pouring into our country.”
Setting out her tests, she said the bill should address the Supreme Court’s concerns about Rwanda - something the Government has already indicated it will. Next, she insisted the bill must include a “notwithstanding” clause, which exempts it from the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights. Mr Sunak is said to be considering such a move - despite warnings that it could prompt resignations by as many as 10 moderate ministers.
Centre-right Tories in the “one nation” group have urged the PM to remain committed to the European Convention on Human Rights. Ms Braverman demanded the bill include measures to allow asylum seekers to be “detained until they are removed” and that deportations should happen “within days” rather than “allowing individual claims and challenges which drag on for months.”
And she called for “Nightingale” detention centres to be built, to increase capacity in the same way Nightingale hospitals were used to bolster the NHS during the Covid pandemic. Finally, she demanded that MPs be prepared to sit in Parliament over Christmas “in order to get this done.”
She added: “All of this comes down to a simple question. Who governs Britain? Where does ultimate authority for the UK lie? Is it with the British people and their elected representatives? Or is it in the vague, shifting and unaccountable concept of international law? On Monday, The Prime Minister announced measures that start to better reflect public frustration on legal migration. He can now follow that up with a bill that reflects public fury on illegal migration and actually stopped the boats.”
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