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Rwanda bill ‘incomplete solution’, Tories told; Sunak says hospitality jobs were at risk without ‘eat out to help out’ – UK politics live | Politics

By: Global News

Date:

Rwanda bill ‘partial and incomplete solution’ to small boats problem, Tory MPs told by ERG’s ‘star chamber’

The Conservative European Research Group has been told by its legal “star chamber” that the government’s Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution” to the problem posed by small boats, Aubrey Allegretti from the Times reports.

ERG Star Chamber says that Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts” to “delay or defeat the removal” of migrants

NEW: ERG Star Chamber says that Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts” to “delay or defeat the removal” of migrants.

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) December 11, 2023

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NEW: ERG Star Chamber says that Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts” to “delay or defeat the removal” of migrants.

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) December 11, 2023

UPDATE: Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt has posted the ERG announcement on X.

The star chamber says government’s emergency legislation only provides a partial and incomplete solution pic.twitter.com/CR7uWfN6iQ

— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) December 11, 2023

\n\n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/nicholaswatt/status/1734193078385123731″,”id”:”1734193078385123731″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”ec32fb8a-b07b-42f9-b414-455efea32d53″}}” config=”{“renderingTarget”:”Web”,”darkModeAvailable”:false}”/>

At the Covid inquiry Rishi Sunak insists that the government’s main scientific adviser, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, had the opportunity to raise concerns about the “eat out to help out” scheme with him.

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Sunak lists several meetings they attended, where they could have raised the topic but didn’t.

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Hugo Keith KC said in their evidence Whitty and Vallance said they were not specifically consulted about this. If they had been, they would have advised against, he says.

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The government has just published a summary of its legal assessment of the Rwanda bill.

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And here is the summary at the end of the document.

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As set out above, the treaty, bill and evidence together demonstrate Rwanda is safe for relocated individuals, that the government’s approach is tough but fair and lawful, that it has a justification in the UK’s constitution and domestic law, and it seeks to uphold our international obligations. This is a novel and contentious policy, and the UK and Rwanda are the first countries in the world to enact it together. There are risks inherent in such an innovative approach but there is a clear lawful basis on which a responsible government may proceed. For the reasons set out in this paper, a bill that sought to oust all individual claims would not provide such a basis.

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This is not the same as the government’s internal legal advice, which is always kept private.

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At the Covid inquiry Hugo Keith KC is now asking directly about the “eat out to help out” scheme.

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Rishi Sunak says the scheme was designed to come into force when safe lifting of other measures had been approved.

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He says, without the scheme, many jobs would have been at risk “with devastating consequences”.

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Rishi Sunak will want to know what the European Research Group is saying about his Rwanda bill. Here are the main conclusions from the 10-page document legal assessment of the bill produced by the ERG’s “star chamber”, led by Sir Bill Cash. (Bold text added by me.)

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The bill overall provides a partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts being used as stratagems to delay or defeat the removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda, for the following reasons.

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Most importantly, the bill contains no restrictions on the bringing of legal challenges against removal to Rwanda based on grounds other than that Rwanda is not a safe country. Many such individual claims have already been brought on a variety of other grounds, and it is to be expected that if the bill successfully blocks challenges based on contentions that Rwanda is not safe, then migrants and their advisers will focus more of their efforts on generating and pursuing challenges of other kinds.

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The restriction in the bill is only against pursuing claims that Rwanda is unsafe for migrants removed there in general. Clause 4(1) expressly preserves the possibility of legal challenges to removal based on arguments that a person’s individual circumstances may lead to them being subject to a risk of refoulement and ill treatment. The treaty is intended to address such concerns. However, by allowing individual claims, appeals, and injunctions, the statutory scheme is open to significant levels of legal challenge. Experience to date in cases about attempted removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda demonstrates that individual challenges are likely to be numerous, and that they have had a high rate of success.

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The bill’s threshold requirement for interim relief that there should be a risk of “serious and irreparable harm” is in practice much easier to surmount than the words might suggest, for example through the provision of medical statements of mental conditions which are not easy to prove or disprove (for example, suicidal ideation). There is a serious risk that there will be no, or very few, actual removals to Rwanda for months after the bill comes into force.

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Clause 5 of the bill deals with interim measures of the Strasbourg court (so-called “rule 39 indications”) by stating that a minister of the crown may decide not to comply with them. In our view this does no more than restate the existing legal position, since (1) there are compelling arguments that rule 39 indications do not give rise to an obligation in international law to comply with them, and (2) in any event Strasbourg court rulings do not of themselves create obligations which are enforceable under domestic UK law. Perversely, the inclusion of ministerial decisions relating to rule 39 indications in clause 5(2) of the bill might give rise to a possibility of bringing judicial reviews against such decisions which would not otherwise arise. It would be preferable if the bill were positively to require such interim indications [ECtHR injunctions] to be disregarded when UK courts refuse interim relief.

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The Conservative European Research Group has been told by its legal “star chamber” that the government’s Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution” to the problem posed by small boats, Aubrey Allegretti from the Times reports.

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ERG Star Chamber says that Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts” to “delay or defeat the removal” of migrants

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NEW: ERG Star Chamber says that Rwanda bill is a “partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts” to “delay or defeat the removal” of migrants.

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) December 11, 2023

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UPDATE: Newsnight’s Nicholas Watt has posted the ERG announcement on X.

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The star chamber says government’s emergency legislation only provides a partial and incomplete solution pic.twitter.com/CR7uWfN6iQ

— Nicholas Watt (@nicholaswatt) December 11, 2023

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Keith shows Sunak a memo he was sent in April 2020, when the government was considering the timing of lifting lockdown measures. Here is one extract.

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But he focuses on this page, referring to the Treasury wanting the PM to see a document about the economy that has not been “watered down” by the Cabinet Office office. It is at line 3 b.

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Sunak says he did not write this. He says he is not sure what concerned his officials, but he says he never felt he could not express his views to the PM.

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At the Covid inquiry Rishi Sunak refers to a day during the early days of the Covid crisis when the government had a failed gilt auction.

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That meant the government was not able to borrow in the normal way on the money markets.

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It was a rare, and worrying, event.

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Hugo Keith KC says this happened at a time when the government was considering locking down London. Did that influence the decision?

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Sunak says he is not sure. That is a question for the PM. But he says this shows why he was doing such a difficult job.

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He says that day closing schools was proposed. The government acted.

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The government will publish a summary of its legal advice about the Rwanda bill, Pippa Crerar reports. She has just come out of the No 10 lobby briefing.

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\n

NEW: No 10 says govt will published summary of legal advice on Rwanda bill today “in recognition of significant public interest”.

\n

Very unusual move, presumably intended to aid factions of Tory MPs studying bill.

\n

PM’s spox says still govt policy not to publish legal advice in full.

\n

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NEW: No 10 says govt will published summary of legal advice on Rwanda bill today “in recognition of significant public interest”.

Very unusual move, presumably intended to aid factions of Tory MPs studying bill.

PM’s spox says still govt policy not to publish legal advice in…

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) December 11, 2023

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Keith shows Sunak another minute sent to Sunak implying Johnson kept changing his mind. In it an official refers to “a high risk that this [decision] unwinds/is unpicked”.

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Sunak says he is not clear what this refers to, but he repeats the point he made earlier about it being reasonable for Johnson to mull over decisions. (See 11.33am.)

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Keith puts it to Sunak that the inquiry has heard evidence from some of Johnson’s closest advisers saying he kept changing his mind and that decision-making was chaotic.

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\n

Were you aware that his closest advisers had seemingly unanimously taken the view that there was a lack of efficiency, that the administration was described privately as brutal and useless, or criminally incompetent or operationally chaotic? Was any of that known to you?

\n

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Sunak replies:

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\n

I don’t think any of those comments were shared with me at the time.

\n

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He goes on:

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\n

But he says there were intense debates about policy, as there should have been. He says:

\n

I don’t think that that is necessarily a bad thing. It’s right that there was a vigorous debate because these were incredibly consequential decisions for tens of millions of people in all in all spheres, whether it was health, whether it’s education, whether it was economic, whether it was social, whether it was a long-term impact. These these were incredibly big decisions, the likes of which no prime minister had taken in decades.

\n

So the fact that there was debate and that people were passionate about it, and they had different points of view, is, I think, unsurprising and good.

\n

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Keith shows Sunak minutes of a bilateral meeting he held with Boris Johnson to discuss future measures. On the second page the official writing the minute for Sunak refers to the proposals and says: “Until announced you never know!”

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Keith puts it to Sunak that this is evidence that Johnson kept changing his mind.

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Sunak does not accept that. He says Johnson liked to test arguments for policies. As you review the evidence, the decision might change. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” he says. He suggests this is “entirely normal”. It shows Johnson was “engaging with the process and hearing from different people”.

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Q: So you reject the argument made in this article, that No 10 did not fully accept the need for a trade-off between different interests when deciding lockdown policy?

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Sunak says that debate did not happen. With the first lockdown, it did not happen “particularly extensively”, because everything happened quickly, driven by the public health advice. But later there was more discussion.

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Q: Did you think cabinet was being sidelined, as some witnesses have said.

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Sunak says this is not his “strong recollection”.

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He says he was always able to give the PM advice.

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And he says the Covid-O and Covid-S system Boris Johnson set up – two cabinet committees, one dealing with operations, and another with strategy – made sense for Covid decision-making.

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He suggests the lack of a Covid taskforce at the start was a problem. But that was introduced.

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And he says this is a model that can be deployed again “off the shelf”.

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Q: And did you have a view as to how the Cabinet Office was performing was at the start?

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Sunak says those first few weeks were very difficult. He says people were doing the best they could. But, once the taskforce was in place, things worked better, he says.

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He says there are claims that decisions were not made in the right place. But his “strong recollection” is that they were. The Covid-O and Covid-S system worked well, he says.

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Sunak says the PM had to balance competing interests during Covid.

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Only he could do that, because only he saw all the competing arguments made by different cabinet ministers.

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Q: Did you see it as your job to promote the Treasury’s concerns about the economy? Or did you take a view as to what the ultimate decision should be?

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Sunak says it is difficult to generalise. It depends what the meeting was considering.

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It would be “context-specific”, he says.

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But his primary responsibility was to feed in information about the economic advice.

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If the PM asked him for a general view, he would give it.

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Q: And was the PM the ultimate decision maker. A lot of your advice just went to him.

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Sunak says the PM was the ultimate decision maker. That is not particularly controversial, he says.

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Hugo Keith KC, lead counsel for the inquiry, is questioning Sunak.

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He starts by saying Sunak, in his witness statement, says he does not use text messages or WhatsApp messages much.

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Your phone, you said, doesn’t retain, and nor do you have access to, text messages at all relating to the period of the crisis.

\n

In addition, you said although on occasion you use WhatsApp to communicate around meetings and logistics and so on, you generally were only party to WhatsApp groups that were set up to deal with individual circumstances such as arrangements for calls, meetings and so on and so forth. You don’t now have access to any of the WhatsApps that you did send during the time of the crisis, do you?

\n

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Sunak confirms that. He says:

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\n

I’ve changed my phone multiple times over the past few years and, as that has happened, the messages have not come across.

\n

As you said, I’m not a prolific user of WhatsApp in the first instance – primarily communication with my private office and obviously anything that was of significance through those conversations or exchanges would have been recorded officially by my civil servants as one would expect.

\n

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Rishi Sunak is giving evidence now.

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He starts by saing how sorry he is to all of who lost loves ones, and who suffered during the pandemic.

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UPDATE: Sunak said:

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\n

I just wanted to start by saying how deeply sorry I am to all of those who lost loved ones, family members, through the pandemic, and also all those who suffered in various different ways throughout the pandemic and as a result of the actions that were taken.

\n

I’ve thought a lot about this over the past couple of years. It’s important that we learn the lessons so that we can be better prepared in the future. It’s in that spirit and with enormous respect for all of those who are affected that I’m here today.

\n

I look forward to giving evidence in the spirit of constructive candour to help the inquiry with its deliberations.

\n

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The Covid inquiry has been getting a lot of criticism in the media in recent days, particularly from newspapers that have been critical of lockdown and supportive of Boris Johnson.

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Mostly the government has not commented on how the inquiry is proceeding. On Any Questions at the weekend Esther McVey, the rightwing Cabinet Office minister dubbed “minister for common sense” when she was appointed, did suggest that lockdown had been a mistake. She told the programme:

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\n

I’ve been perturbed with the inquiry, that it seems one dimensional at the moment. However, it is an independent inquiry and it has got some time to run.

\n

I do hope it asks the questions about the damage of lockdown, about why was no modelling done, that instead of going into lockdown we could have given advice to the public and how they would have reacted. Actually most of us are have got, I’m going to use the word common sense, and we would have protected the vulnerable, we would have looked after our own, we would have taken care and advice.

\n

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McVey also said that, as a backbencher, she has voted against lockdown.

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Nigel Farage was one of the few prominent rightwingers not being touted as a possible replacement for Rishi Sunak in the papers yesterday. But in their Mail on Sunday story, Glen Owen and Dan Hodges did quote one Tory suggesting he could be given a peerage and appointed home secretary. They said:

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\n

One Tory MP said: ‘When Farage comes back he’s going to be all over the airwaves, and he’s going to have us in his sights.’

\n

Another said: ‘Reform are going to kill us, so we have to buy Farage off. The plan is we get him into the Lords, give him some brief like we did with Cameron – maybe even home secretary – then go to the country with the dream team.

\n

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Among the Tories were touted as possible Sunak replacements were:

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Boris Johnson: In its story, the Mail on Sunday said:

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\n

The Mail on Sunday has spoken to multiple Conservative MPs who believe that bringing back the former premier is the only way to save the party from an election wipe-out …

\n

One red qall MP told the MoS: ‘I came out early to say [Johnson] had to go. But I think we have to think outside the box now. Whatever you feel about him, one thing no one can question is his effectiveness as a campaigner. And we need that now, we’re staring at obliteration.

\n

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Kemi Badenoch: The Sunday Times said the business and trade secretary is working on a leadership bid. In their story Tim Shipman and Harry Yorke said:

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\n

Cabinet colleagues accuse Kemi Badenoch, the trade secretary, of calling another minister to say: “The ship is heading for the rocks. What are we going to do about the captain?” One cabinet minister entertaining thoughts of a leadership run said: “Kemi’s people are already offering jobs. I know that because one of my people was approached.”

\n

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A source close to Badenoch told the paper this was untrue.

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Dame Priti Patel: The Mail on Sunday floated the idea that the former home secretary could installed as a caretaker prime minister while Johnson arranged to return to the Commons.

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Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg: The former Evening Standard editor Emily Sheffield posted this on X.

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No surprise that to hear Robert Jenrick is allegedly going around canvassing on his leadership chances. More surprised I was rung yesterday by one Tory to ask if I would join @Jacob_Rees_Mogg & his plan of ditching Sunak & parachuting in a new leader. Pure derangement.

— Emily Sheffield (@emilysheffield) December 9, 2023

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Sir Simon Clarke: This is what Alex Wickham and Kitty Donaldson said about the former levelling up secretary in their Bloomberg long read.

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\n

Some Tory lawmakers are plotting to oust him. Allies of his predecessor Liz Truss have held talks with colleagues about writing letters of no confidence in Sunak, and some want Simon Clarke, a rightwing backbencher, to challenge him, people familiar with those conversations said. Truss’s spokesman said she’s not plotting, while Clarke told Bloomberg he wants the government to succeed.

\n

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There are several other figures in the party also whose leadership ambitions are well known, such as Suella Braverman, the former home secretary.

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UPDATE: The Times today has another addition to this list.

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David Cameron: In his story Matt Dathan says:

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\n

Another ally of Johnson said the party’s fortunes were so dire that the former prime minister would struggle to win: “Even if he managed to secure a seat, what by-election can you imagine us winning,” the MP said.

\n

They said it would be easier to install Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton, the foreign secretary, as he has a winning record and is already in the House of Lords. Constitutionally the King could accept Cameron as prime minister so long as he agreed to stand for a Commons seat at an imminent general election.

\n

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Ever since he gave up leadership of the Brexit party, and let Richard Tice lead it under its new name, Reform UK, Nigel Farage has liked nothing more than teasing the media with hints about a possible comeback. He was at it again this morning, in an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain after finishing third in I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!

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Farage was asked if he wanted to rejoin the Conservative party, which he used to belong to until he left to help set up Ukip in the 1990s. He replied:

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\n

I am looking at a Conservative government that is in total shambles, facing tomorrow effectively a confidence vote on an issue that affects every single living human being in our country, namely immigration on a level that never happened even during Tony Blair’s days.

\n

Rishi [Sunak] is a lame duck walking. The Conservative party are headed for total defeat. As to whether I have a future in politics, I have no idea at this moment in time.

\n

But what I would say is never say never. And our country needs, actually, people at the top with some firm guidance as to where we’re going in the future. At the moment we are rudderless and I don’t see a Labour party with strength to get us out of this mess.

\n

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'Are you seeking to use your I'm a Celebrity journey to rejoin the Conservatives and finally get into the UK Parliament?'@edballs questions Nigel Farage over a return to politics after he came third in the I'm a Celebrity jungle 🐛🐞🐜 pic.twitter.com/sLU7RaFmuL

— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) December 11, 2023

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Good morning. Rishi Sunak is in “facing his worst week as prime minister” territory. All prime ministers have weeks that are described by the media as their most difficult yet, and this does not necessarily mean all his lost. Tony Blair was regularly having “worst weeks yet” throughout his entire 10-year premiership. But Sunak really is in a dire state. He is facing near-certain electoral defeat at some point in the next 13 months and now, for the first time since he became leader, there is real speculation about some sort of leadership challenge. In what will be seen by many non-Tories as a sign that the party is flirting with insanity, there has even been talk of a Boris Johnson comeback.

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Sunak faces two particular challenges today. First, he is spending most of the day at the Covid inquiry, where he is likely to face questions about his lockdown-sceptical stance as chancellor that led him to be nicknamed “Dr Death” by Prof Dame Angela McLean, who is now the government’s chief scientific adviser (presumably that did not come up at her interview). Sunak will also be asked about his “eat out to help out” scheme. Tom Ambrose has a preview here.

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But, more importantly, two groups of Conservative MPs will meet to decide their stance on the new Rwanda deportation bill that is getting its second reading in the Commons. This is the issue that is creating a division in the party deep enough to pose an existential threat to Sunak’s premiership. It seems likely the bill will pass tomorrow, but only because Tory MPs will put off the key fight until report stage after Christmas, when rightwingers will try to amend it in one direction, centrists will try yanking it in the opposite direction, and at that point there might be no bill left the party can unite around.

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Even if the bill survives the Commons, it is bound to face challenge in the House of Lords. But perhaps the biggest danger of all for Sunak is that the bill does become law – only for it to fail to totally to “stop the boats” because of ongoing legal challenges (which is what his critics are saying is bound to happen). Rowena Mason has the latest on this here.

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Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, was doing a media round this morning. He defended the bill, claiming that it would stop 99.5% of appeals against deportation. He told Times Radio:

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\n

I think my simple message is this plan is working, let’s unite behind it and get this further legislation through.

\n

This legislation, by the way, based on Home Office calculations means that of the cases which currently allow people to appeal, that only about one out of 200 cases ultimately would be able to get through that appeal. So this is a very significant, even dramatic move, designed to make the Rwanda route work.

\n

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Shapps was referring to Home Office modelling leaked to the Times. In his story Matt Dathan says:

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\n

The Home Office believes 99.5% of individual legal challenges submitted by migrants will fail to block their deportation to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak’s emergency law, leaked documents reveal.

\n

Modelling prepared by officials to assess the risk of individual legal challenges scuppering Rishi Sunak’s emergency Rwanda bill predicts nine in ten of all claims would be rejected with no right of appeal within ten days of their arrival in the UK …

\n

The department believes that of the 10% that are granted a hearing, 90% will be struck out at the second stage of the legal process. Only half of the remaining cases that are allowed to progress to an upper tribunal appeal would succeed and lead to the migrant remaining in the UK, according to the Home Office modelling.

\n

It means that if 1,000 migrants were to lodge individual legal challenges against their removal, 900 would be rejected at the first stage and only five migrants would ultimately succeed in blocking their deportation.

\n

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The Times: We will win legal battles on Rwanda,
say officials #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/IwmEKXDmQd

— George Mann (@sgfmann) December 10, 2023

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Here is the agenda for the day.

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10.30am: Rishi Sunak starts giving evidence to the Covid inquiry. He is due to give evidence all day.

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11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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Noon: Sir Bill Cash briefs members of the European Research Group and other rightwing Conservative groups in parliament on the findings of the ERG’s legal “star chamber” on the viability of the Rwanda bill.

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1.30pm: Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, holds talks with the main parties in Northern Ireland on efforts to resume power sharing at Stormont.

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3pm: Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, gives evidence to the Commons public accounts committee about the Rwanda deportation policy.

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6pm: The Conservative One Nation Caucus meets to consider its stance on the Rwanda bill.

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Key events

Keith asks Sunak about a line in the Spectator interview where Sunak said, referring to Sage: “If you empower all these independent people, you’re screwed.”

Sunak says he was referring to the need for policy decisions to be taken by politicians. And he suggests there may be a case for an economic counterpoint to Sage.

Keith returns to the Spectator interview with Sunak published in the summer of 2022. He asks about a line in the article saying Covid policy “being decided by half-explained graphs cooked up by outside academics”.

Sunak says those are not his words.

Lady Hallett, the chair, tells Keith that justifying the phrase is a question for the author, the Spectator editor Fraser Nelson.

Sunak says he does want to make a point about Sage, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. He says Sage’s views were presented as a consensus view.

But people did not realise how much divergence there was on Sage, he says.

Keith tells the inquiry that, while there is some evidence to suggest a link between use of the “eat out to help out” scheme and a rise in Covid cases, there is also other evidence showing that there was no correlation.

But he asks why the scheme was not extended.

Sunak says it was always intended to be temporary.

Sunak insists government’s science advisers had opportunity to raise concerns about ‘eat out to help out’ scheme

At the Covid inquiry Rishi Sunak insists that the government’s main scientific adviser, Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, and Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, had the opportunity to raise concerns about the “eat out to help out” scheme with him.

Sunak lists several meetings they attended, where they could have raised the topic but didn’t.

Hugo Keith KC said in their evidence Whitty and Vallance said they were not specifically consulted about this. If they had been, they would have advised against, he says.

Government publishes its legal assessment of Rwanda bill

The government has just published a summary of its legal assessment of the Rwanda bill.

And here is the summary at the end of the document.

As set out above, the treaty, bill and evidence together demonstrate Rwanda is safe for relocated individuals, that the government’s approach is tough but fair and lawful, that it has a justification in the UK’s constitution and domestic law, and it seeks to uphold our international obligations. This is a novel and contentious policy, and the UK and Rwanda are the first countries in the world to enact it together. There are risks inherent in such an innovative approach but there is a clear lawful basis on which a responsible government may proceed. For the reasons set out in this paper, a bill that sought to oust all individual claims would not provide such a basis.

This is not the same as the government’s internal legal advice, which is always kept private.

Sunak says many hospitality jobs would have been at risk ‘with devastating consequences’ without ‘eat out to help out’

At the Covid inquiry Hugo Keith KC is now asking directly about the “eat out to help out” scheme.

Rishi Sunak says the scheme was designed to come into force when safe lifting of other measures had been approved.

He says, without the scheme, many jobs would have been at risk “with devastating consequences”.

The consensus at Westminster has been that Conservative MPs will vote through the Rwanda bill tomorrow. The government has a working majority of 56, which means (roughly) that for the government to lose tomorrow night, 57 of them would have to abstain, or 29 of them would have to vote against. No Tory MP has yet said publicly they intend to vote against, and if the rightwingers or centrists want to amend the bill, they have to give it a second reading first.

But, according to Sky’s Beth Rigby, some ERG figures are now suggesting they would like to see the bill replaced altogether. They are not telling Sky they will vote down the bill, and to maximise their leverage it makes sense for them to keep No 10 guessing, but these comments do imply the bill might be in more jeopardy than previously assumed.

Francois tells me the consensus in the room was to pull the bill and revise it & come back to it.

Mark Francois is ERG chair.

NEW: Francois tells me the consensus in the room was to pull the bill and revise it & come back to it.

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) December 11, 2023

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NEW: Francois tells me the consensus in the room was to pull the bill and revise it & come back to it.

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) December 11, 2023

And David Jones, ERG deputy chair, said he doesn’t think the bill amendable in its current form, as he explains why they want bill pulled. So position hardening.

And David Jones, ERG deputy chair, said he doesn’t think the bill amendable in its current form, as he explains why they want bill pulled. So position hardening. https://t.co/PNVaBbJzCQ

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) December 11, 2023

\n\n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1734210700673769868″,”id”:”1734210700673769868″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”96f07101-c1ee-4304-9fdd-b9ea5676e3c7″}}” config=”{“renderingTarget”:”Web”,”darkModeAvailable”:false}”>

And David Jones, ERG deputy chair, said he doesn’t think the bill amendable in its current form, as he explains why they want bill pulled. So position hardening. https://t.co/PNVaBbJzCQ

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) December 11, 2023

At the briefing by the European Research Group earlier, Mark Francois, the ERG chair, was asked how his group would vote on the Rwanda bill. He replied:

You don’t always announce what you’re going to do well before the bell was ringing.

The briefing was also attended by Danny Kruger, co-chair of the New Conservatives, another group for rightwing Tory MPs. He said:

We’ll be discussing later with colleagues in light of the report that we’ve just received and having further conversations with government over the course of the next 24 hours.

Other groups invited were the Common Sense Group, the Conservative Growth Group and the Northern Research Group.

(In an act of mafia-chic hubris, some media reports have dubbed this lot the “five families”. But that may be more of a media invention than a term any of these Tories are using themselves. The memberships of the groups overlap a lot and it may be more helpful to think of them as just different iterations of the Tory right.)

Extracts from ERG’s ‘star chamber’ legal assessment of Rwanda bill

Rishi Sunak will want to know what the European Research Group is saying about his Rwanda bill. Here are the main conclusions from the 10-page document legal assessment of the bill produced by the ERG’s “star chamber”, led by Sir Bill Cash. (Bold text added by me.)

The bill overall provides a partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts being used as stratagems to delay or defeat the removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda, for the following reasons.

Most importantly, the bill contains no restrictions on the bringing of legal challenges against removal to Rwanda based on grounds other than that Rwanda is not a safe country. Many such individual claims have already been brought on a variety of other grounds, and it is to be expected that if the bill successfully blocks challenges based on contentions that Rwanda is not safe, then migrants and their advisers will focus more of their efforts on generating and pursuing challenges of other kinds.

The restriction in the bill is only against pursuing claims that Rwanda is unsafe for migrants removed there in general. Clause 4(1) expressly preserves the possibility of legal challenges to removal based on arguments that a person’s individual circumstances may lead to them being subject to a risk of refoulement and ill treatment. The treaty is intended to address such concerns. However, by allowing individual claims, appeals, and injunctions, the statutory scheme is open to significant levels of legal challenge. Experience to date in cases about attempted removal of illegal migrants to Rwanda demonstrates that individual challenges are likely to be numerous, and that they have had a high rate of success.

The bill’s threshold requirement for interim relief that there should be a risk of “serious and irreparable harm” is in practice much easier to surmount than the words might suggest, for example through the provision of medical statements of mental conditions which are not easy to prove or disprove (for example, suicidal ideation). There is a serious risk that there will be no, or very few, actual removals to Rwanda for months after the bill comes into force.

Clause 5 of the bill deals with interim measures of the Strasbourg court (so-called “rule 39 indications”) by stating that a minister of the crown may decide not to comply with them. In our view this does no more than restate the existing legal position, since (1) there are compelling arguments that rule 39 indications do not give rise to an obligation in international law to comply with them, and (2) in any event Strasbourg court rulings do not of themselves create obligations which are enforceable under domestic UK law. Perversely, the inclusion of ministerial decisions relating to rule 39 indications in clause 5(2) of the bill might give rise to a possibility of bringing judicial reviews against such decisions which would not otherwise arise. It would be preferable if the bill were positively to require such interim indications [ECtHR injunctions] to be disregarded when UK courts refuse interim relief.

The Covid inquiry has stopped for lunch. Rishi Sunak is off somewhere – no doubt to get briefed on the latest prouncement from the ERG.

Back at the Commons, the ERG is meeting again tonight, ITV’s Carl Dinnen reports.

The ERG and others won’t yet commit to how they plan to vote.

The ERG and others won’t yet commit to how they plan to vote.

— Carl Dinnen (@carldinnen) December 11, 2023

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The ERG and others won’t yet commit to how they plan to vote.

— Carl Dinnen (@carldinnen) December 11, 2023

They will meet again at 6pm to hear from Robert Jenrick.

They will meet again at 6pm to hear from Robert Jenrick.

— Carl Dinnen (@carldinnen) December 11, 2023

\n\n”,”url”:”https://twitter.com/carldinnen/status/1734196877971603457″,”id”:”1734196877971603457″,”hasMedia”:false,”role”:”inline”,”isThirdPartyTracking”:false,”source”:”Twitter”,”elementId”:”6e77113f-5569-4f55-a100-f9d2a6e46805″}}” config=”{“renderingTarget”:”Web”,”darkModeAvailable”:false}”>

They will meet again at 6pm to hear from Robert Jenrick.

— Carl Dinnen (@carldinnen) December 11, 2023

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