UK PM Sunak Survives Crunch Vote On Controversial Rwanda Policy
by Abdul Aziz Mondal News 13 December 2023
British PM Rishi Sunak, on the night of Tuesday, survived a vote crunch in Parliament as none of the MAs in his party voted against the Safety of Rwanda Bill by the government.
The vote in the House of Commons passed by 313 to 296, with a majority of 44 votes. Almost 38 Conservative MPs were on the record for not taking part in the vote, with resigned Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick and sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman among them.
Previously, Sunak launched a charm offensive at 10 Downing Street in a bid to win out MPs from among his Conservative Party who were threatening to pose a rebel against the bill, which aimed at overcoming legal obstacles that would come up in the way to deportation illegal migrants to the East African nations.
Ahead of the earliest stage of the vote over the Bill, Sunak had hosted a breakfast summit for all the Tory rebels over the extreme right of the party who are opposing the bill because they feel like the bill is not stern enough to circumvent all the legal challenges.
However, the extreme centrist Tories are totally against the “toughest anti-immigration law” to ever be toughened further to threaten the human rights obligations in the UK.
With the opposition voting against it, the Tory rebels either voting for abstinence or against it in the vote of Tuesday night was witnessed as a total test of the authority that Sunak exercises over his own party.
Over 40 members belonging to the Tory right mentioned how they were going to vote against it or abstain from it.
Sunak’s breakfast charm offensive beyond the weekly Cabinet meeting was proof that he was not the first Prime Minister in the UK in almost 40 years who faced defeat over a vote at this much of an early stage in the government bill.
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