Get behind my Rwanda asylum plan, Rishi Sunak tells Tories

Rishi Sunak has urged MPs to back his Rwanda asylum plan, after senior Tories warned him it was doomed to fail.

The PM was forced to call a news conference to shore up his authority after Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick quit over the revised policy.

Mr Jenrick said a law aimed at reviving the policy “did not go far enough”.

Mr Sunak said he was wrong – but insisted a Commons vote on the bill next week would not be a matter of confidence in his government.

When asked he if he would throw Tory MPs who defied him out of the party, Mr Sunak said “no”, the vote was about “confidence in Parliament to demonstrate that it gets the British people’s frustration”.

This suggests Tory critics of the Rwanda plan will be able to vote against it without fear of being suspended from the parliamentary Conservative Party.

The scheme to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda, in east Africa, for processing was first announced by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson in April 2022.

Mr Sunak has made it the most high-profile part of his pledge to “stop the boats”, claiming it will deter people from attempting to cross the English Channel.

But it has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges and no asylum seekers have been sent to Rwanda from the UK yet.