It’s too late to replace Sunak so Tories must ‘march towards the sound of the guns’, Ben Wallace says – as it happened

• Ben Wallace, the Tory former defence secretary, has said it is too late for Conservative MPs to replace Rishi Sunak as PM and that they should instead focus on the election and on marching “towards the sound of the guns”. (See 1.50pm.) He was speaking after a weekend where the political news was dominated by claims relating to different Tory factions plotting against Sunak. Sunak himself said today this sort of Westminster leadership chatter “doesn’t matter”. (See 12.17pm.)

• Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, has claimed that the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill turns parliament into a laughing stock. In a debate on Lords amendments to the bill, which says Rwanda should be regarded as a safe country even though a supreme court ruling said the opposite, Kinnock said:

At the end of the day you cannot legislate to turn dogs into cats. You cannot legislate for the sky to be green and the grass to be blue. It is basic tenet of the respect with which our institutions should be treated that to put this kind of absurd legislation is frankly turning our institutions into a laughing stock.

Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, said the government was opposed to all the Lords amendments, which strengthen safeguards for asylum seekers in various ways, and MPs are expected to vote to remove them all from the bill in votes later. (See 3.13pm and 3.49pm.)

The former environment minister Zac Goldsmith has been banned from driving for a year after he was caught speeding seven times last year, PA Media reports. PA says:

The Conservative peer broke speed limits in his hybrid electric Volkswagen Golf on London roads in Paddington, Chelsea and Twickenham between April and November 2023.

He was also caught speeding on two motorways, most recently in December, Westminster magistrates court heard.

As he disqualified the Tory environmentalist from driving, District Judge Daniel Sternberg warned that drivers who speed “emit more harmful emissions” even in hybrid and electric cars.

Goldsmith’s offences included doing 29mph and 28mph in a 20mph zones, doing 46mph and 47mph in 40mph zones, and doing 62mph and 73mph on the motorway in areas where a 50mph limit was in place.

In the Commons MPs are now debating the Lords amendments to the Rwanda bill.

Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, is opening on behalf of the government. He says the government opposes all Lords amendments.

Turning to the amendment requiring the bill to comply with domestic and international law, Tomlinson says this is unnecessary because there is nothing in the bill that conflicts with the UK’s international obligations.

One Labour MP, Stella Creasy, and two DUP MPs, Jim Shannon and Sammy Wilson, make interventions suggesting that the bill could undermine the Good Friday agreement. Tomlinson dismisses their concerns.

UPDATE: Tomlinson said:

I don’t accept that the provisions of the bill undermine the rule of law, and the government takes its responsibilities and its international obligations incredibly seriously.

And there’s nothing in the bill that requires any act or omission which conflicts with our international obligations …

This bill is based on both Rwanda’s and the United Kingdom’s compliance with international law in the form of a treaty, which itself recognises and reflects the international legal obligations of both the United Kingdom and also of Rwanda.

Barack Obama, the former US president, has made a surprise visit to Downing Street. He is in London and chose to pay a courtesy visit to Rishi Sunak, we’re told.

This is a useful reminder as to why most people at Westminster have been assuming that Sunak will delay the general election for as long as possible. There are not many jobs in the world where someone like Obama would decide to drop in to say hello. By comparison, Sunak’s next one will be a disappointment.

Obama won his election with the slogan “Yes we can”. Given Sunak’s current polling, “No we can’t” might be a more accurate description of his plight, and even Obama might struggle to offer him useful advice.

But Obama has been helpful to Keir Starmer. In his new biography of the Labour leader, Tom Baldwin says Starmer had a couple of lengthy conversations with the former president in 2020 which helped the Labour leader think about how he could talk about his toolmaker father to make a wider political point about the importance of respect. Baldwin says:

Around this time, Starmer had a couple of lengthy Zoom chats with Barack Obama, organised by David Lammy, a member of the shadow cabinet who has been friends with Obama since their days at Harvard University together. ‘When Keir started talking about his dad, he got quite emotional,’ says Lammy, ‘and Barack just came alive.’ The former American president’s political rise had been accelerated by the popularity of Dreams from My Father, his autobiographical book about race and his relationship with a largely absentee Kenyan dad. ‘He started interrogating Keir further and drawing on his own challenging background,’ says Lammy. ‘Barack is one of the best storytellers of his generation and he could see something in what Keir was telling him that could become the architecture for a genuine campaign; one where we could talk more about how too many people have been looked down upon by the Establishment, and how too often working-class people have struggled to find their voice in recent decades.’

Baldwin’s book is a great read, for reasons I explained in a post last week.

MPs will shortly debate the 10 amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill passed by the House of Lords. At the No 10 lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson indicated that the government would seek to remove all of them, and restore the bill to the form it was in when it left the Commons. The spokesperson said:

We have previously set out that we believe the bill as it stands, is the right bill to get flights off to Rwanda this spring.

But the Law Society of England and Wales has said MPs should accept the Lords amendments. Its president, Nick Emmerson, said:

The safety of Rwanda bill is a defective, constitutionally improper piece of legislation.

It undermines the rule of law and the UK’s constitutional balance, limits access to justice and ultimately will prove to be unworkable.

While the bill remains fundamentally flawed, peers have managed to make important improvements to the legislation in the House of Lords.

These changes reduce the negative impact on the rule of law and constitutional boundaries and strengthen safeguards to protect the most vulnerable.

It is vital that these improvements are maintained. Removing them would be a drastic blow to both the constitution and the safety of vulnerable individuals, including children and victims.

The Law Society also issued this summary of what the Lords amendments do:

Ensuring the intention to maintain compliance with domestic and international law is on the face of the bill.

Requiring the treaty with Rwanda to be fully implemented before people are removed there and ensuring Parliament’s ongoing oversight of its operation.

Allowing the courts to find Rwanda unsafe if presented with credible evidence.

Allowing appeals in age disputes to avoid the potential removal of unaccompanied children.

Ensuring victims of modern slavery and human trafficking are protected from removal.

Maintaining protections for those at the highest risk of harm if removed to Rwanda.

The Lords is due to consider the bill again on Wednesday. If peers refuse to back down, and insist on pressing again all or some of their amendments, it is expected that the bill will not become law until after the Easter recess.

Ultimately is it expected that peers will back down, as the Labour peer Jeff Rooker explained on X yesterday.

Yes in end Lords will give way after 2/3 ping pongs due to a) the Tory government must own the policy b) too late to use Parliament Act. c) we are not elected.

Sadiq Khan accused the Tories of an “abject failure” to tackle the housing crisis as he launched his mayoral campaign with a pledge to build 40,000 new council homes by the end of the decade, PA Media reports. PA says:

In a speech alongside Keir Starmer, he said London would go “much further, much faster” with Labour running both Downing Street and City Hall.

Khan promised to unleash “the greatest council housebuilding drive in a generation” and to double his previous goal to start building 20,000 council homes, which he hit last year.

Describing the mayoral election on May 2 as a “two-horse race” and the “closest contest ever” between himself and the Conservatives’ Susan Hall, he said the vote would “determine whether London’s brightest days are ahead of us or behind us”.

Khan touted the “rare, precious” prospect of Labour rule in both Downing Street and City Hall, saying Starmer’s victory at the general election would mean the capital could “go from rowing against the tide of a Tory government to having the winds of a Labour government at our backs”.

In a plea to voters to re-elect him, the mayor said this presents a “once-in-a-generation opportunity to make real inroads into solving London’s housing crisis” and “end the scandal of rough sleeping”.

He said: “There’s been one constant – an abject failure on [the Conservative government’s] behalf to appreciate the gravity of this crisis. We saw it when the last home secretary claimed homelessness is, quote, a lifestyle choice. We saw it last week when the latest housing minister said housing is never really the problem.”

In a display of strengthened ties between the London mayor and the Labour leadership, Starmer described Khan as “my friend Sadiq” with whom he could “bring about huge change” as he spoke at the campaign launch in central London.

“The idea of me working with my friend Sadiq across London, the mayor of London and a Labour government working together – that will transform so many lives,” he said.

Starmer also praised the mayor’s commitment to clean-air, after last year refusing to back the expansion of the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) and calling on Khan to “reflect” on the policy.

“I say to people who challenge me on cleaner air, I’ve got two kids. They’re 15 and 13. I wouldn’t give them dirty water to drink and I wouldn’t want them to breathe in dirty air,” he said.

Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, came out with a good soundbite about the leadership, and a possible challenge to Rishi Sunak, this morning. He said it was too late to replace Sunak, and that it was now time for Tory MPs to “march towards the sound of the guns”. He told Times Radio:

There comes a moment in time in the electoral cycle where you effectively put on your best suit, you stand up and you march towards the sound of the guns and you get on with it.

Rishi Sunak is the prime minister. He set out his plan. He set out his idea and vision, which I think is to, quite rightly, fix the economy, get inflation down. If we get inflation down, we can see interest rates drop.

Whether colleagues are happy with him or not, it’s too late, right. Get on with it. Stand up. And at some stage this year commit to engage in the general election and put our best case forward. There is no other alternative. And that’s just the reality of it.

This may be a more realistic message than what has been said by other Tories supporting Sunak (eg Mark Harper on the broadcast round yesterday), although it does not count as an enthusiastic endorsement.

Intentionally or not, Wallace was (more or less) quoting the Liberal leader Joe Grimond, who told his party in a famous speech in 1963:

In bygone days, the commanders were taught that when in doubt they should march their troops towards the sound of gunfire. I intend to march my troops towards the sound of gunfire. Politics are a confused affair and the fog of political controversy can obscure many issues. But we will march towards the sound of the guns.

But Wallace, a former soldier (like Grimond, who served in the second world war), won’t be heading towards the sound of gunfire himself at the general election. He is not standing again as a candidate.

Last year the Home Office published an impact assessment saying it would cost the government £169,000 per person to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. Today the IPPR, a centre-left thinktank, has published an analysis claiming that the scheme would now cost £230,000 per person.

It also says the scheme would need to deter 77% of potential new small boat arrivals to save the government money. This is “highly unlikely”, it says. Last year the Home Office said the scheme would break even if it achieved a 37% deterrent effect.

And the IPPR says that, if the government were to send all 20,000-odd people who have arrived in the UK on small boats since the Illegal Migration Act was passed to Rwanda, as in theory it is committed to doing, that could cost up to £3.9bn.

Marley Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at the IPPR, said:

Aside from the ethical, legal and practical objections, the Rwanda scheme is exceptionally poor value for money. For it to break even, it will need to show a strong deterrent effect, for which there is no compelling evidence. Under the government’s plans, billions could be sent to Rwanda to remove people who have already arrived irregularly since the Illegal Migration Act was passed. The only winner from this scheme appears to be the Rwandan government itself, which has already secured hundreds of millions without doing much at all.

A report from the National Audit Office published earlier this month suggested that, if just 300 people were to go to Rwanda, the cost per person would be £1.8m.