Sir Keir Starmer today demanded Rishi Sunak call a general election should he lose a crunch House of Commons vote on the Rwanda migrant scheme tonight.
The Labour leader attempted to pile the pressure on the Prime Minister as Mr Sunak bids to rally Tory support for his latest effort to revive the beleaguered asylum plan.
Sir Keir confirmed Labour would scrap the Rwanda scheme if his party enters government as he attacked it as a ‘gimmick’ and claimed it ‘isn’t going to work’.
He swiped that £290million of taxpayers’ cash had ‘already been wasted’ on the plan ‘for nothing’ in return.
The PM is spending the day scrambling to win support among Tory MPs for his Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
The emergency legislation has been drafted by Mr Sunak as an attempt to get past the Supreme Court’s block on plans to send asylum seekers to Africa.
Sir Keir Starmer demanded Rishi Sunak call a general election should he lose a crunch House of Commons vote on the Rwanda migrant scheme tonight
But Tory right-wingers have urged the PM to ‘pull the Bill’ and come up with ‘completely new legislation’ amid their concern it isn’t tough enough to avoid future legal challenges.
It has left Mr Sunak facing the humiliating prospect of suffering defeat at the Second Reading of the Bill in the Commons tonight, which would be the first such loss for a Government since 1986.
Asked whether the PM should call an immediate general election should he lose this evening, Sir Keir said: ‘If the PM loses the vote then of course he should call a general election.
‘I think there should be a general election as soon as possible – we are in the middle of a cost-of-living country that is worse in this country than many other countries.’
Yet the Labour leader predicted Mr Sunak would ‘easily’ win the vote on his emergency legislation later.
He said: ‘It’ll go through tonight, I don’t doubt. There’ll be a lot of shouting and screaming but in the end, it’ll go through.
‘The PM’s got an 80-seat majority. We shouldn’t even be having a discussion about whether he’s going to get his basic legislation through.
‘Government hasn’t lost a second reading vote since 1986. This is a Government with a majority.
‘So I don’t think we should allow them the indulgence of pretending it’s going to be tight and he’s done a brilliant job to get it over the line.
‘He’s got an 80-seat majority, he should get it over the line very, very easily.’
Sir Keir commented on tonight’s vote as he answered questions from reporters after using a speech to blast the latest Tory ‘psychodrama’ over the Rwanda plan.
He claimed Britain was being left ‘ungoverned’ while Conservatives ‘fight like rats in a sack’.
In a direct pitch to disgruntled Conservative voters, Sir Keir sought to compare his focus on the ‘mundane stuff’ of governing Britain to the latest Tory chaos.
He also continued his bid to try and reassure voters that Labour had changed since the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
Sir Keir delivered the speech in Buckinghamshire on the fourth anniversary of the 2019 general election.
That contest saw Labour lose swathes of seats in the traditional heartlands as the party, under Mr Corbyn’s leadership, suffered their worst defeat since the 1930s.
Sir Keir, who has branded the Rwanda plan a ‘gimmick’, delivered a speech in Buckinghamshire on the fourth anniversary of the 2019 general election
Sir Keir attacked the ‘circus’ in Westminster as the Prime Minister scrambles to win support among Tory MPs for his Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill
Reflecting on Labour’s loss in 2019, Sir Keir said: ‘Working people up and down our country looked at my party, looked at the journey we’d been on – not just under Jeremy Corbyn, but for a while. And they said “no”.
‘We’d taken a leave of absence from our job description. Reneged on an old partnership – the Labour bargain that we serve working people – as they drive our country forward.
‘Everything I’ve done as leader, every fight I’ve had, has been to reconnect us to that purpose.
‘If you want a government committed to economic stability, the rule of law, good public services, restoring Britain’s standing, making family life more secure and putting the country first, this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver.’
Sir Keir attacked the ‘circus’ in Westminster as the Prime Minister scrambles to win support among Tory MPs for his Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill.
The emergency legislation has been drafted by Mr Sunak as an attempt to get past the Supreme Court’s block on plans to send asylum seekers to Africa.
But Tory right-wingers have urged the PM to ‘pull the Bill’ and come up with ‘completely new legislation’ amid their concern it isn’t tough enough to avoid future legal challenges.
Commenting on the latest Tory infighting, which has been compared to the party’s deep divisions over Brexit, Sir Keir said: ‘We’re all stuck in their psychodrama, all being dragged down to their level.’
‘While they’re all swanning around self-importantly with their factions and their “Star Chambers”, fighting like rats in a sack, there’s a country out here that isn’t being governed.’
The Labour leader warned those who previously voted Conservative that the change to the country would come ‘from a Tory fifth term’.
‘It’s about doing the basics better. The mundane stuff. The bureaucratic stuff,’ he added.
‘Busting the backlogs, rebuilding a functioning asylum system, removing people more quickly so you don’t have to run up hotel bills, and cross-border police force that can smash the smuggler gangs at source.’
In a series of TV and radio interviews this morning ahead of his speech, Sir Keir confirmed Labour would cancel the Rwanda plan if they win the general election.
He dismissed the scheme as a ‘gimmick’ and piece of political ‘performance art’.
Sir Keir told BBC Breakfast that Labour would use the money ‘being wasted on the Rwanda scheme’ to step up cross-border policing to tackle human trafficking gangs.
‘What I wouldn’t do, and what I won’t vote for, is £290 million spent on a gimmick that is the Rwanda scheme, that won’t work, at the very most will take about 100 people,’ he said.
‘We’ve got 160,000 people waiting for their asylum claims to be processed, so it’s a drop in the ocean.
‘It costs a fortune and, as we learnt from the Prime Minister when he finally admitted it last week, the deal be struck will also involve Rwanda sending their refugees across to the United Kingdom.
‘It’s a gimmick, it won’t work, it is performance art. What I would do is do the more mundane, sleeves-rolled-up, practical work to stop this vile trade in the first place.’