A former Tory chairman says he’ll “fight until the very end” to cease Rishi Sunak’s newest Rwanda Bill passing.
Lord Deben, who served below Margaret Thatcher, mentioned the Iron Lady would by no means have accepted the Government’s actions, describing present leaders as “unconservative”. The blistering remarks come as Tory grandees within the House of Lords push again over plans to declare Rwanda is a secure nation to ship asylum seekers to.
In November the Supreme Court declared it isn’t secure and mentioned the scheme was illegal. Lord Deben, who was social gathering chairman from 1983 to 1985, advised Andrew Marr on LBC: “I shall fight it until the very end because I think it is one of the worst things that you can do to pretend that governments can decide the truth, the last time we did that was in the 16th century, we’ve never done it in-between.” And on what Mrs Thatcher’s response to the Safety of Rwanda Bill could be, he mentioned: ‘She would by no means have produced this, she believed within the rule of regulation.” He added: “She knew Conservatives had been concerning the rule of regulation.”
In a dig at Mr Sunak, who has spoken of his admiration for Mrs Thatcher, Lord Deben mentioned: “I think she’d say [today’s Conservative Party] wasn’t Conservative and that comes from someone who was in a rather different part of the Conservative Party than me, but we shared all those basic beliefs and I fear that this government doesn’t.”
The opposition of Thatcher-era Tory heavyweights has been in full view throughout two days of debates within the House of Lords this week. Lord Tugendhat, whose nephew is Tom Tugendhat, was among the many Lords who savaged Rishi Sunak’s Safety of Rwanda Bill. The former Tory MP mentioned: “I’ve been a member of the Conservative Party for some 66 years and I find it quite extraordinary that the party of Margaret Thatcher should be introducing a bill of this kind.”
Lord Tugendhat mentioned Mrs Thatcher would by no means have supported laws which undermined the rule of regulation. He went on: “What we’re being asked to do really represents the sort of behaviour, My Lords, that the world associates with despots and autocracies, not with an established democracy, not with the Mother of Parliaments. It is a Bill we should not even be asked to confront, let alone pass.”
And former Tory Home Secretary Lord Ken Clarke mentioned he hopes the Bill is struck down by the courts if it passes. He advised friends: “I continue to be completely flabbergasted by the constitutional implications of the government acting in this way.” He mentioned he hadn’t anticipated ministers to reply to the Supreme Court ruling by making an attempt to cross a regulation declaring Rwanda a secure place to ship asylum seekers.
Lord Clarke went on: “I think it sets an extremely dangerous precedent. For that reason, I very much hope that there will be a legal challenge which will enable the Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional in due course. But the better step would be for Parliament not to pass the legislation in the first place.”