Questions of no-confidence rise at Sunak's Rwanda conference
Transcript
00:00 Hello, Rafe Blackburn, National World Politics Editor here in Westminster.
00:03 I've just come out of a press conference with Rishi Sunak where he is clinging to his job,
00:10 I guess.
00:11 Now, the press conference itself was about his new Rwanda bill, which he says has gone
00:16 farther than any UK legislation before in terms of ensuring that the rule of Parliament
00:23 is sovereign.
00:25 The basic aim of this bill is to disapply certain sections of UK law and stop any legal
00:30 challenges to sending asylum seekers to Rwanda as Parliament, in theory, declares that Rwanda
00:39 is safe.
00:40 That was the bill he was bringing through last night.
00:45 It started in Parliament last night.
00:46 I was there to witness that.
00:47 And his immigration minister, Robert Jenrick, was not on the front benches with him.
00:53 So, basically what this means is Robert Jenrick and a part of the right of the Conservative
00:58 Party are not happy with this bill.
01:00 They don't think it goes far enough.
01:03 And he resigned last night, which completely caught Rishi Sunak by surprise.
01:08 And it's kind of threatened to bring down his whole premiership as if when the bill
01:14 goes to vote, a large chunk of the Conservatives vote against it.
01:19 It will essentially be a confidence vote in Rishi Sunak because he can't command a majority
01:26 in Parliament and can't get legislation through.
01:29 It's a similar thing to happen with Theresa May and the Brexit laws.
01:34 Now, that was why he called this press conference this morning.
01:37 He said he was very confident the bill would get passed.
01:41 He said it was the toughest bit of legislation the UK has ever passed in relation to this.
01:46 However, when questions were asked about him, is this a confidence vote?
01:51 Will you call an election if you lose it?
01:53 He said, no, it's not.
01:55 And he said the question is actually for the Labour Party.
01:58 Now, to me, that came across as if he was looking a bit desperate, as really the issues
02:05 here very much are with Rishi Sunak and this 140 million plus bit of legislation, which
02:10 still hasn't sent a migrant to Rwanda.
02:13 And he kept saying, you know, the question is for the Labour Party.
02:16 They need to come up with a solution.
02:17 They need to come up with a policy.
02:20 Actually the question is for Rishi Sunak and whether he will be able to get this bill passed
02:24 government and if not, we might either have our sixth Conservative Prime Minister of the
02:28 last 13 years and that would be the fourth in the last 18 months.
02:33 Or we might have another election.
02:37 So yeah, a lot of questions for Rishi Sunak.
02:42 My name is Rene Blackburn.
02:43 I'm the Politics Editor of Nationalworld.com based here in Westminster.
02:46 You can follow all of our politics story online or on our app.
02:51 Thank you.
02:52 [END]
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