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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Rafe Blackburn, National World's Politics Editor
00:11 here in Westminster.
00:12 I've just come out of Downing Street,
00:14 having listened to Rishi Sunak's latest speech
00:17 on his Rwanda bill,
00:19 which is the legislation he wants to pass
00:22 so that Parliament can state that Rwanda is a safe country
00:26 and he can start deporting asylum seekers there
00:29 to try and act as a deterrent.
00:31 Now, he framed this in a very clear way.
00:34 The Conservatives, Sunak, his government,
00:37 they have a plan that is working,
00:39 while the Labour Party, Labour Peers in the House of Lords,
00:42 which have continued to delay the bill,
00:45 they don't have a plan
00:48 and they don't actually want to stop the people smugglers.
00:51 So let's hear a little bit of what Rishi Sunak had to say.
00:55 - Last week, yet again,
00:58 Labour Peers in the House of Lords
00:59 contrived to stop the safety of Rwanda bill.
01:02 For almost two years,
01:03 our opponents have used every trick in the book
01:06 to block flights and keep the boats coming.
01:09 But enough is enough.
01:11 No more prevarication, no more delay.
01:14 Parliament would sit there tonight
01:16 and vote no matter how late it goes.
01:19 No ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda.
01:23 We are going to deliver this indispensable deterrent
01:26 so that we finally break the business model
01:28 of the criminal gangs and save lives.
01:31 - So as you can hear there,
01:32 Sunak is clearly blaming the Labour Peers in the Lords
01:35 and he says he will make Parliament sit all night
01:38 until this bill is passed.
01:39 At the moment, the bill is in the ping pong stage
01:42 where the Commons sends it to the Lords
01:44 and then the Lords are able to make amendments.
01:46 Now, usually, as the House of Lords is unelected,
01:50 they allow the Commons to have their say
01:54 as the primacy of the elected House.
01:56 However, in this case, they're really putting their foot down
02:00 and are continuing to insist on two specific amendments,
02:04 one of which will mean that people
02:08 who work for the UK abroad,
02:09 so specific, particularly interpreters from Afghanistan
02:13 who work for the UK forces there,
02:15 they would not be sent to Rwanda
02:17 and also they want the government's
02:19 independent monitoring committee
02:21 to decide when Rwanda is safe.
02:24 However, Sunak keeps rejecting these
02:27 and he says he's gonna make them sit all night.
02:29 And the interesting thing about the speech just there
02:32 is A, I thought he appeared a bit more positive,
02:36 he had a bit more of a spring in his step
02:37 than in the previous speeches he's given about Rwanda.
02:40 And he very clearly set out what I think is gonna be
02:46 his argument going into the election
02:48 and that is that we have got flights off the ground.
02:52 I'm assuming he's gonna call the election
02:55 after he gets flights off the ground.
02:56 He said that would happen in about 12 weeks.
02:59 We have a plan that we're embarking on
03:02 to bring about this deterrent.
03:04 However, the Labour Party, they do not.
03:07 And I think he's gonna try and make it
03:09 a single issue election to try and hold off the reform votes
03:16 and also bring back some of those red wall voters
03:19 that lent their vote to the Conservative Party
03:21 for the first time in 2019.
03:22 The issue is that if you look at opinion polls
03:26 and focus groups, actually the number of people
03:29 who say illegal immigration is their main priority
03:34 is quite a small number.
03:35 A lot of it is current Conservative voters,
03:39 but of the wider voting population,
03:41 it's way below the cost of living and the economy.
03:44 And people are still thinking about their high mortgage rates
03:48 after Liz Truss' mini budget.
03:50 So, Rishi Suniak has clearly set out his store
03:54 going forward with the bill and also the next election.
03:57 The question is, will that do anything
04:00 to change Labour's pretty big poll lead,
04:03 which so far has not budged for months and months.
04:07 So, thank you very much for listening
04:09 to another episode of Politics Uncovered.
04:11 You can find all of our politics articles
04:15 on the politics section
04:17 of the nationalworld.com website or app.
04:19 (upbeat music)
04:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]