By Andrew MacAskill, Elizabeth Piper and Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defeated an initial right-wing rebellion in his party on Tuesday over legislation to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, a victory of sorts that prompted two of his most vocal supporters to resign.
The resignations of two Conservative vice-chairmen underlined the deep divisions in Sunak’s governing party over legislation he believes is crucial in turning round the Conservatives’ popularity before an election this year.
Some Conservative lawmakers say the legislation, which aims to block asylum seekers bringing further court challenges against their deportations, goes too far and others that it does not go far enough.
The government comfortably defeated the rebels’ bid to make two changes to strengthen the law late on Tuesday. But Sunak only won because most opposition parties voted against the rebels.
He faces a show-down on Wednesday, when, unless the legislation is changed, some Conservatives are threatening to vote against the government at its final parliamentary stage in the House of Commons, the lower house of parliament.
One senior lawmaker said the rebels had the numbers to defeat Sunak in the final vote.
“There is zero purpose in putting in place a piece of legislation that doesn’t work,” he said, adding the rebels only needed half of those who backed the amendments to defeat the government in the final vote.
Sunak has made stopping arrivals of asylum seekers crossing over from France on small boats a central aim of his government.
Most of them say they are fleeing wars and abuse in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. The British government says about 90% making the journey are men and many of them economic migrants rather than genuine refugees.
‘DIVIDED PARTIES FAIL’
Sunak faced the most serious threat to his leadership last month when he saw off a potential revolt by dozens of his lawmakers at the first parliamentary vote on the legislation.
The government comfortably won that vote after some lawmakers decided to abstain rather than oppose it, but some warned they could vote down the legislation at later stages.
Almost 60 Conservative members of parliament supported an amendment that would have prevented international law from blocking deportations.
Isaac Levido, the Conservative Party’s election strategist, told lawmakers at a closed-doors meeting late on Monday the party faced defeat at this year’s national election unless they ended their infighting.
“Let me be clear. Divided parties fail,” Levido said, according to a Conservative official.
Conservative Party Deputy Chairmen Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith said they had resigned over the government’s lack of willingness to toughen the legislation.
“Whilst our main wish is to strengthen the legislation, this means that in order to vote for amendments we will therefore need to offer you our resignations,” Anderson and Clarke-Smith said in a joint letter.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Elizabeth Piper, Sachin Ravikumar, Alistair Smout and Michael Holden; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Tomasz Janowski and Jonathan Oatis)
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