Rishi Sunak in danger of losing his Premiership

Rishi Sunak, 42, the Indian-origin British Prime Minister, is fighting with his back to the wall to save his premiership as well as his political career. Sunak, who has staked his future on passing an immigration bill in the British Parliament, which, he thinks, will ensure asylum seekers to the United Kingdom are sent to Rwanda and consequently deter such people from illegally coming to Britain. The United Kingdom has signed an agreement with Rwanda to despatch illegal immigrants to the east African country. Summoning a media conference on Thursday, he told journalists the bill will make prospect of courts blocking any deportation decision “vanishingly rare”. He said: “That means that this bill blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off.” Three weeks ago, the UK’s Supreme Court struck down the move as in its view, the policy was unlawful, violated human rights, among other contraventions. It also felt Rwanda was not a safe place. Commenting on this, Sunak said: “You had better believe we’ve blocked those too (in the bill).” He emphasised the UK was also willing to ignore injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights. However, passage of the bill in the House of Commons next week has boiled down to a confidence vote on Sunak. The main opposition Labour party, the Scottish nationalists and the Liberal Democrats are determined to oppose it. If about 28 ruling Conservative party MPs join them, the legislation could in fact be defeated. Perhaps most vocal among the dissatisfied Conservative MPs is Suella Braverman, whose father is Goan and mother Tamil and who was last month sacked as Home Secretary in the Sunak government. She and her allies want the bill to go further by disapplying the European convention on human rights in entirety. The Guardian newspaper commented: “It is not yet clear whether his (Sunak’s) legal arguments are as robust as his rhetoric, and today he sounded more uncer