Rishi Sunak news – live: PM urges mutinous Tories to ‘unite or die’ over Rwanda ahead of key vote

Sacked home secretary Suella Braverman has praised Robert Jenrick – who this week voluntarily followed her out of the door of the Home Office – for “putting principle before career”, as she shared his Telegraph op-ed warning that Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda legislation is doomed to fail.

“He knows the detail. It is very concerning that he can’t defend the Bill,” Ms Braverman said, in a blow to Mr Sunak as he hopes to persuade MPs to back him in Tuesday’s vote.

She added: “The public are relying on us to stop the boats. What do we say to them when we pass another law that fails? Time is running out.”

Former Tory minister David Lidington has rejected a suggestion that Rishi Sunak should call an early general election if he fails to pass his Rwanda legislation through parliament and seek to make it a single-issue vote on immigration.

“There’s a case both for & against an early GE but (whatever PM wanted) can’t see it being a single issue campaign. That’s what Ted Heath discovered in Feb 1974,” he tweeted, referring to the former Tory leader’s decision to call an election seeking to wrest power away from unions.

And as Matt Chorley of Times Radio notes, the Tories have been polling lower than Labour on immigration since last September, according to YouGov’s tracker.

Rishi Sunak must be investigated over whether he breached the ministerial code by failing to declare a £100m payment to Rwanda, the Liberal Democrats have urged his ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus.

The payment – sent to Kigali in April on top of the £140m already paid – was only revealed eight months later in a letter to MPs sent by the Home Office’s top civil servant, Sir Matthew Rycroft, on Thursday.

Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine urged Mr Magnus to investigate what appeared to be a “clear breach” of the ministerial code, calling it “outrageous” that the public was “kept in the dark about the true costs of the Rwanda deal for eight months”.

“The public deserves transparency, not hushed-up backroom dealings. We need an urgent inquiry to get to the bottom of this,” she said.

While Sir Laurie can privately raise matters that could have been breaches of the rules, he cannot launch an investigation without approval from the prime minister.

Britain is facing a surge in salmonella cases due to a lack of post-Brexit quality checks on food, a union has warned.

The National Farmers Union told The Independent that the UK was seeing recurring cases of salmonella because meat, poultry and eggs have not been checked properly since leaving the EU.

It comes as the Food Standards Agency (FSA) said it was investigating a recent rise in cases of salmonella food poisoning linked to poultry from Poland.

“A number of the cases have involved the consumption of eggs produced in Poland and used in meals in restaurants and cafes,” said Tina Potter, head of incidents at the FSA.

My colleague Alexander Butler has the full report:

Sir Keir Starmer has attempted to calm the storm of criticism over his comments about Margaret Thatcher by telling a Scottish audience that she did “terrible things”.

The Labour leader sought to draw a line under the row after he appeared to praise the former Tory prime minister and her moves to boost Britain’s “entrepreneurialism”.

On a visit to Scotland on Friday, Sir Keir insisted he is no fan of Ms Thatcher and said that he “profoundly disagrees” with some of her actions.

He said she did “huge damage” to communities across the UK – particularly in Scotland – only days after listing her as among former leaders who delivered “meaningful change”.

Trade secretary Kemi Badenoch has written an opinion piece claiming that Brexit has “paid dividends” and looking ahead to the next general election, in what The Independent chief political commentator John Rentoul suggests amounts to the minister’s “leadership campaign in The Sun”.

As The Times claims Ms Badenoch is among potential Tory leadership hopefuls “on manouevres and sounding people out” in the event that Mr Sunak’s premiership collapses, she writes: “Brexit was a vote of confidence by the British people in our country.

“A conviction that we would be better off as masters of our own fate. That conviction has paid dividends and it will keep doing so because I am determined to work day in and day out to reap the benefits of Brexit.

The greatest threat to Brexit Britain’s prosperity booming in the second half of the 2020s is Sir Keir Starmer. A man who, for reasons unknown, clearly yearns for us to blindly copy and paste whatever Brussels does, and whose Shadow Foreign Secretary cannot even rule out rejoining the EU.

“But I for one am confident the British people will act as wisely in 2024 as they did in 2016.”

Senior Tory Robert Jenrick – who quit as immigration minister over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda legislation – has insisted it will fail and accused the PM of failing to keep his word “to do whatever it takes” to “stop the boats”.

In his op-ed for The Telegraph on Saturday, Mr Jenrick said “some of the country’s finest legal minds” have determined that migrants will be able to lodge legal appeals and that they could be “taken off flights in considerable number”.

The ally of sacked home secretary Suella Braverman added: “The idea, therefore, that this bill will guarantee all those arriving are detained and swiftly removed is for the birds.”

Mr Jenrick also said that the Tories will be treated to “red-hot fury at the ballot box” unless they bring down current levels of legal immigration – which he argued makes integration into UK life “impossible”.

Our political correspondent Adam Forrest has more in this report:

Robert Jenrick, the formerly moderate ally of Rishi Sunak who resigned as immigration minister this week, has written a lengthy piece in the Daily Telegraph warning that the PM’s Rwanda legislation will fail and claiming that the “public’s patience has already snapped” on immigration.

Suggesting a significant drift to the right during his time in office, Mr Jenrick appears to argue in favour of abandoning the European Convention of Human Rights and international asylum law.

He wrote: “Controlling our borders would, of course, be far more straightforward if we extricated ourselves from the complex web of international frameworks that have taken on near mythical status within Government.

“These treaties were designed for a different world and have since been stretched beyond their intention. It will only become painfully more apparent that these outdated treaties cannot be renegotiated any time soon, so they must give way.”

In more inflammatory rhetoric, he concluded: “There is no better example of the failed Westminster consensus over the last 30 years than the historically unprecedented levels of immigration that have been forced on voters against their wish.

“As we are seeing in election after election across Europe, immigration will be a defining issue of 21st century politics. The public’s patience has already snapped. Centre-Right parties across Europe have a choice: begin to deliver on the mainstream concerns of ordinary people when it comes to immigration, or face their red-hot fury at the ballot box.”

The resignation of Rishi Sunak’s former ally Robert Jenrick as immigration minister has acted as a “lightning rod” to other Tory MPs with concerns about the Rwanda policy, it has been suggested.

“He knows the absolute shambles of the system and if he has concerns about the bill, people are going to sit up and take notice,” one former colleague told The Times. However, others suspect Mr Jenrick’s resignation may have more to do with Mr Sunak’s failure to promote him to Cabinet.

Either way, the paper reported claims that Mr Sunak is “very, very down” and not his “usual Tiggerish self” following Mr Jenrick’s resignation – a suggestion one No 10 source rejected, however, insisting the PM remained upbeat and determined to “bash through” opposition.

Rishi Sunak has urged mutinous Tory MPs to “unite or die” ahead of a key Commons vote on his controversial bid to save his party’s ailing plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

The prime minister’s call to the 1922 Committee this week, after publishing his emergence Rwanda legislation, echoed his words in the first days of his premiership after taking over from Liz Truss, according to The Times.