General British politics discussion thread

That's unexpected, everything I'd read and listened to had said it was likely to pass albeit by a tight margin.

Where was the joke in that interaction that Sunak found so funny ? I said it last year but he’s a liability to his party. He has no ability to interact with ordinary voters and we’ve seen when questioned he gets annoyed and it’s a terrible look.

SFAIK the Lords haven't voted down the Bill; they've voted not to ratify the treaty with Rwanda which the Bill implements.

Bit of a step back:

Last year the Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda was not a safe country, and the arrangements the government had made for expelling asylum seekers to Rwanda were unlawful.

The government's strategy for dealing with this was:

1. Make a treaty with Rwanda incorporating protections for asylum seekers expelled from UK to Rwanda. Some of these protections were already mentioned in the not-legally-binding memorandum that the UK agreed with Rwanda a while ago, but now they will be legal obligations; others are new.
2. Get Parliament to pass a law which (a) declares Rwanda to be a safe country, and (b) requires the courts to treat it as safe, without further enquiry.

Obviously the political case for introducing and passing the law rests on the treaty. If the treaty isn't in place, the government can hardly ask Parliament to pass the Bill.

So, the Lords' vote on the treaty does have implications for the Bill. If the UK doesn't ratify the treaty then it doesn't enter into force, and Rwanda isn't bound by it. And if Rwanda isn't bound by it, then why should Parliament pass a law declaring Rwanda to be a safe country and forbidding the courts from taking a different view?

But, two points:

First, although the Lords have voted against ratifying the treaty, they have no power to prevent the government ratifying the treaty; the most they can do is delay it. And even that delay can be overridden if the government wants to go back to the Commons and get a Commons vote to override the Lords.

Second, the Lords' vote doesn't say that the treaty should not be ratified; it says that the treaty should not be ratified "until the protections it provides have been fully implemented". The Lords are effectively saying "we shouldn't ratify the treaty until the procedures and protections that it requires Rwanda to operate for the protection of asylum seekers of are up and running, and seen to be working satisfactorily". One possible course of action for the government is to accept that, and defer the ratification of the treaty, rather than go back to the Commons and risk another rebellion.They've already said they wouldn't send any asylum seekers to Rwanda until those protections were in place, so they can probably live with not ratifying the treaty until then.

Does this government have time to get the Treaty ratified and then pass the Bill? It surely has to be all done before the summer recess as it looks like they will call the GE shortly after they've returned from the recess. I know there are several months before the recess but these things take time.

Yes they do, in theory, if both the Commons and the Lords are co-operative and compliant. But that's a very big "if". And, now, they may also have to hope that the Rwandans will move fast to put in place all the things the Treaty requires.

In other news, this news was probably posted here before but it's worth repeating in the wake of an interview on LBC:

Britain is becoming a “grim” place to live with people suffering Victorian-era diseases.

Now, what lefty woke liberal is saying this? Step forward Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.

[He] warned that poverty was “guaranteeing” sickness among the poorest in society as people could not afford essentials including food.

“It’s deeply deeply depressing. It’s grim in the extreme,” [he] told LBC. “Essentially Britain has become a poor country with a few rich people.”

“The idea we are starting to suffer the same diseases that in Victorian times people in long ocean voyages suffered because the shortage of citrus fruits is simply horrendous,” he said.

Is it going to be the night of the long knives for Sunak?

No smoke with out fire or parliamentary gossip?

Yes, yes it will.

never mind it's a fake

It's a fake.

Clarke's call for Sunak to resign in the Telegraph

“We have a clear choice. Stick with Rishi Sunak, take the inevitable electoral consequences, and give the Left a blank cheque to change Britain as they see fit.

Or we can change leader, and give our country and party a fighting chance.”

Lol they really think switching again will be what wins them an election, God they are deluded.