Tories defend Rishi Sunak over hard right immigration speech in Italy
Senior Tories have defended the Prime Minister’s tough rhetoric on immigration during a speech in Italy.
Speaking to the party of Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome, Rishi Sunak warned that migrants could “overwhelm” European countries and called for radical solutions to tackle the issue.
He said “enemies” want to use migration as a “weapon” by “deliberately driving people to our shores to try to destabilise our society”.
“If we do not tackle this problem, the numbers will only grow. It will overwhelm our countries and our capacity to help those who actually need our help the most,” he continued.
Mr Sunak’s hard-right rhetoric in the speech, given to members of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, had provoked criticism for its divisive tone.
But the Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden, insisted yesterday that Mr Sunak was “absolutely right” to issue those warnings.
“It’s something that we have seen elsewhere. We have seen the weaponisation of migration, for example, in the conduct of Belarus in relation to Poland. There have been warnings from Finland in respect of the conduct of Russia,” Mr Dowden told Sky News.
He added that the “broader point” of the Prime Minister’s words was to “reassure people that we have got control of our borders”.
Mr Sunak’s hard-right rhetoric came just days after he saw off a rebellion from the right of the Conservative Party, many of whom were calling for tougher action to prevent legal challenges to the Government’s Rwanda scheme.
The victory has set up a new year showdown for Mr Sunak as he seeks to appease both the Tory right, who are pushing for the Government to disapply international law, and centrist MPs who are opposed to such changes.
But one centrist Tory MP told i that while there may be some “disquiet” over the Prime Minister’s tone, many in the party’s One Nation caucus were “fairly relaxed” about his message.
“It’s another quite good example of getting right up to a line but not crossing it,” the MP said.
“The PM could have shown up and said: ‘These laws don’t work, we have to change them, and if we can’t change them we’ll ignore them.’
“That’s not what he said. What he said was that we have to work together to change them. So I think that’s probably a welcome example of continuing the approach that they’ve been going down.”
Mr Dowden echoed other ministers in indicating that the Government could be open to compromise over amendments to the Rwanda Bill during the parliamentary stages.
He said: “We will listen to our colleagues about how we can improve this legislation, of course we will. I think this is a good piece of legislation that does the job, which is about ensuring that we control migration.
“But, of course, if there are other ways of improving it, we’ll be open to doing that.”
However, the shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting (inset), called Mr Sunak’s speech in Italy a “stunning admission of failure”.
“He’s failed both to manage an immigration system that works for legal migration, he’s failed to tackle illegal migration, and meanwhile he’s pulling his own party apart with this spectacular circus we saw this week,” he said.
