Tory rebels are on ‘leadership manouevres’, says ex-Brexit secretary David Davis
Former Brexit secretary David Davis has accused Tory rebels who are attacking Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda plan as being on “leadership manoeuvres”.
Speaking to BBC’s Week in Westminster, Mr Davis said he believed Mr Sunak had made the right call with his last-ditch attempt to rescue the Government’s beleaguered plan to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda.
He dismissed pressure from backbenchers to completely withdraw from human rights laws and criticized MPs attacking the Prime Minister – arguing the policy could be a turning point in the Tory election chances if implemented.
“The government had to do something on it but it has got an incredibly narrow path to follow. Sunak has said if we go one more millimetre this way it will collapse – he is right. But frankly, if you go millimetre the other way, it won’t work,” he said.
“It is its equivalent of walking along a mountain ridge – greater risks in all directions. But he has got the one path, I think, which will work.”
He praised Mr Sunak’s “really strong leadership” and said Tory backbenchers were becoming frustrated with colleagues, such as Suella Braverman, openly criticizing the party leader.
He said some Tory MPs were “quite cross with some of the goings on”.
“Some of this comes out of leadership manoeuvreing,” he said. “I think they’ve got to be very careful if they’re trying to put their own leadership ambitions ahead of the interests of the Conservative Party and maybe the interests of the country, that’s not very wise.”
Asked about calls from some on the right of the party to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, Mr Davis said: “You can’t do that.”
He said it was important to have protections for those who need it but said “What you’ve got to do, however, is make them narrow. Make them individual.”
He added: “I think the government’s found the right place in legal terms. And my colleagues on the right of the party should think about this.”
If they do not, he said, they would make it “unworkable”.
Following news the Government has already spend £240 million on the scheme, despite not having flown any asylum seekers to Rwanda, Mr Davis acknowledged the policy was “expensive” but said it wouldn’t be costly “if it works”.
And he argued getting this legislation through could “pivot” voters back towards the Tories – adding the House of Lords would “be very, very stupid” if “they are the people who seem to block our one chance to get a grip on this problem”.
Referring to the next election, expected in 2024, he said: “I see a lot of my young colleagues are frankly quite nervous at the moment.”
He added: “There is a potential pivot point in this, I think the Londonton GLA [Greater London Assembly] election next year is going to be an important part of that, I think Ulez is going to be an important part of that. And if this policy can be made to work, and I think they can make it work, then I think it will be one of the big pivots.”
Mr Davis said the Conservative Government must “fix both” illegal and legal migration – suggesting the latter was actually a bigger issue for voters than the Rwanda plan.
“In terms of the ordinary person on the street, the impact on their jobs, the impact on their housing and all of those things, it’s the legal migration that’s the big issue,” he said. “And they’re clearly things that they have not got right and they’re now beginning to address.”
Mr Davis said he wanted to see a crackdown on the number of roles on the shortage occupation list – which allows employers to pay 80 per cent of the going wage for certain positions if hiring from abroad.
“That is just wrong. I mean, that doesn’t make economic sense, let alone because it will promulgate the shortage if you keep the salaries low.
“And what I think what’s happened here is, I suspect, there has been business lobbying from business who were frankly too lazy to train their staff in the past.”
