British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference at Downing Street on April 22, 2024 in London, England.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on April 22 said he would push through a parliamentary vote on his government’s highly controversial Rwanda deportation legislation, as he promised that flights would begin taking asylum seekers to Rwanda in 10-12 weeks.

A record number — just under 5,000 — people had arrived in the U.K. on boats via the English Channel in the first quarter of this year according to U.K. Government data. Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh were the top five countries of origin for migrants arriving in boats in 2023.

“Parliament will sit there tonight — and vote — no matter how late it goes,” Mr. Sunak said a press conference in Downing Street on Monday. The House of Commons and Lords were scheduled to consider the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill on Monday.

The House of Lords — where Mr. Sunak’s Conservative party does not have a majority — had passed amendments last week to exempt Afghan asylum seekers who had helped British operations in Afghanistan and to establish an independent body to review Rwanda’s asylum system.

Also Read | British PM Rishi Sunak unveils 5-step illegal immigration clampdown

Immigration is a highly sensitive issue in the U.K., which is moving towards a general election in the second half of 2024. The initial plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda was announced by the Boris Johnson Government in 2022. The policy has faced numerous legal challenges, including from the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) and no flights to Rwanda have taken off to date.

The current version of the Rwanda bill declares that Rwanda is a safe country to send asylum seekers — a clause designed to circumvent a November 2023 U.K. Supreme Court ruling that said the policy (as it existed at the time) was unlawful.

The deportation process would kick off as soon as the vote was over, Mr. Sunak said, as he outlined some of the preparations — from courtrooms to security escorts and flight slots.

ALSO READ | The U.K.-Rwanda asylum plan explained

“The first flight will leave in 10-12 weeks,” the Prime Minister said, implying that the earlier declared spring deadline would not be met. He said multiple flights would take place through the summer (June-August) and beyond.

The Conservatives have focused on the role of people smuggling gangs as part of their messaging around the deportation bill and Mr. Sunak, on Monday, said the gangs were currently targeting vulnerable Vietnamese migrants, whose numbers had “increased tenfold” and who accounted for “almost all” the increase in migrant-carrying small boats arriving across the English Channel.

Mr. Sunak’s party has trailed the opposition Labour Party in polls for some time and stopping the boat crossings has been one of the Prime Minister’s pledges. On Monday, he accused Labour of not having a plan to prevent boat crossings and was “resigned to the idea that you will never fully solve this problem”.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty arrive at the Conservative Party annual conference at Manchester Central convention complex in Manchester, England on October 4, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Britain’s Indian First Lady, Akshata Murty, made a surprise debut on the political stage on October 4 when she stepped out to introduce “best friend” Rishi Sunak for his maiden speech as U.K. Prime Minister to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.

Ms. Murty, during her light-hearted and personal speech, claimed her husband was unaware of her “gate-crashing” as the warm-up act to the centrepiece of the annual conference and that her decision had also surprised their daughters, Krishna and Anoushka.

The 43-year-old daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayan Murthy went on to share her pride in Mr. Sunak’s many achievements and how it was his “honesty and integrity” that had first attracted her to him when they met as students at Stanford University in their 20s.

“Rishi and I are each other’s best friends; we are one team and I could not imagine being anywhere else than here today to show my support to him and to the party,” said Ms. Murty.

“Rishi and I met when we were 24 when we were both studying abroad in America. Right from the very beginning, I was struck by two things about him…his deep love for his home, the United Kingdom, and his sincere desire to ensure as many people as possible have a chance to have the opportunities he was lucky enough to have had. It completely energised him. Being with Rishi was the easiest decision of my life,” she said.

According to Ms. Murty, the one word that encapsulates her husband is “aspiration”, which drives him to work for a better future for the U.K.

“Sometimes when the going gets tough, I remind Rishi that he’s fighting for his values. That he’s fighting for this party’s values, knowing that it’s a hard road ahead. That success is hard one,” she said.

During the lighter moments in her speech, Ms. Murty confirmed media reports about Mr. Sunak’s preference for romcoms and described him as “fun, thoughtful and compassionate”.

“He has an incredible zest for life. What drew me to him most was his strength of character, his honesty, his integrity, with a firm understanding of right from wrong. It’s what I’m still drawn to, even today, after 14 years of being married,” she said.

“Rishi, you know this, you know that doing the right thing for the long term even when it is hard is the right thing to do. I hope you also know how proud you make our girls and me every single day,” concluded Ms. Murty, to sustained applause from the Tory gathering as a visibly moved Mr. Sunak stepped out onto the stage.

During his much-anticipated address, Mr. Sunak opened with the central theme of the Tory conference to say that Ms. Murty was the “best long-term decision for a brighter future” he had made.

Mr. Sunak said since he became Prime Minister in October last year the government has “done good things in that time”. He went on to highlight that the political system over the last 30 years had incentivised easy decisions short-term rather than the right ones.

“It doesn’t have to be this way, I won’t be this way,” he declared.

Confirming an expected decision to axe the High Speed-2 (HS2) railway project, Mr. Sunak claimed it was the “ultimate example of the old consensus” and the economic case for the project has “massively been weakened”.

“I say to those who backed the project in the first place, the facts have changed and the right thing to do when the facts change is to have the courage to change direction. And so I am ending this long-running saga. I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project and in its place we will reinvest every single penny, GBP 36 billion in hundreds of new transport projects in the north and the Midlands, across the country,” he said.

Taking a shot at his predecessor at 10 Downing Street, Liz Truss, who had again called for tax cuts during a fringe event at the conference earlier this week, something Mr. Sunak has repeatedly said would be inflationary.

“I will tell it as it is, I will lead in a different way because that is the only way to create the sort of change in our politics and our country that we all desperately want to see,” he said, laying out his stall for the governing party activists ahead of an expected general election next year.