Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resign as Tory deputy chairs over Rwanda bill Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith have resigned as Conservative party deputy chairs, Pippa Crerar reports. They are both backing the Bill Cash amendment being voted on now. See 5.58pm. (There is a third Tory deputy chair, Nickie Aiken, who has not resigned.) Closing summary Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resigned as deputy chairs of the Conservative party after defying Rishi Sunak by backing rightwing challenges to harden up his flagship Rwanda deportation bill. About 60 Tory rebel MPs – including the former home secretary Suella Braverman and the former prime minister Liz Truss – backed the series of amendments tabled by the veteran Tory Sir Bill Cash and Robert Jenrick when the bill returned to the Commons on Tuesday. Soon after Anderson and Clarke-Smith rendered their resignations, Jane Stevenson resigned as a parliamentary private secretary to Kemi Badenoch in the Department for Business and Trade. Stevenson had spoken strongly in favour of the amendments: “All of us are united in wanting a bill that works,” she said. As the bill goes in for its third reading, the question now is how the rebel Tory MPs will vote tomorrow – there is a chance that the bill may fail yet again because some in the party feel it is not strong enough. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, called the night’s events “total Tory chaos” that displayed how the prime minister is “so weak he’s lost control of [the] asylum system, border security and the whole Tory party.” The Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael told LBC’s Henry Riley that the prime minister had been “embarrassed by his own MPs”. “Sunak’s Rwanda scheme just won’t work – even the deputy chairmen of his party know it,” Carmichael said, referring to tonight’s resignations of Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith after supporting amendments to the Rwanda bill. Jane Stevenson also resigned after voting in favour of the amendments. “If the PM can’t settle squabbles in his own party, how can he be expected to run the country?” Carmichael said. Here’s more from the joint resignation letter from deputy chairs Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith: “Our support for the party and this Government remains as strong as ever and this is why we are so passionate about making this legislation work,” they wrote. Like Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, who resigned from their positions in the party earlier tonight, Jane Stevenson reiterated her support of the prime minister and the Rwanda policy in general ahead of rendering her own resignation. “All of us are united in wanting a bill that works and allows the prime minister to deliver on his promise,” she said. “I absolutely trust the prime minister’s commitment to ensuring we stop the boats. I believe the Rwanda policy can be a deterrent.” Third Tory MP resigns over Rwanda amendments Jane Stevenson joined Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith tonight in resigning from her role in the Conservative party after voting for the Rwanda amendments. Stevenson resigned as a PPS in the Department for Business and Trade. The Labour amendment has been defeated by 336 votes to 262. MPs are now voting on a Labour amendment, new clause 6, that would impose tighter conditions regarding whether Rwanda is considered safe. As Labour puts it in its explanatory notes, the amendment would place “the monitoring committee for the Rwanda treaty on a statutory basis, and places conditions on when the classification of Rwanda as ‘safe’ can be suspended in accordance with material conditions and/or non-compliance with obligations under the Rwanda treaty”. This will be the last vote of the night. My colleague Vivian Ho is taking over now. The government has won the vote on clause 4 by 330 votes to 55 – a majority of 275. Clause 4 remains part of the bill. MPs are now voting on whether to keep clause 4 as part of the bill. Clause 4 is the one that allows individual appeals against deportation orders in some circumstances. 58 MPs back rebel Tory amendment tabled by Robert Jenrick further limiting rights to challenge deportation orders The Robert Jenrick amendment (see 6.33pm) has been defeated by 525 votes to 58 – a majority of 467. That is 10 fewer MPs voting for this rebel amendment than voted for the last one. (See 6.14pm.) MPs vote on Robert Jenrick"s amendment to further limit ability of individual asylum seekers to challenge deportation orders MPs are now voting on amendment 19 – one of the many tabled by Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister. This one would, in the words of the explanatory statement he provided alongside it, “remove the ability of individuals to block their own removal through suspensive claims and to limit such claims to rare situations where there is bad faith on the part of decision-makers in relation to decisions as to medical fitness to travel”. In other words, it would make it significantly harder for individual asylum seekers to challenge deportation orders than it already is under the bill as drafted by the government. The government won the third vote, that clause 2 should “stand part” (see 6.18pm), by 331 votes to 262 – a majority of 69. This one was basically a straight Tory v opposition contest. 60 Tory MPs rebelled on Cash amendment, division list shows - 58 voting for it, plus 2 tellers Sixty Tory MPs rebelled against the government on the Bill Cash amendment, the division list shows. There were 58 Conservatives voting against, and Miriam Cates and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg acted as tellers. Two former Tory MPs who are now independents, Scott Benton and Andrew Bridgen, also voted for this. And the eight DUP MPs were in favour as well. MPs are now voting on whether clause 2, which says Rwanda should be treated as a safe country for deportation purposes, should remain in the bill (or “stand part”, in the terminology). 68 MPs back rebel Tory amendment to add notwithstanding clause to bill The Bill Cash amendment has been defeated by 529 votes to 68 – a majority of 461. The DUP was planning to vote for this amendment, so eight of the 68 votes are probably their votes. The other 60 votes are almost certainly all Conservative MPs – or independent MPs who used to be Tory but who have had the whip suspended for disciplinary reasons. Anderson and Clarke-Smith tell Sunak in their resignation letter he has their "100% support" Sam Coates has posted on X the joint resignation letter from Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith. Their letter is about as conciliatory as you can imagine, in the circumstances. They say they are resigning because they want to support the amendments but they say they offer Rishi Sunak their “100% support” and that their support for the government “remains as strong as ever”. (But he does not have their 100% support, because they signed the rebel amendment put to the vote just now.) Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith resign as Tory deputy chairs over Rwanda bill Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith have resigned as Conservative party deputy chairs, Pippa Crerar reports. They are both backing the Bill Cash amendment being voted on now. See 5.58pm. (There is a third Tory deputy chair, Nickie Aiken, who has not resigned.) MPs vote on Bill Cash"s amendment to add notwithstanding clause to bill MPs are now voting on amendment 10 – an amendment tabled by Sir Bill Cash that will add a “notwithstanding clause” to the bill. This would allow the government to go ahead with deportations to Rwanda regardless of what the European convention on human rights, and other international law, says. Cash defended it in the debate earlier. (See 2.42pm.) The SNP amendment (see 5.42pm) has been defeated by 337 votes to 66 – a majority of 271. According to Christian Calgie from the Express, the chief whip, Simon Hart, is indicating that Tory deputy chairs, such as Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, and PPSs, such as Jane Stevenson, will be sacked if they do not back the government tonight. BREAK: I understand that Chief Whip Simon Hart has made clear to any member of the Government payroll - including Party chairmen and PPSs - that their position will be untenable if they don’t support the Government this evening Here is more on what was being said by the Tory rebels at their meeting this afternoon. This is from the Mirror’s John Stevens. Tory right wingers warn Rishi Sunak it would be mistake to sack Lee Anderson Rebel source: “It would be deeply unfortunate, sad and politically unhelpful for the government to lose one of our most prominent and visible representatives of the Red Wall” And this is from the Sun on Sunday’s Kate Ferguson. Rebel source suggests they feel misled by Rishi Sunak “We feel the government went into this negotiating process having said if you come up with workable amendments that meet the legal test and we’re amenable to accepting them “We took the PM on his word on that” MPs begin voting on Rwanda bill amendments The voting has started. The first vote is on the SNP’s amendment 45, that would change the clause in the bill saying decision makers (ministers, officials and courts) have to treat Rwanda as a “safe” country, so that they would have to treat it as an “unsafe” country instead. Tomlinson has just finished his speech. He defended the bill, and did not offer anything in the way of new concessions to the rebels. Alison Thewliss from the SNP, who opened the debate, is now winding up before the voting starts. She begins by wondering how many of the Tory MPs speaking in the debate have even spoken to an asylum seeker. They claim their asylum applications are bogus, she says. But most of the applications are granted, showing they are genuine, she says. We are expecting up to six votes later. Only one of them is likely to be on a rebel amendment (amendment 19 – Robert Jenrick’s amendment that would severely limit the ability of people to appeal against decisions to remove them). But there may also be a vote on whether or not to keep the whole of clause 4, which allow appeals, and the Tory rebels could vote to try to take that out. Rebel Tory MPs have been meeting outside the chamber, ahead of the votes tonight. Beth Rigby from Sky says there were about 40 MPs there ready to vote against the government. NEW: Rebel source says 40 MPs in room to back Cash/Jenrick amendments. Says ‘govt continuing to negotiate & hope in the room is govt will see the strength of numbers and feeling” 1/2 Rebel source: “PM set tests which was any amendments need to be workable and have a resonance legal argument. We have proceeded in that spirit and negotiated in good faith with govt colleagues.” 2/2 Back in the Commons Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, is now addressing the arguments made by Edward Leigh. (See 3.52pm.) He says migrants would need “compelling evidence” to successfully appeal against deportation. Leigh warned about the risk of evidence being concocted. But that would not be compelling evidence, he says. And a tweet would not be compelling evidence, despite what Leigh suggested, he says. In the House of Lords this afternoon David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said the Rwanda policy was “novel”, but compatible with international law. He said: We do not believe the Rwanda scheme is contrary to international law. How I would characterise it is to say that, look, things like the refugee convention was written for another age, written for an age when there wasn’t mass international travel, when there wasn’t the ubiquity of mobile phones. And what we are saying is: yes. this is out-of-the-box thinking, yes it’s quite unorthodox, but you’ve got a choice, frankly, when you’ve got people arriving from a perfectly safe country to another safe country, you have to deal with that trade – and that requires some fresh thinking. Now, it’s not possible to put people straight back on a boat and take them back to France so that is why the Rwanda scheme is being introduced. It is within the law, it is novel, but I believe it can work. Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson starts speech winding up Rwanda debate Michael Tomlinson, the minister for illegal migration, is now winding up for the government. We should now find out whether the government is willing to make any concessions at all to the rebels.