Margaret Thatcher would've hated Rishi Sunak's Rwanda Bill says ex-Tory chairman

16 February 2024 , 11:17

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The Iron Lady would not have approved of Rishi Sunak's antics, Lord Deben said (Image: Peter Brooker/REX)

A former Tory chairman says he will "fight until the very end" to stop Rishi Sunak's latest Rwanda Bill passing.

Lord Deben, who served under Margaret Thatcher, said the Iron Lady would never have approved the Government's actions, describing current leaders as "unconservative". The blistering remarks come as Tory grandees in the House of Lords push back over plans to declare Rwanda is a safe country to send asylum seekers to.

In November the Supreme Court declared it's not safe and said the scheme was unlawful. Lord Deben, who was party chairman from 1983 to 1985, told Andrew Marr on LBC: "I shall fight it until the very end because I think it is one of the worst things that you can do to pretend that governments can decide the truth, the last time we did that was in the 16th century, we’ve never done it in-between." And on what Mrs Thatcher's reaction to the Safety of Rwanda Bill would be, he said: ‘She would never have produced this, she believed in the rule of law." He added: "She knew Conservatives were about the rule of law."

Lord Deben was among the Tory grandees who hit out at Mr Sunak's Rwanda Bill

In a dig at Mr Sunak, who has spoken of his admiration for Mrs Thatcher, Lord Deben said: "I think she’d say [today’s Conservative Party] wasn’t Conservative and that comes from someone who was in a rather different part of the Conservative Party than me, but we shared all those basic beliefs and I fear that this government doesn’t."

The opposition of Thatcher-era Tory heavyweights has been in full view during two days of debates in the House of Lords this week. Lord Tugendhat, whose nephew is Tom Tugendhat, was among the Lords who savaged Rishi Sunak's Safety of Rwanda Bill. The former Tory MP said: "I've been a member of the Conservative Party for some 66 years and I find it quite extraordinary that the party of Margaret Thatcher should be introducing a bill of this kind."

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Lord Tugendhat said Mrs Thatcher would never have supported legislation which undermined the rule of law. He went on: "What we're being asked to do really represents the sort of behaviour, My Lords, that the world associates with despots and autocracies, not with an established democracy, not with the Mother of Parliaments. It is a Bill we should not even be asked to confront, let alone pass."

And former Tory Home Secretary Lord Ken Clarke said he hopes the Bill is struck down by the courts if it passes. He told peers: "I continue to be completely flabbergasted by the constitutional implications of the government acting in this way." He said he hadn't expected ministers to respond to the Supreme Court ruling by trying to pass a law declaring Rwanda a safe place to send asylum seekers.

Lord Clarke went on: "I think it sets an extremely dangerous precedent. For that reason, I very much hope that there will be a legal challenge which will enable the Supreme Court to strike it down as unconstitutional in due course. But the better step would be for Parliament not to pass the legislation in the first place."

Dave Burke