Markus Andrews

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRwanda deportation flights will begin in July, Rishi Sunak has said as he promised to break the deadlock over the controversial immigration bill.The prime minister said the plans are in place and migrants will be sent to the east African nation in 10 to 12 weeks “come what may”.After five months of wrangling over the so-called emergency Safety of Rwanda bill, which deems it a safe country for relocating asylum seekers, Mr Sunak threw down the gauntlet to peers in the House of Lords.“Parliament will sit there tonight and vote, no matter how late it goes; no ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda,” he told a press conference ahead of the Lords showdown.It will see weeks of parliamentary back and forth finally come to a head, with peers pressuring Mr Sunak to allow amendments to the bill, but the PM standing firm.In a sign of the battle facing ministers, a leading lawyer who sits in the Lords has promised to “keep going as long as necessary” to amend the “ill judged and inappropriate” bill.Lord Carlile, the former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC: “This is something which is ill-judged, badly drafted, inappropriate, illegal in UK and international law and the House of Lords is absolutely right to say we want to maintain our legal standards in this country.”Peers are pushing for Afghan heroes who supported UK troops overseas to be exempted from Rwanda deportation flights.And they want an independent monitoring body to verify that protections in the UK’s treaty with Rwanda are fully implemented and remain in place.A group of people thought to be migrants crossing the Channel in a small boat traveling from the coast of France and heading in the direction of Dover, Kent (PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailRishi Sunak has urged peers in the House of Lords to back his Rwanda plan ahead of a final parliamentary showdown this evening. Peers have so far been insisting on two amendments to the Safety of Rwanda bill; one that would ensure that a treaty with the country is properly implemented, and another that would exempt Afghans who served alongside UK forces from deportation. Mr Sunak has insisted that parliament will sit as long as it takes to get the bill passed this evening. “No ifs, no buts, these flights are going to Rwanda,” he said at a Monday morning press conferenc . So what happens next once the flagship Rwanda plan is passed by the Lords? There will reportedly be around 150 asylum seekers on the first two or three flights to Kigali, with flights expected to start in July. “We have prepared for this moment… We’ve increased detention spaces to 2,200,” Mr Sunak announced. The prime minister said the government had put an airfield on standby and booked commercial charter planes for specific slots to remove the asylum seekers to Rwanda. He added that 500 highly trained individuals had been found to escort “migrants all the way to Rwanda” with 300 more trained in the coming weeks. The prime minister said that the first flight would leave in 10-12 weeks and he committed to regular flights over the summer “until the boats are stopped”. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Downing Street, London. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailWatch as Rishi Sunak held a press conference to urge peers to back his controversial Rwanda legislation on Monday, 22 April.The prime minister’s surprise speech came ahead of the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill’s final showdown in parliament.Mr Sunak’s legislation is aimed at making the plan to send asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda legally watertight.The bill is intended to overcome the objections of the Supreme Court by forcing judges to regard Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and allowing ministers to ignore emergency injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights.However, it has been subject to extensive parliamentary back-and-forth, with peers repeatedly blocking the bill with a series of amendments.The government has vowed Parliament will sit late into Monday night if necessary to pass the bill, which it sees as vital to the prime minister’s pledge to “stop the boats”. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is celebrating after a series of candidates supported by his party won weekend races for mayor.Tusk declared victory in the second round of the country’s local elections late Sunday and listed the many cities where candidates backed by his Civic Coalition won, among them Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw and Rzeszow.It puts the pro-European Union centrist Civic Coalition in a favorable position as the country looks next to elections to the European Parliament on June 9. “I think we won the second round. We won’t stop!” Tusk wrote on social platform X.Mayors were chosen in a total of 748 cities and towns where no single candidate won at least 50% of the vote during the first round on April 7.Candidates for Tusk’s party also recaptured cities where they had not held power for many years, including Zielona Gora, Legnica and Torun. The local and regional elections were viewed as a test for Tusk’s pro-European Union government four months after it took power at the national level. Sunday’s second round strengthened the Tusk government’s leverage in the cities, which should facilitate cooperation on development projects and allotment of EU funds. Tusk’s allies also won in some places in the first round two weeks ago, including in Warsaw where incumbent Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski was an easy victor. In the first round, the main opposition party, the right-wing Law and Justice, prevailed on the level of regional assemblies in the country’s 16 provinces, where it took 34.3% of the votes, while Tusks’ Civic Coalition got 30.6%. Law and Justice governed on the national level from 2015-23. Tusk’s socially liberal Civic Coalition traditionally has strong support in cities, while Law and Justice has a more solid base in conservative rural areas, particularly in eastern Poland.Civic Coalition is the largest group in a three-party coalition that governs Poland. The coalition is pro-European Union but otherwise spans a wide ideological spectrum with left-wing politicians in the Left party as well as conservatives in the Third Way. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailLord David Cameron has heralded a “new era” in relations between Britain and Central Asia on a visit to the region amid concerns about trade sanctions on Russia being side-stepped in neighbouring countries.The Foreign Secretary is travelling across Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia in a diplomatic bid to boost trade, security and environmental ties with the UK.He will warn Central Asia is “at the epicentre of some of the biggest challenges we face” as he announces a series of measures aimed at supporting its “hard-won sovereignty”.In a meeting with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon at the Palace of the Nation in Dushanbe on Monday, Lord Cameron said there was “more we can do” to co-operate on key areas like business, climate change and counter-terrorism.“I’m delighted to be the first foreign secretary to visit your country. I’m only sorry that it’s taken so long for one to come,” he told President Rahmon.“We want to signal a new era in relations between Britain and all of the Central Asia republics, starting here in Tajikistan.“Overall we’re here to say ‘let’s make the partnership bigger, let’s do more things together’.”( More