Lord Hague has warned that the Conservatives could be ousted from power permanently at the next general election as he urged Tory MPs not to torpedo Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill.
The former Tory leader said there was no “guarantee” the Conservatives would ever return to government if the party lost to Labour next year.
He argued that Tory MPs “picking holes” in the Prime Minister’s Rwanda plan “have only got opposition to look forward to” as he called for unity ahead of a vote on the Bill in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening.
Lord Hague told Times Radio: “There is no guarantee of coming back. I am not predicting that because I want Rishi Sunak to win his vote, to keep doing well over the coming year, to win an election.
“I am not predicting that will happen, I am just saying it can happen. The Liberal Party used to be a regular governing party but when it went out after the First World War it actually never came back in again as a majority government.”
The Rwanda Bill would formally designate Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and ministers hope it would pave the way for deportation flights to finally take off. But some Tory MPs believe the Bill does not go far enough and want the Government to strengthen its approach.
Hanging in the balance
The result of Tuesday night’s vote – the first time MPs will have their say on the Bill – is hanging in the balance as it is unclear whether a majority will back it.
Mr Sunak tried to personally attempt to win over Tory migration hardliners during a Downing Street breakfast on Tuesday morning.
Writing for The Telegraph on Monday, Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, urged the rebels not to wreck the Government by voting down the legislation. He urged his colleagues not to “make the perfect (but unrealistic) the enemy of the good”.
Meanwhile James Cleverly, the Home Secretary, said in his own Telegraph article: “Those who say that the Bill doesn’t go far enough are, with all due respect, mistaken. And the way to prove that it cannot work is not to make sure that it cannot work.”
The One Nation group of moderate Tory MPs announced on Monday that it would vote for the legislation, warning against any attempts to harden the measures. However, Mr Sunak faces a significant rebellion from the Right of the party.
‘State of shambles’
Lord Hague called for Tory unity and warned voting against the Bill could cost the Conservatives at the next election. “If they keep behaving like that they have only got opposition to look forward to,” he added.
“That is what they are heading for if they make it difficult or impossible to run the Government for yet another Conservative prime minister.
“I think they need to be warned about that. Having said that the vast majority of the Conservative MPs will vote for the legislation even if they have some doubts about it, they are very supportive of Rishi Sunak.
“So the vast majority I wouldn’t criticise but there are too many people trying to pick holes in it when really they have to pull together, they have to stick together to have the slightest chance of the Conservatives doing well in elections next year.”
He said the vote on the Rwanda Bill represented a “really important day in British politics” and suggested the outcome could act as an “important pointer” ahead of the next general election.
