The British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, remains on the wire, but his representatives ultimately preferred not to topple him prematurely. For the second time in two months, a rebellion threatened to overturn a major law and, as a consequence, overthrow the government. But, as already happened in December, the group decided to concede defeat at the last moment in order to avoid the chaos that the Conservative Party is already experiencing.
On Tuesday, 60 Tory MPs broke voting discipline to support an amendment that would toughen a law to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda. The group warned that without changes to the text, the group would vote against final approval of the law. And if half of the 30 have their say, the law (and the Sunak government) will fall tonight
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But it seems that the group of rebels are scared of having a ‘loaded gun’ in their hands, and decided to release it at the last minute, Only a small group of those MPs followed through on their threat and voted against the legislation, which was approved by 320 votes to 276, marking a last-minute vote of absolute confidence for Sunak. In itself, this does not guarantee that deportations will begin in Rwanda any time soon, as the House of Lords has veto power over laws introduced in the last year of the legislature that were not in the government’s electoral program, such as the case . But at least it prevents that group from being held responsible for calling early elections.
The result is this The British government’s slow suffering will continue for months, probably by mid-November. Polls predict an unprecedented electoral disaster for the Tories and it seems their representatives have no more desire to verify whether the polls are wrong before the law forces them to call an election, regardless. Whether they want to or not.
The economy refuses to help
Following the self-immolation of Liz Truss and her kamikaze budget, Sunak stood in Downing Street, promising to restore economic sanity, reform the health service and control inflation. But Prices resist making significant moves So that the Bank of England could start lowering interest rates and inflation figures for December published today have again risen against expectations. And the public treasury remains at minimal levels, preventing the government from initiating a wave of tax cuts or increasing investment in public services to stimulate citizens.
Added to this is the fact that immigration data, which remains at decade highs, shows no signs of changing simply because hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are deported to Rwanda. Sunak fears, of course, that doing nothing will get him votes, but he risks that this legislation will not solve the problem and will end up in an even worse situation.
Sunak plans to call an election “in the second half of the year”. possibly 14 novemberBelieving that the economy will boom in the summer, that Donald Trump’s victory in the US will ‘scare’ citizens and encourage them to vote for the continuation of the government, or simply that a ‘black swan’ will emerge . Nowhere else save them. Polls have been predicting a Labor defeat of around 20 points for two full years, and various estimates predict they could lose between half and 80% of their current seats. Conservative MPs have decided not to press the button that could cost them their jobs. The painful year will continue.