It’s always hard to be let down by a friend – especially when that friend may hold the key to your future career prospects.
So it may be little surprise that Rishi Sunak was clearly in a bad mood when he held a Downing Street press conference in response to the resignation of his erstwhile pal Robert Jenrick.
The event was a naked appeal to Tory MPs, and the public at large, to accept that the new legislation designed to push the Rwanda migration scheme through the courts is tough enough.
Mr Jenrick clearly disagrees – having worked on the bill as Immigration Minister, he dramatically quit rather than try to steer it through Parliament.
The Prime Minister claimed he was on the side of the public, saying: “My patience on this has worn thin.” His demeanour bore that out – the smooth charmer who was once a wildly popular Chancellor looked tired and tetchy, almost snapping at the questions which hammered away at his policy, even representatives of the Tory press asking whether his migration plans had simply run aground.
He looked to push the political problems back onto Labour, saying: “The real question when it comes to all these votes is for the Labour party, because I want to get this legislation on the statute books as quickly as possible.”
It is true that Labour’s migration policy is in a bit of a muddle – but the Opposition is nowhere near as divided on this issue as the Government is. Not only does Mr Sunak face a backlash from the right who think he should have gone further by explicitly overriding international treaties to get the Rwanda plan sorted, he may also have to deal with a row with centrist MPs angry that the bill suspends human rights laws in some cases.
The Prime Minister thinks he has a strategy to pull off a remarkable political turnaround before the next election. He told viewers during the press conference: “I’m not interested in talking, I’m interested in doing things.”
He is right that the success or failure of the Rwanda legislation should in theory be measured not by rhetoric, but by whether it achieves its stated aim of overcoming court challenges and then deterring asylum seekers from entering Britain illegally.
But just as he has lost his cool, his party is suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Tory MPs’ patience has worn thin and they do not sound like they want to give their boss the benefit of the doubt.
