James Cleverly rejects claims Rwanda bill at risk of being killed off in Commons votes next year – UK politics live

Parliamentary threat to Sunak remains real as bill will be debated again in January and subjected to final third reading vote

Good morning. James Cleverly, the home secretary, has been doing a victory lap media round this morning after the government’s bigger-than-expected win in the Rwanda bill vote last night. Tory rebels abstained, rather than voted against, and there were “only” 29 of them – which is barely enough to put the government’s majority at risk, and quite small in the scale of Tory rebellions over recent years.

But the jeopardy for Rishi Sunak is far from over. The rebels were only abstaining because they believe that they can get significant concessions to the bill when it is debated again over two days in January, and the gap between what the rightwingers are demanding (set out in the European Research Group’s legal “star chamber analysis) and the minimal tinkering Sunak seems to be offering is considerable. After the votes on amendments, there will be a final third reading vote on the bill as a whole and at that point some rightwingers say they will try to vote it down if they still don’t like it. Some Tory centrists have also said they will no longer vote for the bill if it’s been subject to an ERG rewrite.