Rishi Sunak, Rwanda and the rebels – podcast

It was billed as the biggest day in Rishi Sunak’s premiership and a moment of truth for his plan to remove asylum seekers to Rwanda. Last week, he announced the proposal in a hastily arranged press conference. Sunak was clear: the government, in his view, could not move an inch more without the plan collapsing.

But as the Guardian’s political correspondent Kiran Stacey tells Nosheen Iqbal, many of the prime minister’s backbenchers were unconvinced. On the right of the party, MPs argued that the bill as drafted would not achieve its objective of overcoming legal challenges from human rights lawyers. And on the more liberal wing, MPs worried about the message it was sending about Britain’s commitments to international law.