Politics latest: ‘Ping-pong’ under way as Rwanda bill returns to Lords after MPs rejected amendments | Politics News

Despite Rishi Sunak’s troubles and battles with his own pesky party and peers, the government still won important votes in the House of Commons with a large majority of around 70 votes.

In six votes on the government’s moves to reject the Lords’ amendments to the Rwanda Safety (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, the majorities were 65, 71, 70, 70, 74 and 59.

So the Bill now returns to the House of Lords for another round of ping-pong – the third round, where the results of votes on further amendments are less predictable.

The word from the Lords as MPs milled around the halls of the Commons was that colleagues would vote three or four more times on Tuesday, leading to another round of ping-pong on Wednesday.

A Lords insider told Sky News: “Some will line up tomorrow, clothes pulled up to their noses and all that, but if MPs stand firm it is unlikely to be enough to defeat anything pressed to a vote.

“Wednesday’s third round is likely to be different, although cross-seat holders may then fade a bit and more Conservatives may be willing to start voting with the government. We’ll see.”

We will already do that. Opening the two-hour debate in the House of Commons, Illegal Immigration Minister Michael Tomlinson was emphatic: “The bill must prevail in its entirety.”

“We simply cannot allow amendments that provide loopholes that will perpetuate the current cycle of delays and belated legal challenges to removal.”

Veteran Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash, a serial rebel against Europe for more than 30 years, said the Lords’ amendments were “ridiculous” and pleaded: “Let’s get the House of Lords to calm down a bit.”

Good luck, as they say, with that.

So what happens after the bill, as we expect, finally receives royal assent and enters the statute book later this week?

The parliamentary battle over the bill will end. But Sunak’s battle to put planes in the air and deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda certainly won’t be the case.

Cabinet Minister Victoria Atkins more or less admitted on Sunday morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News that it does not appear the government has yet found an airline to take migrants to Africa.

In other words, the government may win votes in the House of Commons by a large majority, but many details of Rwanda’s policy remain unclear and opponents are unlikely to give up their fight to keep deportation flights halted.