Allies of Rishi Sunak have launched a furious fightback accusing Tory rebels of only having an agenda to bring down the Prime Minister and not really caring about illegal immigration.
With Mr Sunak desperately clinging on to his Premiership by his fingernails as MPs decide whether to call for a leadership confidence vote, his supporters have dubbed rebels “insane” and “bent on destroying the Conservative Party from inside.”
One veteran backbencher who is backing the Prime Minister told Express.co.uk: “I told my whip that any rebel who votes against this Rwanda Bill should be put up against a wall and castrated.”
Meanwhile, a minister said: “The only thing [rebels] will achieve is to destroy the Conservative Party.
“We were all essentially hoping for a soft landing and minimising an election defeat but this lot seem bent on destroying the Conservative Party from the inside.
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“It’s insane! We will be wiped out at this rate.”
Another senior Government insider accused Suella Braverman and her supporters of only being interested in a coup alleging she had achieved nothing in 14 months as Home Secretary apart from “loud rhetoric”.
The senior Government source said: “They have long ago chosen their course of action and goal: the defeat of the bill by Parliament or courts, the loss of an election and the emergence of Suella in a haze of glory.
“Right now though and what’s actually in the Bill is irrelevant to them. It is simply the vehicle for either long-held desires to leave ECHR or short-held wishes to bring down Rishi. Actually tackling illegal immigration was always lowest on their list.
“The evidence is a past 14 months of headlines gained for not doing very much on either legal or illegal migration.
“Compared to 4 weeks ending in: in Monday a tough package on legal migration, Tuesday a new treaty with Rwanda and Wednesday a bill to make that policy deliver, on top of the work already done to, cut boats crossings by a third.”
The source went on: “Those who are wooed by these would be rebels siren voice, which in fairness to [Braverman] is so often not actually her speaking, seem to think loud long term inaction is impressive. Sounding tough and effective has never been the same as just being both. Without saying much at all.”
The comments have not gone down well on the right of the party.
One Conservative rightwinger said: “So the message is ‘unite or die you scum’? They know how to win friends and influence people.”
Many MPs are understood to be waiting for the legal verdict of veteran Brexiteer Sir Bill Cash and his star chamber of lawyers before deciding whether to support the Rwanda deportation Bill or call for a leadership election.
But the resignation of Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick has been taken by many others as a sign that the Bill will fail to ensure the deportation flights of illegal migrants to Rwanda go ahead.
One veteran of the Brexit negotiation years noted: “We all remember when Theresa May came out with her compromise. Many people waited for days for Bill [Cash] and the star chamber to opine but Dominic Raab who was Brexit Secretary resigned immediately because he knew it was bad. I suspect this is the case with Jenrick now.”
