London, Thanasis Gavos

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s controversial bill to send illegal immigrants and refugees to Rwanda to apply for asylum will be submitted to the House of Commons for a vote later in the day..

The Rwanda Security Bill states that the African country is considered safe by London – and that this position binds the British courts, among others.

The bill was brought forward, alongside a new treaty between London and Kigali, after the High Court ruled in the British capital that Rwanda was not a safe third country.

The bill is facing criticism from both wings of the Conservative Party.

The far right wing rejected the bill as insufficient, arguing that it should stipulate the repeal of the European Convention on Human Rights. An all-star legal group drawn from the ranks of Conservative MPs in that wing ruled at the weekend that the bill does not foreclose all legal avenues for individual appeals against sending asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Top leaders of this wing have called for “cancellation”, “operation” or “replacement” of the bill.

On the contrary, MPs from his group characterized the bill as too harsh and potentially against Britain’s international obligations One Nation, as the core of the representatives of the most centrist wing of the Tories is called.

However, Damian Green, a leading figure in the more moderate group of Conservative MPs, said a large majority of One Nation members would vote in favor of the bill in the evening.

If, as expected, the opposition rallies against the bill, Rishi Sunak risks defeat if 29 of his own MPs vote against it or if nearly 60 decide to abstain.

In such a case, as pointed out by political commentators, opposition officials, but also members of the ruling party, Mr. Sunak’s leadership enters a dangerous and unpredictable spiral.

He has rejected the claim that the vote on the bill is equivalent to a vote of confidence in his government. On Tuesday morning he is even hosting a Downing Street breakfast for some of his dissident MPs in an attempt to win them over.

They expressed their opposition to the bill in an open letter and dozens of British celebrities, in the framework of the campaign of the Together with the Refugees organization.

They are calling for the scrapping of the Rwandan plan and a “fair new refugee plan”, which will move away from the government’s “increasingly compassionate, chaotic and costly” system for refugee and asylum applications.

Signatories to the letter include former international footballer and now highest-paid BBC presenter Gary Lineker and actor Brian Cox.