Call it the massacre of the not-so-innocents. A drive-by shooting that left almost everyone in government a casualty. Many had thought the supreme court would uphold Rishi Sunak’s appeal on his flagship Rwanda policy. The one thing he thought he might have something to boast about. Or at the very least that the court might deliver a nuanced verdict. One that left the government some room for manoeuvre.
Lord Reed, the top judge on the five-strong panel, had other ideas. He just about contained a smile. It’s such a perfect day. He was glad he spent it with you. There were no ifs, no buts. The Rwanda plan was a non-starter. Rwanda having a track record of killing refugees had made the court think there was something iffy about the UK deporting its refugees to Rwanda. Funny that. Nor should the UK think it could get round the judgment by leaving the European convention on human rights. The UK was already bound by other legal obligations.
This was about as bad as it could have got. No wriggle room. No nothing. Just a stark verdict on the judgment of the government and the Home Office. Sunak and his then home secretary, Suella Braverman, had bet the bank on a divisive culture war. You never upset a rightwing gobshite by being unpleasant to foreigners.
Now, though, they were high and dry. All vestiges of competence and credibility shredded. Just aimless husks orbiting around their depleted egos. Of no relevance to the country. Or even their friends. Not that David Pannick, the main government lawyer, will have been that bothered one way or the other. It was all just a game to him. He just trousered the best part of £1,000 an hour for spinning Sunak’s bullshit. You win some, you lose some.
Two hours later, Rish! was to be found in the Commons for prime minister’s questions. The cheers that greeted his arrival were almost audible. His backbenchers are now openly plotting against him. Making no effort to keep their assignations secret.
The ironically named Common Sense brigade, led by Esther McVey, Andrea Jenkyns and Desperate Danny Kruger, were coming up with ever more idiotic suggestions. Burn the statute books! Send the planes to Kigali regardless! Not a connecting synapse to be found anywhere. They’ve all basically given up. Like maggots stranded at the bottom of a rubbish bin. One of seven, presumably. If Sunak really cared about the country, or indeed his party, he’d call an election. To put everyone out of their misery.
Rish! began by boasting of having cut inflation by half. But no one was listening. No one cared. It’s no big deal. It wasn’t hard. And it had nothing to do with government action. What matters is that inflation is still more than twice as high as the Bank of England’s target. And prices are still rocketing.
He also tried to explain away the Rwanda verdict. Basically, everything was going completely to plan. The court had approved the idea of deporting refugees to a third country. Shame France wasn’t interested in a deal. All that was required to get the plan up and running was for Rwanda to overhaul its courts and judiciary and to hold free and fair elections. And to stop shooting refugees. And possibly to stop sending death squads into the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Apart from that, everything was good to go.
This was going to be one of Keir Starmer’s easier sessions. Like shooting fish in a barrel. He started with Lord Big Dave. Why not? The man’s a buffoon. An insult to the country. We’re meant to think Cameron’s a safe, experienced pair of hands. Instead of the man who imposed austerity and accidentally took the UK out of the EU to a settle a civil war in the Tory party. Thanks for that, Lord Big Dave.
The man who then walked away from the country, unwilling to clear up his own mess. The man who then became Lord Big Dodgy Dave through his lobbying for Greensill. The Tories hope this smell is going to dissipate. It won’t. The man who despite all this was thought better than any Tory MP for the job of foreign secretary.
Could Sunak list Lord Big Dave’s finest achievement on an international stage? He couldn’t. There was an awkward silence. Then something about holding a G8 summit. One that was already in the diary. Literally anyone could have done that. The reality is that Lord Big Dave’s legacy is largely fantasy. The belief is that he must somehow be an improvement on the current bunch of halfwits. Despite the evidence.
We then moved on to Rwanda. What was the plan now there was no plan? The plan was to double down on having no plan. The Rwanda plan was already working even though no refugees had been deported. Wasting a year and £140m on a ruse to lure refugees into a false sense of security. We would both break any international laws we wanted – people got so squeamish about torture – and not break any. Schrödinger goes to Rwanda. Complete nonsense. A prime minister and a government in a death vortex.
The ministerial statement from the new home secretary, James Cleverly, was altogether more sedate. Mostly because most MPs think he is fundamentally decent and doesn’t have his fingerprints over all this hate (Yvette Cooper shared that she knew he thought the Rwanda plan was batshit). Also because he is reassuringly not very bright. A bit harmless.
“It’s all going swimmingly,” said Jimmy Dimly. To reassure himself, if no one else. We wouldn’t be breaking any laws. Just hanging on in quiet desperation. Hoping something turned up. He had no idea what. Would that do? Most of the real headbangers left him alone to talk to himself. They were too busy plotting to turn the UK into a pariah state – the law is so overrated – sink the boats and start a third world war to notice.
Later that afternoon, a panic-stricken Sunak resurfaced to give a press conference in Downing Street. It was desperate, delusional stuff. He was going to agree a treaty with Rwanda. A special treaty in which Rwanda would agree to stop giving the appearance of being a dictatorship with the unfortunate reputation for killing people who disagreed with it. Then he would pass emergency legislation – Boris Johnson had come up with a similar plan, so the rightwingers would love it – in which Lee Anderson and Jonathan Gullis would agree that Rwanda was a top, top place. Though you wouldn’t catch any MPs going there. What could go wrong?
After all this, he – the Diminutive Rish! – would just ignore any foreign courts. And the planes would take off in the spring. Except they won’t. As if the courts will back off because Sunak has said so. It was the work of an entitled child. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
• John Crace’s book Depraved New World (Guardian Faber, £16.99) is out now. To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy and save 18% at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
• A year in Westminster: John Crace and Marina Hyde live in London and online. On Monday 11 December, 8pm-9.30pm GMT, join John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar for a livestream discussion on another year of anarchy in British politics. Book tickets here or via theguardian.live
