Tory Rightwingers stepped up calls for Rishi Sunak to toughen up his flagship Rwanda immigration plan as the clock ticks towards a crunch Commons vote on Tuesday.
The Prime Minister had warned that further sidelining human rights laws, as being demanded by hardliners, risk scuppering the whole policy as Rwanda could pull out, but dozens of Tory Rightwingers were still refusing to budge.
The Prime Minister was meeting some of the hardliners for breakfast in Downing Street to try to persuade them to fall in line behind his controversial immigration policy.
If he fails to do so it will be a major blow to his authority as PM.
Mr Sunak on Monday night gained the backing of the One Nation group of moderate Tory MPs to support the Rwanda Bill at its Second Reading on Tuesday and some of them are then expected to raise their concerns when it returns to the Commons for more detailed analysis in the New Year.
But this was short-lived relief for the Government as the Right-wing New Conservatives soon afterwards kept up their calls for concessions to the bill.
A source said: "More than 40 colleagues met tonight to discuss the bill.
"Every member of that discussion said the bill needs major surgery or replacement and they will be making that plain in the morning to the Prime Minister at breakfast and over the next 24 hours."
Earlier on Monday leading members of the European Research Group (ERG) - another Right-wing group though less influential now than in the Brexit parliamentary chaos years - urged Mr Sunak to "pull" the bill and then significantly strengthen it.The One Nation group said on Monday evening that it recommended its members back the plan, which is designed to get the migrant deportation scheme off the ground finally after years of court challenges.
But it warned that it would oppose any amendments that would risk the UK breaching the rule of law and its international obligations.
Senior MP Damian Green, who chairs the influential caucus, said: "We support the Bill unamended, but if anyone brings forward any amendments that breach our international obligations or breach the rule of law, we vote against those amendments at future stages.
"We will vote with the Government, but we want the Government to stick to its guns and stick to the text of this Bill."
MP Matt Warman, member of the One Nation caucus, added: "The Bill as it stands represents a delicate balance between what is legally possible and what will make a real difference to this vital issue.
"It is in the national interest for the Conservative Party to resolve this matter quickly and amicably, and for the Government to resist proposals that would derail other parts of the package of measures necessary to tackle illegal migration."
The announcement came as the New Conservatives said that the Rwanda Bill needs "major surgery or replacement" and as the ERG urged Mr Sunak to "pull" the bill because it has "so many holes in it".
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former home secretary Suella Braverman were among those attending a New Conservatives meeting on Monday evening, alongside senior MPs Sir Simon Clarke and Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Former Tory leader William Hague warned that the party is on "the edge of a cliff" and if MPs do not pass the Rwanda Bill on Tuesday the Tories face the "abyss of opposition".
Writing in the Times, he added: "If they can’t pass the bill of a prime minister who has given them a decent story to tell on migration, then they are going into opposition.
"And if they were mad enough to try to bring down yet another leader, the case for an immediate general election would become unanswerable."
Home Secretary James Cleverly said he was determined to get the legislation through after a meeting with Tory MPs in Parliament.
Mr Sunak’s authority faces a test when the Bill has its second reading vote on Tuesday – no government has suffered a defeat at this stage of a proposed law’s progress since 1986.
The support of the One Nation grouping could prove crucial in ensuring the legislation moves onto the next parliamentary stage but the Prime Minister is set to face pressure from right-wingers to toughen up the flagship legislation.
Chairperson of the Tory backbench group ERG, Mark Francois, said the "bottom line conclusion" is "the bill provides a partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges in the UK courts".
Speaking to reporters outside Portcullis House on Monday afternoon, he said: “The Government would be best advised to pull the Bill and come up with a revised version that works better than this one which has so many holes in it .”
The Prime Minister appeared at the Covid inquiry defending his controversial Eat Out To Help Out scheme as sceptical Tory MPs were casting judgement on his emergency Rwanda legislation.
The £290 million plan to “stop the boats” has sunk deeper into crisis following the resignation of immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who argues that the new Bill is doomed to fail.
But No10 was seeking to regain the offensive by publishing a summary of its own legal advice later on Monday, to give Tory MPs food for thought at a couple of backbench meetings.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps denied that Mr Sunak’s leadership was in chaos. He said that under the Bill, Home Office modelling showed that 199 out of 200 appeals by illegal migrants against their deportation to Rwanda would be done in 17 days, and 99.5 per cent would fail.
“The Conservatives have a plan, which is starting to work, and I think colleagues should unite behind that,” the defence secretary said on LBC, stressing that cross-Channel crossings were already down by one-third this year.
“I have no doubt at all that the House of Commons will be able to pass it,” he said ahead of the vote on second reading on Tuesday, while predicting more trouble from opposition parties in the House of Lords later.
The Bill attempts to plough a narrow legal path, keeping the Rwandans on-side with a new treaty without violating international law.
The Home Office has earmarked at least £700 million to manage the arrival of migrants on small boats until 2030, with the option of extending the contracts until 2034, according to commercial plans reported by the BBC.
The money will be spent on running the Western Jet Foil facility in Dover and a reception centre at the former Manston airfield in Kent.
Mr Sunak's spokesman said the Government planned for "all eventualities".
Any such contracts would have exit clauses in case the work proved unnecessary, he said, adding: “This is just normal contingency planning by the Department (Home Office).”
A summary of the Government’s legal position on the stalled asylum scheme published on the Government website on Monday said there will will be a “very high barrier” for legal challenges against sending migrants to Rwanda.
The document says the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill “does not entirely preclude the possibility of a person being able to rely on some exceptional, individual circumstance that is so rare that it could not have been predicted by Parliament."
"It is to be emphasised that, as the Bill makes quite clear, this exception cannot be used to undermine the core provisions deeming Rwanda to be a safe country to which to send people…", it says.
“As such, the Bill must allow for claims based on wholly exceptional individual circumstances. While it is not possible to predict what cases may arise, we do not think there will be many, if any.
“For any such claim a person would have to provide compelling and credible evidence that their specific circumstances put them at immediate risk of serious and irreversible harm if they were to be removed. That is a very high barrier to cross.”
