William Hague warns Tories could be 'permanently' ousted from power as party tears itself apart
William Hague has warned the Conservatives could be permanently removed from power at the next general election, urging Conservative MPs to back Rishi Sunak's Rwanda Bill
The former Conservative Party leader warned: 'There is no guarantee of coming back'
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William Hague has warned the Conservatives could be permanently removed from power at the next general election, urging Conservative MPs to back Rishi Sunak's Rwanda Bill.
He warned that there is no "guarantee" the Conservatives would ever return to government if it loses the next election to Sir Keir Starmer's party.
Hague accused Tory MPs of "picking holes" in the revised plan to send migrants to Rwanda, warning that they "have only got opposition to look forward to".
Speaking to Times Radio, the former Conservative Party leader warned: "There is no guarantee of coming back.
WATCH: Cleverly unveils the Government's revised Rwanda plan
"I am not predicting that because I want Rishi Sunak to win his vote, to keep doing well over the coming year, to win an election.
"I am not predicting that will happen, I am just saying it can happen.
"The Liberal Party used to be a regular governing party but when it went out after the First World War it actually never came back in again as a majority government."
This comes as the PM attempts to rally support for his Rwanda Bill, being voted upon this evening.
Sunak has spent the day trying to secure support from MPs on both sides of the party, meeting with the right-wing New Conservatives group this morning.
Yesterday, lawyers acting on behalf of right-wing MPs warned that the Bill provides a "partial and incomplete solution to the problem of legal challenges", saying it does not "go far enough to deliver the policy as intended".
The document, published by the ERG, lists 13 "limitations" of the legislation and warns the Bill "contains no restrictions on the bringing of legal challenges against removal to Rwanda based on grounds other than that Rwanda is not a safe country".
It also claims there is "nothing in the Bill which would prevent the UK courts from following or being influenced by a final ruling of the Strasbourg Court on a case where the Bill does not expressly preclude them from doing so".
Sunak has been warned that, once in Rwanda, an asylum seeker "will be able to appeal any previous decisions based on new evidence".
However, the group is yet to confirm how it will advise its MPs to vote.
There is a chance it could choose to vote for the bill today, in order to make amendments at its next stage.
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But it is understood that the ERG-led coalition of Tory factions wants Sunak to toughen up the Bill before it faces a vote this evening.
Today, New Conservatives' leaders Miriam Kates and Danny Kruger wrote an Op-Ed in the Times warning: "We can’t vote for a Bill that fails to establish the superiority of our democratically-elected UK parliament over foreign courts."
