Rishi Sunak will hold a surprise press conference in Downing Street this morning

Rishi Sunak has called a surprise press conference in Downing Street.

The Prime Minister is expected to address the nation later this morning. Mr Sunak will speak about the government’s long-delayed Rwanda plan.

MPs and colleagues will finally pass legislation later tonight that could get flights in the air.

It comes as Mr Sunak struggles to reverse the Conservative Party’s poor poll numbers. The Prime Minister is prepared for the possibility of a leadership challenge by his MPs if the May 2 local election results are dire. There will also be a tough Tory by-election in Blackpool South on the same day.

Mr Sunak is trying to rise to prominence after the party was hit by yet another scandal. MP Mark Menzies yesterday announced he has quit the Tories and will not stand as a candidate at the next election following allegations he misused campaign funds to pay ‘bad people’.

The deportation from Rwanda was first announced two years ago, in April 2022, when Boris Johnson was prime minister.

The government has pledged to keep parliament sitting late into the night if necessary to pass the Rwanda Security (Asylum and Immigration) Bill, which it sees as essential to Mr Sunak’s pledge to “lift the boats fuses”.

Peers have repeatedly blocked the legislation with a series of amendments, stretching out the debate on the “emergency legislation” for more than four months and delaying flights taking asylum seekers to Rwanda. Downing Street is hostile to the idea of ​​making concessions to secure passage of the bill, leading to a deadlock with the Lords.

The bill aims to overcome Supreme Court objections by forcing judges to treat Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers and allowing ministers to ignore emergency orders from the European Court of Human Rights.

Last week, colleagues amended the bill again to include an exemption for Afghan nationals assisting British troops and a provision that meant Rwanda could not be treated as safe unless deemed so by an independent monitoring body.

Tonight, MPs are expected to vote to overturn these changes before sending the bill back to the House of Lords, where some peers will try to push their amendments again. If so, the bill would later return to the House of Commons for another vote and then return to the Lords again in a process known as “ping pong” that would last well past the Commons’ usual 10:30 pm finish line. can last.

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