Rishi Sunak insists Rwanda legislation is fit for purpose as Tories clash on controversial topic and Robert Jenrick resigns

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has defended his government's emergency legislation to kick-start the controversial Rwanda asylum scheme amid reports of Tory infighting on the matter.

The PM held a last-minute press conference at Downing Street, where he attempted to maintain control of his party after his immigration minister Robert Jenrick resigned over the new legislation. In his resignation letter, Jenrick said that it "does not go far enough" to stop the "merry-go-round of legal challenges which risk paralysing the scheme".

Sunak told reporters at the press conference that the new legislation "blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights", adding that going further would mean an "entire collapse" of the scheme, which proposes sending asylum seekers to Rwanda while their application to live in the UK is processed. The scheme has been labelled as cruel by many, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and flights were blocked from taking off after an intervention by the Supreme Court amid concerns over the lack of proper assessment of whether Rwanda was a safe country for those seeking asylum.

The new legislation seeks to write into UK law that Rwanda is a "safe country", however some Tory MPs on the right of the party have been clamouring for the legislation to go further.

Sunak said: “This Bill blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off. The only extremely narrow exception will be if you can prove with credible and compelling evidence that you specifically have a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm.”

The PM also said that a former Supreme Court judge believed that the new legislation will work to get the scheme up and running. He said: “Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court judge, believes this Bill will work. We will get flights off the ground, we will deter illegal migrants from coming in and we will finally stop the boats.”

He also confirmed Jenrick's replacement in government, announcing that he will be splitting the responsibility for immigration into two. Michael Tomlinson will take up the post as illegal migration minister, while Tom Pursglove will take up the role as legal migration minister. Both will be placed into the Home Office.