UK general election: Labour calls Rwanda scheme a ‘con’ and says Sunak wants election now as he knows policy won’t work

The Liberal Democrats have ruled out any pact that would keep the Tories in power, Daisy Cooper, their deputy leader, confirmed on Sky News this morning. She said:

We have ruled out doing any deal whatsoever with this Conservative Government because it is really quite clear that there are lifelong Conservative voters who can no longer stomach voting for this Conservative Party, they simply don’t recognise it anymore.

When it was put to her that Nick Clegg said the same thing before going into coalition with the Tories in 2010, Cooper replied: “A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then.”

Cooper did not rule out some sort of post-election arrangement with Labour.

Echoing the line from Yvette Cooper (see 10.37am), Keir Starmer claimed this morning that Rishi Sunak is holding the election now because he knows the Rwanda policy will fail. He said:

Rishi Sunak clearly does not believe in his Rwanda plan. I think that’s been clear from this morning, because he’s not going to get any flights off.

I think that tells its own story. I don’t think he’s ever believed that plan is going to work, and so he has called an election early enough to have it not tested before the election.

Sunak rejected a version of this suggestion when it was put to him in an interview this morning. (See 9.36am.)

There is some evidence suggesting Sunak did not support the Rwanda policy when it was announced during Boris Johnson’s premiership in 2022. In January the BBC said it had been leaked government papers from that period showing Sunak, then chancellor, did not think it would have a deterrent effect.

Michael Matheson, former health secretary in the Scottish governmen, has been suspended from Holyrood for 27 days and will lose his salary for 54 days after racking up a near-£11,000 data roaming bill, PA Media reports. PA says:

Matheson was found to have breached the MSP code of conduct by attempting to use expenses and office costs to cover the bill for a parliamentary device.

Later announcing he would cover the costs himself, Matheson revealed his children had used the device as a wifi hotspot to watch football during a holiday in Morocco.

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said this morning that Rishi Sunak’s statement that deportation flights to Rwanda will not leave until after the election was extraordinary. She said:

The prime minister’s own words this morning show this whole Rwanda scheme has been a con from start to finish.

With all the hundreds of millions they have spent, it would be extraordinary if ‘symbolic flights’ didn’t take off in early July, as the Tories planned.

But Rishi Sunak’s words confirm what we’ve known all along: he doesn’t believe this plan will work and that’s why he called the election now in the desperate hope that he won’t be found out.

In an interview with LBC this morning, Sunak said: “If I’m elected, we will get the flights off … after the election.” Asked to confirm that meant no flights before the election, Sunak confirmed that was correct.

Here is Rishi Sunak doing a Q&A with workers from the West William distribution centre in Ilkeston this morning. He seems more comfortable doing campaign events in small settings like this, than doing large, platform speeches (Jeremy Corbyn-style).

But that might also be because the Tories can’t get the numbers to fill a big venue. Last night Sunak was speaking at the ExCeL centre in east London. It is a vast conference space, but the Tory event was taking place in something not much bigger than a broom cupboard.

The Labour party finds it easier to drum up a crowd, but even they can’t rustle up big numbers at short notice on a weekday morning. There is a picture at 9.58am showing the size of the crowd at the Starmer rally this morning.

Starmer is now running through Labour policy proposals. He summarises the proposals in Labour’s six pledges.

And he talks about about being able to increase opportunities for people in Somers Town, a deprived ward in his constituency. It’s an argument he used in his speech last week announcing the pledges.

Starmer has now finished.

He and Rishi Sunak have both spoken this morning, and they were both delivering stump speeches. Readers will have noticed that neither of them said anything very new. A stump speech is meant to be the distillation of your core message. It is what we are going to hear every day for the next six weeks. It is not where political leaders make news.

Starmer says the election is a chance to end the “chaos and division” of the Tory years, saying that for the last 14 years the country has been “going round and round in circles”.

He says his parents were not well off. But they could take comfort from the knowledge that things would get better for their children.

But do people feel like that now? Starmer says he does not think so.

For a government to leave, after 14 years, our country with living standards worse than when they started is absolutely unforgivable.

Starmer says the only plan the Tories have is for an £46bn unfunded tax cut.

(He is referring to Rishi Sunak’s plan to get rid of employees’ national insurance, which Sunak claims is a long-term aspiration, not a firm commitment.)

Starmer says he has experience of changing a public service (the CPS). And he has changed Labour.

We changed the Labour party to put it back in the service of working people. All we ask now humbly is the opportunity to change our country and put it back in the service of working people.

(There is an echo here of John Smith’s most famous quote.)

Keir Starmer is about to speak at a rally in Gillingham in Kent. He is with Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader.

Naushabah Khan, the Labour candidate, is introducing them.

Rehman Chishti, the Conservative, had a majority of 15,119 here at the last election.

The April YouGov MRP poll suggested Labour is on course to win the seat, beating the Tories by 40% to 32%.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, was giving interviews this morning. He suggested that, if the Conservatives were to win the general election, Rishi Sunak could be replaced with another Tory leader. He told BBC Breakfast:

They’ve had 14 years, all they’re offering is five more years of the same as what we’ve had in the last 14, more chaos.

I mean, if the Conservatives were to win, do we even know if Rishi Sunak would remain as prime minister, be subject to one of the bouts of leadership challenges that always takes them over? So we’re not surprised that they will throw personal attacks at Keir Starmer.

Rishi Sunak did quite an extensive interview round this morning. The main news was his admission that he does not expect Rwanda deportation flights to leave before polling day. Here are the other main lines.

• Sunak rejected claims that he was holding the election now because he expected inflation to rise again later this year, or a spike in small boat arrivals. Asked if this was the case, he told BBC Breakfast:

No, that’s not the real reason.

And when it comes to the economy, of course I know there’s more work to do. I know that people are only just starting to feel the benefits of the changes that we’ve brought.

And for some people when they look at their bank balance at the end of every month it will still be difficult, but we have undeniably made progress and stability has returned.

• He was unable to confirm that important pieces of legislation, like the renters reform bill, or the Martyn’s law legislation to improve venue security in the wake of the Manchester Arena attack, would become law in the “wash-up” before parliament is dissolved. On the legislation for compensation for victims of the infected blood scandal, Sunak said he could not guarantee that would become law because other parties had to agree.

It requires a conversation with parties across parliament … But I will do absolutely everything in my power to make sure that we do get that through.

And, on Martyn’s law, he said:

Again, these are all conversations that need to be had with other parties across parliament.

I’m not going to deny that it was a bit wet. I’m not a fair-weather politician.

He also claimed that it was traditional for PMs to give major statements outside No 10.

I believe very strongly in the traditions of our country. And when you’re making a statement of that magnitude as prime minister, I believe in just doing it in the traditional way, come rain and shine, in front of the steps of Downing Street.

He did not explain why he did not stand under an umbrella.

For months Nigel Farage, who is honorary president of Reform UK (as well as its owner – it’s a company, and he is the majority shareholder) has been playing a ‘will he, won’t he?’ tease with the rightwing media, refusing to say whether he not he will be a candidate at the general election.

In a statement out this morning, Farage says he won’t stand.

What is significant is quite what a lukewarm endorsement of Reform UK this is. Farage just says he will “do my bit to help” – which does not sound like he is really going to make much of an effort.

Also, he says helping to get Donald Trump elected in the US is a bigger priority for him.[

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