Why did the prime minister have to hold a press conference before MPs had their big debate today (April 22)? Is it because Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda ‘game changer’ is like ‘feeding a kitten to a hungry crocodile’?

Here’s video of him announcing that shipping innocent people off to detention in Africa will stop boatfuls of refugees crossing the English Channel, as if that is actually the likely result:

Commentators have been picking his speech to ribbons since the moment he started it – particularly his lie that Labour Party peers have been responsible for delaying his draconian new law:

Another big question was why he felt the need to hold a press conference saying what MPs were going to do, as though it had already happened. Was he trying to come across as some kind of hard man?

Perhaps most damningly in terms of presentation, he came across as “tetchy”. Commentators have already noticed that Sunak seems increasingly irritable as the UK sleepwalks closer to a general election that is likely to see him hurled out of Downing Street on his ear, and a public display of it can only worsen perceptions of him and his party:

But the best critique was, as always, from Peter Stefanovic, making a welcome return after the Easter break:

So:

The Rwanda law, if passed, means the UK is breaking its international human rights obligations.

It will erode the protections in the Human Rights Act and contravene the European Convention on Human Rights.

And it tears up the UK’s commitment to comply with international treaties.

It jeopardises the UK’s reputation for upholding the rule of law.

Sunak’s law will overrule the objective truth of facts determined by UK courts, replacing it with falsehoods his government insists on pushing in order to push its fascistic policy. This is a step towards dictatorship that none of the press representatives present dared to point out.

The Rwanda Bill puts all our human rights at risk because if the government can remove rights from sections of society at will, then no section of society has any rights at all.

Sunak’s reference to the European Court of Human Rights as “a foreign court” is a lie. It is an international court of which the UK is a member (indeed, the UK was instrumental in its creation).

Sunak refused to rule out leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (joining Russia and Belarus, the only other European countries not to be signed up to it). This would remove protections on UK citizens’ rights to a fair trial, freedom of assembly and expression, free elections, freedom of religion, freedom from discrimination, the right to privacy, freedom from torture and degrading treatment.

Trusting a government like Sunak’s (or one led by Keir Starmer, for that matter) to replace the European Convention on Human Rights with a domestic Bill of Rights would be “like handing a kitten over to a hungry crocodile”.

Sunak’s government has already robbed millions of workers of the right to strike, barred millions of people from taking part in elections, and stripped us of our rights to protest about it. None of the press representatives at Sunak’s event dared to point that out either.

Sunak is happy to ignore orders from the European Court of Human Rights, intended to prevent a real risk of serious and irreversible harm. The government’s own legal advice states that this would be a breach of international law.

Oh, and if the crisis-ridden UK criminal justice system, which has a years-long backlog of cases waiting to come to trial, can suddenly find space – and judges – to accommodate the Rwanda policy, it seems clear that the backlog could have been cleared years ago. The Tory government simply didn’t have the will to do so.

Sunak’s Rwanda law is a ‘game-changer’, all right. And it is definitely like feeding a kitten to a hungry crocodile. The important thing to remember is that we are the kitten.

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