RISHI SUNAK is struggling to save his floundering premiership as the death of an asylum-seeker on the Bibby Stockholm barge today highlighted the human cost of Tory policy.
The death, believed to be a suicide, led to immediate calls for the barge to be shut down.
Since opening in the summer it has been at the centre of complaints about bad food and poor conditions.
It had to be closed straight after opening because legionella bacteria was found on board.
Today it is believed to house around 300 male asylum-seekers at an isolated mooring off the Dorset coast.
Fire Brigades Union general secretary and TUC president Matt Wrack said that his union had warned “this summer that detaining vulnerable human beings in prison-like conditions on a barge was a cruel and dangerous policy.
“Ministers must end this barbaric practice immediately.”
The shocking news came while Mr Sunak was fighting for his political life as MPs debated his Rwanda Bill, designed to overcome a Supreme Court judgement finding that the government’s policy of deporting refugees to the African state was illegal.
Tory hardliners have pledged to oppose the Bill on the grounds that it does not break Britain’s international legal obligations definitively enough, leaving refugees scope to appeal to the courts.
But more moderate “one nation” Conservatives have warned that they will not back the legislation if it is toughened to put Britain on the wrong side of international law.
Home Secretary James Cleverley told the Commons that the Bill was “still within the framework of international law” but conceded that it was “pushing at the edge of the envelope.”
It has been reported that as many as 30 Tory backbenchers may rebel by either abstaining or voting against.
Twenty-nine direct votes against could be enough to sink the Bill and plunge Mr Sunak into a terminal political crisis.
The rebels are being led by hard-hearted former Immigration minister Robert Jenrick, who quit his post last week because the Bill did not go far enough.
He told MPs the legislation was “sophistry.”
Mr Sunak was forced to hold an “emergency breakfast” today — never a good sign — to try and win over recalcitrant MPs.
Labour opposed the law on practical rather than principled grounds, with leader Sir Keir Starmer ducking calls to express moral objections.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper pledged that Labour would hire 1,000 extra staff to help speed refugee expulsions.
Charity leaders united to demand an end to callous Conservative policy as news of the tragedy on the Bibby Stockholm broke.
Care4Calais chief executive Steve Smith said: “The UK government must take responsibility for this human tragedy.
“They have wilfully ignored the trauma they are inflicting on people who are sent to the Bibby Stockholm, and the hundreds being accommodated in former military barracks.
“Asylum-seekers are human beings, many of whom have experienced the worst traumas imaginable through war, torture and persecution.
“The government’s proxy war against refugees is costing lives.”
Steve Valdez-Symonds of Amnesty International UK said: “What’s being completely lost in current Westminster debate on the appalling Rwanda deal is that this is still about people — people who in many cases have fled persecution and conflict.
“People seeking asylum deserve better than this.”
Nicola David of One Life to Live commented: “Our asylum system is utterly inhumane; for some it is simply unsurvivable.
“It is time to close down the barge once and for all and for this government to stop the cruelty.”
Anti-racist campaign group Stand Up to Racism is to stage a protest outside the Home Office next Monday December 18 at 5.30pm to protest against the Rwanda Bill.
