RISHI SUNAK’S Rwanda row rumbled on today despite his victory in a key parliamentary vote on Tuesday night. 

Tory rebels pushing for a still tougher migration policy vowed to fight on in the new year to amend the legislation. 

Twenty-nine backbenchers abstained in the Commons vote on the Bill, not enough to defeat the government, thus allowing the Prime Minister’s plan to proceed to the next parliamentary stages. 

He has indicated a willingness to “tighten” the policy and listen to suggested amendments. 

The plan pivots on Rwanda being unilaterally declared a safe place to send asylum seekers, the point on which the Supreme Court struck down the previous policy. 

The new Bill also gives ministers the right to override certain decisions of the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg without putting the government wholly outside international law. 

Tory hardliners want to see the European Convention on Human Rights ignored altogether and also want to ensure that refugees have no right of legal redress against deportation decisions. 

But any moves in that direction could provoke a revolt on the other wing of the Tories, concerned about Britain’s international obligations.  

It might also provoke the Rwandan government to walk away from the agreement, which has so far netted them £290 million from the British government without accepting a single refugee as yet. 

This led Home Secretary James Cleverley to say today that the Bill must be in a “Goldilocks zone” between being too tough and breaching international law and not being “tough enough.” 

The Tory strife provoked ridicule from Keir Starmer in the Commons today, with the Labour leader asserting that Britain “isn’t being governed” and that the Conservatives were “in meltdown.” 

It is unlikely the Rwanda Bill will return to MPs until mid-January at the earliest, allowing time for anguished negotiations between the warring Tory factions. 

The premier also signalled that new rules mandating minimum earnings of £38,700 for anyone wishing to bring a foreign spouse into the country will be introduced gradually. 

The rules, which will wreck marriage plans for thousands, would be governed by “transitional arrangements to ensure they are fair” he told MPs. 

Labour remains opposed to the Rwanda plans on grounds of cost and practicality, insisting that they will not have the deterrent effect on migration that the government claims for it. 

A spokesman for Sir Keir did add however that the monstrous scheme was “not in line with our values.”