Rishi Sunak is preparing for a showdown with the House of Lords, pleading with peers to back his Rwanda plan after it passed the Commons, suggesting it is what voters want.
The prime minister described the bill as a “national priority” and urged the upper chamber to “do the right thing”.
“There is now only one question,” he said. “Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected House? Or will they get on board and do the right thing?”
Mr Sunak went on the attack against Labour, saying Keir Starmer’s party had no plan to tackle migrant Channel crossings.
He also could not guarantee that flights to Rwanda would take off before the next election, expected in the spring or autumn.
But a prominent member of the Lords warned that the Rwanda Bill represented “a step towards totalitarianism”.
Lord Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said many peers feared the integrity of the British legal system was “under attack” from Tory infighting.