Tories say Starmer has a ‘disconnect from reality’ over housing asylum seekers – UK politics stay

Tory chief Kemi Badenoch performed down the potential impression of the federal government’s efforts to crack down on migrants working illegally as supply riders.

She stated: “I think it’s barely scratching the surface of the problem. The real problem is that Keir Starmer has failed to stop the boats.

“He said he was going to smash the gangs. Nothing like that has happened. The problem is getting worse.

“Crossings are up well over 40% since Labour came into into government. He needs to deal with that.

“He had a third-country deterrent, which was the Rwanda plan. He decided to scrap it just as it was getting going. He needs to bring that plan back, right now he doesn’t have one.”

Reform UK councillors have been accused of hypocrisy after voting to spend £150,000 on hiring political advisers at a county council regardless of pledging to chop waste and get monetary savings.

The plans have been put ahead by Reform councillor George Finch, a 19-year-old who was narrowly elected because the chief of Warwickshire county council throughout a gathering on Tuesday, which was picketed by protesters.

The protest got here after a row over an try by Finch, as interim chief, to have a Pleasure flag faraway from council headquarters earlier than the tip of Pleasure month. The chief government refused the request, telling him she was liable for such choices.

Nevertheless, there was contemporary controversy throughout a gathering of the council, considered one of a number of the place Reform grew to become the most important occasion within the current native elections, because it narrowly pushed via plans to rent political advisers however misplaced a separate vote regarding the local weather disaster.

Opposition councillors accused Reform of reneging on guarantees to voters over the political advisers, who can be publicly funded for it and the opposite two largest events, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.

Kemi Badenoch blamed Labour for the strains on social cohesion highlighted by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner.

The Conservative chief stated: “I’m surprised it’s taken her this long to actually understand what is going on.” Talking in north-west London she stated Hillingdon Council had a £17 million deficit as a result of it has had asylum seekers “dumped on their doorstep”.

“Yvette Cooper is waving things through. Rachel Reeves is not providing the money. I’m not surprised. Angela Rayner is saying the social fabric is fraying, but she needs to do something about it.”

She stated she was not fearful about additional riots on the streets this summer time however “we need to be very, very vigilant”.

At Tuesday’s Cupboard assembly Rayner urged colleagues to acknowledge individuals’s “real concerns”, mentioning that immigration and growing time spent on-line are having a “profound impact on society”.

She additionally cited financial insecurity, the speedy tempo of deindustrialisation and declining belief in establishments as she gave an replace on her work on social cohesion and a coming plan for neighbourhoods.

Kemi Badenoch has insisted she and her new shadow housing secretary James Cleverly are on the identical web page in terms of internet zero and the European Conference on Human Rights (ECHR).

The Conservative chief was requested by broadcasters whether or not Cleverly was signed as much as her place on each.

Badenoch replied: “James and I have always had the same position on the ECHR, and that is that if we need to leave, then we should leave, but it’s not a silver bullet.

“That is why we have a commission on this very issue, which will be reporting at party conference.

“So I wouldn’t bring someone into the shadow cabinet if they didn’t agree with me.”

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, is visiting London to signal a landmark free commerce settlement between his nation and the UK, a pact considered as a political and financial prize amid world commerce tensions unleashed by the US president, Donald Trump.

For Britain, keen to attain a post-Brexit win, the deal is its most economically vital commerce settlement since leaving the EU. For India, it marks its first main free commerce pact exterior Asia. For each, analysts say, the settlement alerts a long-term financial partnership.

“The UK and India, in many ways we have complementarities. We have had a historical relationship. It’s good to have a deeper trade relationship,” stated Indian economist Sanjaya Baru.

Throughout Modi’s two-day state go to beginning on Wednesday, his fourth to the UK as prime minister, he’ll maintain “wide-ranging” talks along with his counterpart, Keir Starmer, on commerce, defence, technological cooperation and safety, and also will pay a courtesy name on King Charles, in keeping with an Indian authorities assertion.

Dan Sabbagh

Campaigners have known as for Keir Starmer to inform parliament whether or not US nuclear weapons have returned to British soil after a particular US air power transport flight was noticed touchdown at RAF Lakenheath on Friday morning.

The Marketing campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a number of other specialists consider that it’s extremely seemingly that various US B61-12 gravity bombs have been delivered to a US air power squadron final week, the primary US nuclear deployment within the UK since 2008.

Tom Unterrainer, the chair of CND, stated it was “completely inappropriate” for the general public to search out out about “a major escalation in nuclear danger” through the assessments of army specialists and known as for the prime minister to replace MPs.

The pinnacle of the marketing campaign group stated the prime minister “must make a public statement about this major change in Britain’s security arrangements and allow for a transparent and democratic debate” on the difficulty.

Affirmation of any deployment of nuclear weapons by Starmer or the defence secretary, John Healey, isn’t anticipated, nonetheless. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence stated: “It remains a long-standing UK and Nato policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.”

Michael Savage

Considered one of tv’s most outstanding administrators has accused the tradition secretary, Lisa Nandy, of making an attempt to “bully the BBC” over its protection of Gaza, following her repeated assaults on its director common, Tim Davie.

Peter Kosminsky, the author and director of the BBC drama Wolf Corridor, claimed the federal government was appearing like a “tinpot dictatorship” in heaping political stress on Davie.

In a letter to Nandy, seen by the Guardian, Kosminsky cited the “ignominious history” of political interference within the BBC. He evoked the dying of Dr David Kelly, the federal government weapons professional, who died in 2003 shortly after being revealed because the supply for a BBC story stating the federal government “probably knew” a declare about Iraq’s weapons capabilities was not true.

“Could I respectfully suggest that you stop trying to bully the BBC, the nation’s primary public service broadcaster, over its coverage of the war in Gaza,” wrote Kosminsky, who made a docu drama about Kelly’s dying in 2005.

“The last time Labour was in power, it picked a public fight with the BBC over an editorial matter. It didn’t end well for either party and a man – David Kelly – tragically died.

“I have been a Labour supporter for most of my life. It gives me no pleasure to watch this government behaving like a tinpot dictatorship, trying to pressurise a broadcaster for which it holds the purse strings. You are the current custodians of the 100-year tradition of public service broadcasting in this country. This is not the way to discharge that obligation.”

Residence Workplace minister Seema Malhotra stated new measures to share details about asylum lodge areas with meals supply firms to sort out suspected hotspots of unlawful working will “improve the speed” of deporting unlawful employees.

She informed BBC Radio 4’s Right this moment programme: “If I take one example of where we did an illegal working raid just a couple of months ago – four people who were found to be working illegally, of those, three were deported within a month.

“This is connected with the work we’re doing to improve the way that we are dealing with asylum backlogs, improve the speed with which we are deporting those who have no right to be in the UK – over 35,000 since last July.”

Newly-appointed shadow housing secretary James Cleverly stated he understands “the desire to protest” when requested about demonstrations exterior inns believed to be housing asylum seekers.

There have been a sequence of protests exterior the Bell Resort in Epping, Essex, since an asylum seeker was charged with sexual assault.

Requested if he has sympathy for individuals protesting exterior asylum inns, the Tory MP informed BBC Radio 4’s Right this moment programme: “I understand the desire to protest.

“There is never any excuse for rioting and we are seeing that agitators, both on the left and the right, are descending upon these communities to try and stir things up and there’s never an excuse for that, but I do understand why local people are frustrated.

“When I was home secretary, as a government we were closing the use of asylum hotels. I, as home secretary, cut net migration in half, still too high, but I cut it in half.

“The Labour government thought it was going to be easy and what we are now seeing is a complete collapse of border control; we saw the worst first half of the year when it comes to small boats arrivals on record; they are opening up asylum hotels; they are increasing the use of asylum accommodation around the country, and people are angry and they’re frustrated.”

He added: “I never said it started under Labour, but it has demonstrably got worse when they thought it was going to be easy.”

Dover asylum protests pose hazard to small boat arrivals, charities say

Diane Taylor

Charities have warned of the growing hazard to asylum seekers posed by far-right protesters after small boat arrivals have been moved from their typical touchdown place in Dover to additional alongside the coast to keep away from clashes.

The Guardian understands that Residence Workplace officers obtained intelligence that a few of these taking part in what was billed the Nice British Nationwide Protest in Dover on Saturday afternoon may have been planning to focus on Kent Consumption Unit, the place small boat arrivals are initially processed after being escorted to shore in Dover by the Border Pressure.

A flag of the white supremacist occasion Patriotic Various, led by the previous BNP official Mark Collett, was photographed on the march.

A complete of 153 individuals who arrived in three dinghies on Saturday have been “landed” in Ramsgate and processed at Manston, the location the place small boat arrivals are often taken to after going via KIU.

It’s extremely uncommon for small boats to be landed at Ramsgate, and the change is believed to have been to keep away from potential clashes with protesters.

Small boats have been beforehand “landed” in Ramsgate in 2022 owing to the P&O Ferries disaster. Western Jet Foil, one other processing web site, was focused by the acute rightwing terrorist Andrew Leak in 2022, who threw two or three incendiary units on the web site earlier than killing himself.

The Residence Workplace resolution to divert small boat arrivals to keep away from clashes with the far proper comes as tensions mount between asylum seekers and anti-migration protesters at inns.

James Cleverly has stated Angela Rayner’s remark about social cohesion “rings a bit hollow” due to her participation in Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests.

The deputy prime minister stated in a Cupboard assembly on Tuesday that immigration, time spent on-line and financial insecurity have been having a “profound impact on society”.

The shadow housing secretary informed Sky Information: “I think she makes a very good point, and I think she’s echoed things that Conservatives have said for a while. I think it rings a bit hollow when she was one of the people that took the knee during the BLM protest.

“She, the Labour party, the prime minister, have jumped on every bandwagon that’s come along, and they have spent so much time seeming to be on the side of the people who don’t play by the rules, who jump the queue, who abuse the system.

“And now that they’re in government, she is saying, ‘Oh, well, I think you know, society is fracturing’, seemingly blind to the role the Labour party have played in driving wedges between communities.”

Rajeev Syal

Len McCluskey, the previous head of Unite, accepted non-public jet flights and soccer tickets organized by the corporate constructing a multimillion pound lodge for the union, in keeping with an inside file.

The Flanagan Group, which is run by pals of McCluskey, overcharged Unite by a minimum of £30m for the Birmingham lodge and convention centre venture, the interim report stated.

It additionally discovered that McCluskey “overruled” recommendation from workers and the union’s attorneys in signing the development contract with the Flanagan Group.

Unite’s report stated the flights and tickets have been “consistently organised and paid for by” the corporate and there was “no indication” that McCluskey later reimbursed them.

He denied he had overruled workers or attorneys. The Flanagan Group didn’t reply to requests from the BBC and the Guardian for remark.

McCluskey, who was Unite’s common secretary between 2010 and 2021, was a key participant within the labour motion and the main monetary backer of Jeremy Corbyn when Corbyn was Labour chief.

In the meantime, James Cleverly has stated he won’t shadow Angela Rayner in her position as deputy prime minister.

He informed ITV’s Good Morning Britain:

I’m the shadow housing secretary. In opposition, constructions are completely different and necessities are completely different.

And when it comes to deputy prime minister, I believe that’s a job title, fairly than a job – an excuse to have an much more bloated Civil Service hierarchy on the centre of Westminster.

And I believe that could be a reflection on how Angela Rayner has very efficiently outmanoeuvred Keir Starmer at each flip, and has gathered authority and energy on the coronary heart of presidency.

And I don’t, I don’t really feel the necessity to shadow that cumbersome forms.

My job is about highlighting her failure and the Labour authorities’s failure to ship on their promise to the British individuals, which is to construct properties that British individuals can stay in.

He known as Rayner “formidable” and stated he appears ahead to “sparring with her”.

Whats up and welcome to the UK politics stay weblog.

Newly-appointed shadow housing secretary James Cleverly has criticised the prime minister for a “disconnect from reality” in terms of housing asylum seekers.

The Tory MP and former dwelling secretary stated asylum inns are being reopened and that extra asylum seekers are prone to be despatched to an lodging centre in his personal constituency of Braintree.

“The government has lost control,” he informed LBC.

“And to add insult to injury, we saw the prime minister at the Liaison Committee just this week blithely saying, oh, there are plenty of houses for asylum seekers, when there are people all over the country struggling to get on the housing ladder, and that complete disconnect from reality, I think, is driving a lot of frustrations.

“There is never an excuse for rioting, and I’ll make that absolutely clear, but the government really is making a difficult situation significantly worse.”

He stated that individuals who stay near amenities housing asylum seekers are “typically well behaved” however that there are “agitators, both of the left and the right, imposing themselves on local communities to try and play out a political agenda, and local people are caught in the crossfire”.

The federal government must be seen to be “on the side of the people who play by the rules, rather than on the side of the people who abuse the system, jump the queue and try and exploit our hospitality,” he stated.

In different information:

• Angela Rayner urged the federal government to acknowledge individuals’s “real concerns” and flagged excessive ranges of deprivation the place the worst riots erupted final summer time practically a yr on from the dysfunction. The deputy prime minister informed Cupboard colleagues that immigration and growing time spent on-line are having a “profound impact on society”.

• Edward Argar has stepped down as shadow well being secretary, which he stated was on the recommendation of his docs after a “health scare” earlier this summer time. He can be changed by Stuart Andrew, a former minister who has been shadow tradition minister.

• Kevin Hollinrake, who had been shadow housing and communities secretary, will turn into occasion chair. He takes over from Nigel Huddleston, who would be the new shadow tradition secretary.

• Conservative Senedd member Laura Anne Jones has joined Reform UK, turning into the occasion’s first Member of the Senedd (MS).

• The UK authorities borrowed greater than anticipated in June amid hypothesis the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, might want to increase taxes on the autumn finances to restore the general public funds. Figures from the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS) confirmed public sector internet borrowing rose to £20.7bn, up by £6.6bn from the identical month a yr earlier to achieve the second-highest June borrowing determine since month-to-month data started in 1993.

• Synthetic intelligence expertise can be trialled to evaluate disputed ages of asylum seekers who say they’re kids, the Residence Workplace has stated. Ministers hope to roll out facial age estimation for migrants arriving by small boats and lorries over 2026, topic to additional testing of the expertise to go forward this yr.