UK politics reside: minister pushes again at Tory claims linking small boat arrivals to sexual crime

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Kate Forbes, Scotland’s deputy first minister and former Scottish Nationwide celebration management contender, has introduced she is quitting Holyrood on the subsequent election.

The information will shock her celebration. Forbes has lengthy been regarded by centrists within the celebration as a possible chief and was a favorite of many enterprise leaders and SNP MSPs aligned with former chief Alex Salmond.

She mentioned she had mirrored over the recess about whether or not to face once more at subsequent Could’s Scottish parliamentary election, however had determined to place her younger household first. In a press release she mentioned:

I’ve grown up within the public eye, getting married, having a child and elevating a younger household. I’ve constantly put the general public’s wants forward of my household’s throughout that point. I’m grateful to them for accommodating the heavy calls for of being a political determine. Waiting for the longer term, I don’t need to miss any extra of the valuable early years of household life – which may by no means be rewound.

However her assertion left open the likelihood she might stand once more at a later date, emphasising she didn’t want “to seek re-election for another five-year term in the Scottish parliament”.

Her choice to give up now may even spare Forbes of the problem of deciding whether or not or to not contest the management once more if Swinney quits after the 2026 election; many see the housing secretary Màiri McAllan because the favorite to succeed him.

An MSP within the Highlands, Forbes got here near profitable the management and turning into first minister after Nicola Sturgeon stood down in February 2023, following probably the most turbulent and combative campaigns of current celebration historical past.

Forbes overtly attacked a lot of Sturgeon’s landmark insurance policies on social inclusion and accused her closest rival Humza Yousaf of incompetence, with the competition exposing important strains with their pro-independence companions the Scottish Inexperienced celebration.

An lively member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland, which doesn’t admit girls as church ministers, she was accused in flip of taking regressive stances on abortion rights, equal marriage and the local weather disaster.

After Yousaf’s interval as first minister and celebration management ended abruptly following his disastrous choice to desert a coalition with the Greens, Forbes was introduced again in to function deputy first minister by John Swinney as he sought to regular the ship.

Forbes mentioned she loved the privilege of turning into a minister for public finance, then as cupboard secretary for finance (a publish she was given at extraordinarily quick discover after the then finance secretary give up on the eve of a price range) and most lately as deputy first minister and cupboard secretary for economic system and Gaelic.

Angela Eagle, the Residence Workplace minister, was giving interviews this morning to advertise authorities plans to spend £100m hiring as much as 300 further Nationwide Crime Company officers. Right here is the Residence Workplace press launch, and Rajeev Syal has written the story up right here.

As Rajeev says, this was the third Residence Workplace announcement on this matter inside 24 hours, following affirmation of plans plans to introduce a new offence for promoting irregular small boat crossings and plans to fast-track the processing of asylum functions.

Right this moment the Instances studies that, as a part of the measures to restrict asylum functions, the Residence Workplace will penalise universities that settle for overseas college students who’re primarily motivated by the will to say asylum within the UK. In their story Matt Dathan and Aubrey Allegretti report:

As a part of a contemporary authorities crackdown, universities will probably be penalised if fewer than 95 per cent of worldwide college students accepted on to a course begin their research, or fewer than 90 per cent proceed to the tip. Establishments that settle for overseas college students will face sanctions if greater than 5 per cent of their visas are rejected.

The plans, that are anticipated to be introduced subsequent month, are designed to stop the rising numbers of overseas nationals utilizing research visas to enter the UK after which declare asylum.

Dathan and Allegretti additionally say Yvette Cooper, the house secretary, is anticipated to signal the “one in, one out” returns take care of France, permitting round 50 small boat arrivals to be returned to France each week in trade for the UK accepting an equal variety of asylum candidates from France, on Wednesday.

In response to Mahri Aurora from Sky Information, Reform UK will announce a defection at their press convention.

NEW: Reform UK are holding a press convention at 11am as we speak by which they are going to unveil a defection from the Tory celebration. They may even introduce former jail governor Vanessa Frake MBE as their new justice adviser.

The press convention will probably be held with them in addition to Farage and the Reform Warwickshire County Council chief George Finch.

In her interviews this morning Angela Eagle, the minister for border safety and asylum, was requested what her message was to individuals who have been protesting outdoors motels used to accommodate asylum seekers. She instructed Sky Information:

Anger doesn’t get you wherever.

What we have now to do is recognise the values we have now on this nation, the rule of legislation we have now on this nation, the work we’re doing with the police to guard folks.

We’ll shut asylum motels by the tip of the parliament. We’ll do it quicker if we will.

And he or she instructed Instances Radio:

Those that are frightened and demonstrating have an absolute proper to try this, as long as they do it peacefully.

Folks don’t have a proper to then have a pop on the police, which has been taking place in some remoted circumstances outdoors motels.

Kemi Badenoch, just isn’t telling the reality concerning the “real failures of 14 years of Conservative government”, the previous Conservative prime minister Liz Truss has mentioned. Kevin Rawlinson has the story.

Good morning. Throughout August, when parliament just isn’t sitting and the faucet of home information is operating dry, opposition events usually prefer to run campaigns. Nigel Farage, the Reform UK chief, is following this mannequin with gusto and as we speak, for the third week in a row, he’s holding a press convention with reference to crime. Reform’s success within the polls is nearly totally right down to the very fact it advocates hardline insurance policies to chop immigration and small boat crossings and Farage is making an attempt explicitly to hyperlink this subject to crime, arguing that asylum seekers are disproportionately more likely to be legal.

The Conservative celebration don’t have a single theme for his or her summer time campaigning. (Yesterday Kemi Badenoch was campaigning concerning the uselessness of the Liz Truss mini-budget, a subject the place the nation largely agrees.) However in response to an in a single day announcement from the federal government about new measures to crack down on small boat crossings, they’ve additionally been depicting these migrants (whose numbers, after all, elevated dramatically whereas they have been in workplace) as a menace to public security. In a press release launched in a single day Chris Philp, the shadow house secretary, mentioned: “This weak Labour government has lost control of our borders, and we now see rapes and sexual assaults by illegal immigrants reported on a near daily basis.” And, in an interview on the Right this moment programme this morning, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, doubled down on this declare. He mentioned:

I’m afraid there’s rising proof of a severe hyperlink between unlawful migration, migration typically, and crime, significantly sexual crime in opposition to girls and ladies.

In London, 40% final yr of the entire sexual crimes have been dedicated by overseas nationals, although they solely make up 25% of the inhabitants.

And a number of the information that – we’re seeing we don’t have good information in the meanwhile – a number of the information we’re seeing may be very putting. Afghans and Eritrean nationals are 20 occasions extra more likely to be convicted of a sexual crime than a British nationwide.

These are very surprising statistics.

Farage lately instructed the New Statesman, for an attention-grabbing, prolonged profile written by Harry Lambert, that he thought Jenrick would “almost certainly” finish as much as the fitting of him on migration by the subsequent election. “I suspect he will probably go further – that’s just my instinct for someone who wants to make noise,” Farage mentioned.

Angela Eagle, the minister for border safety and asylum, has been giving interviews this morning, and on the Right this moment programme she advised that there was not agency information to again up the claims that Jenrick was making. She mentioned:

[Jenrick] did truly say that we don’t have good information in the meanwhile, and but he’s asserting with nice certainty information factors, and I don’t know the place he’s acquired them from. So it’s tough for me to criticise from a knowledge standpoint. However he’s admitted in that interview that we don’t have good information.

Requested if she thought that the Tories have been “playing with fire” by linking asylum seekers with sexual crime, Eagle replied:

I feel that we have to take care of all crimes, all sexual crimes, no matter who has perpetrated them in the identical approach. And we have to crack down on violence in opposition to girls and ladies, which is why we’ve truly acquired Jess Phillips, a minister, whose total job is about doing that.

Requested if she was open to discussing potential hyperlinks between immigration and crime, Eagle replied:

I don’t thoughts having debates about something, however I feel we haven’t acquired good information on this, and I feel that we’ve acquired to take a look at the precept. And that’s that we’ve acquired to take care of all sexual criminality, whoever perpetrates it, in an nearly color blind approach.

If a lady has been abused by anyone or has been subjected to a vile sexual crime, it doesn’t actually matter what the color of the pores and skin of the perpetrator is.

As Eagle mentioned, it’s laborious to evaluate the reality concerning the hyperlink between immigration and crime as a result of the information is sophisticated, and in some respects restricted. However one one who has tried is the researcher and scientist Emma Monk. On her Substack weblog she lately revealed an evaluation of the declare that some folks arriving within the UK on small boats are 20 occasions extra probably than Britons to be legal. This can be a declare that Jenrick referenced, describing it as “shocking”. Monk argues that it’s shockingly inaccurate – or “ludicrous on multiple fronts”, to make use of her phrases. Her entire publish is value studying, however right here is her conclusion.

As you may see, the declare that migrants arriving on small boats are 24x extra more likely to find yourself in jail was a straightforward manipulation of obtainable statistics. It wasn’t totally fabricated – they’ll level to ‘official statistics’ to say credibility – but it surely’s clearly misinformation all the identical.

A Tory MP briefed it to a right-wing newspaper, which revealed it unquestioningly. That was picked up by the remainder of the right-wing media ecosystem, and now the 24x determine is firmly within the minds of those that need to consider it, and is being repeated all around the web, and throughout dinner tables and backyard fences.

There are solely two objects within the diary for as we speak.

11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK chief, holds a press convention.

11.30am: Downing Road holds a foyer briefing.

(For readers who preserve asking why we characteristic the Reform UK press conferences, however not the Lib Dem ones, or the Inexperienced celebration ones, the reply is easy; they don’t seem to be holding any.)

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