Scotland’s first minister resigns after failing to muster enough votes to survive a no confidence vote this week
Humza Yousaf is holding a press conference at noon, Sky News and the BBC are reporting.
Mandy Rhodes, editor of the Holyrood magazine, says she was due to interview Humza Yousaf this afternoon, but he’s cancelled.
Continue reading...Prime minister dismisses potential deal with Dublin, increasing prospect of an escalating UK-Irish crisis
Rishi Sunak has said the UK will not accept the return of asylum seekers from Ireland and dismissed the prospect of a deal with Dublin.
The prime minister doubled down on his Rwanda deportation plan and appeared to reject any deal with the Irish government, which is alarmed at asylum seekers entering the republic from Northern Ireland.
Continue reading...Activists say little has changed in treatment of migrants and refugees under Donald Tusk’s new government
The case of a woman from Eritrea who was forced to give birth alone in the forested border area between Poland and Belarus has raised questions about the new Polish government’s response to the continuing humanitarian crisis at the border between the two countries.
The previous, rightwing government of the Law and Justice party (PiS) used the migration issue to score political points and was accused of encouraging rights abuses by guards along the border, with reports of frequent violent “pushbacks” of people to Belarus.
Continue reading...The Indian-born population grew the most, rising by more than 90,000 people to take the diaspora to almost 846,000 in total at June 2023
The share of Australians born overseas has surpassed 30% for the first time since 1893, after record migration in the year to June 2023 pushed the figure out of its Covid-induced plateau.
Australia drew in an additional 500,000 foreign-born residents, taking the total to 8.2 million out of the 26.6 million in the country in June, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics latest data, released on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Children among those killed in second fatal incident in two weeks close to the Horn of Africa, says UN agency
At least 21 people have died after a boat capsized off the coast of Djibouti, the UN’s migration agency has said.
It was the second fatal maritime accident in two weeks off the Horn of Africa nation, which lies on the perilous so-called eastern migration route from Africa to the Middle East.
Continue reading...Attempt to cross via overcrowded dinghy from Wimereux aborted after engine stalls and five people drown
They could have been on a school trip. Fifty teenagers from Vietnam, dressed for the biting cold in puffer jackets, smart trainers and woolly beanies, sat on the pavement by the bus shelter outside Gare Calais listening to music and watching videos on their smartphones.
They were waiting for the 423 bus to take them back to a forest outside Dunkirk, where they have been staying at night with about a thousand others. It had been a disappointing morning for the group.
Continue reading...Prime minister says that deaths of five people attempting to cross the Channel shows need to stop boats and bill is intended to stop people smuggling
Rishi Sunak has said that the deaths of five people who were crossing the Channel in the early hours of this morning underlines the need to stop the boats.
Speaking to reporters on his plane to Poland, he argued that there was an “element of compassion” in his Rwanda policy because it is intended to stop people smuggling. He said:
There are reports of sadly yet more tragic deaths in the Channel this morning. I think that is just a reminder of why our plan is so important because there’s a certain element of compassion about everything that we’re doing.
We want to prevent people making these very dangerous crossings. If you look at what’s happening, criminal gangs are exploiting vulnerable people. They are packing more and more people into these unseaworthy dinghies.
Continue reading...Bill could become law this week as end of parliamentary ping-pong in sight
Q: Do you think you will be able to implement this without leaving the European convention of human rights?
Sunak says he thinks he can implement this without leaving the ECHR.
If it ever comes to a choice between our national security, securing our borders, and membership of a foreign court, I’m, of course, always going to prioritise our national security.
Continue reading...In announcement three weeks before election, José Raúl Mulino gave no details of how he would stop migrant flow
Panama’s presidential frontrunner has vowed to “close” the Darién Gap, the swampy jungle straddling the border with Colombia that has become an unavoidable ordeal for many US-bound migrants – but experts criticised the idea as unworkable and potentially dangerous.
Presided over by criminal groups and corrupt officials, the Darién Gap is one of the world’s most dangerous and fast-growing border crossings.
Continue reading...Move follows vote in Commons where MPs voted down four amendments inserted by Lords yesterday
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
PMQs is starting soon.
Continue reading...British PM says he will speak to Netanyahu to express solidarity and discuss how further escalation can be avoided
UK general election opinion poll tracker: Labour leading as election looms
David Cameron ruled out trying to become PM again in an interview this morning. (See 9.30am.) But Liz Truss has not done so. In an interview with LBC’s Iain Dale, being broadcast tonight, she did not entirely dismiss the possibility. This is from LBC’s Henry Riley.
Truss is giving interviews to publicise her memoir which is out this week. According to extracts sent out in advance, she also confirmed in her LBC interview that she wanted to see Donald Trump win the US presidential election. She said:
I don’t think [Joe] Biden has been particularly supportive to the United Kingdom. I think he’s often on the side of the EU. And I certainly think I would like to see a new president in the White House …
The thing I would say about Donald Trump is, because I served as secretary of state under both Trump and Biden, and Trump’s policies were actually very effective. If you look at his economic policies, and I met his regulatory czar, I travelled around the United States looking at what he’d done. He cut regulation, he cut taxes, he liberated the US energy supply. And this is why the US has had significantly higher economic growth than Britain.
Continue reading...Senators label refusing 150 people, with Palestinian citizenship, visas into Australia during first months of conflict as ‘cold-blooded’ and ‘cruel’
About 160 Palestinians were refused visitor visas to come to Australia in the first three months of the Israel-Gaza conflict, mostly due to concerns they would not stay temporarily.
According to answers to questions on notice, 150 people with Palestinian citizenship were refused because they “did not demonstrate a genuine intention to stay temporarily in Australia” – a justification labelled “cold-blooded” and “cruel” by crossbench senators. Ten people who applied during the same period were rejected for other reasons.
Continue reading...Italian coastguard rescues 22 survivors trying to cross Mediterranean and searches for missing
Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather, and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy’s coastguard has said.
The coastguard said on Thursday it had received a cooperation request from Maltese search and rescue officials after the boat capsized about 30 miles (50km) south-east of the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Long-awaited package of measures marks victory for Europe’s centre albeit with ‘doubts and concerns’ over implementation
Almost a decade in the making, the EU’s new migration and asylum pact suffered so many setbacks, stalemates and rewrites that when member states finally announced a deal last year, its passage through parliament seemed assured.
That was, however, to ignore the objections of Europe’s resurgent far-right parties, who felt it was not tough enough (and, perhaps, hoped to profit at the ballot box from allowing the current chaos around migration to continue).
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
Malin Björk from the Swedish Left Party said the vote will not resolve problems, and that the Left group will not be supporting it.
There is no real solidarity, and there will be more of what is not working, she said. There will be detention, dehumanisation, violence, humiliation, she added.
Continue reading...European parliament president says ‘history made’ with vote to pass changes, which have been criticised by NGOs
Sweeping changes to the EU’s migration laws have been passed in a knife-edge series of votes in the European parliament, with supporters of the new laws calling the move historic but NGOs saying they are a step back for human rights.
The vote on Wednesday, which is now expected to be rubber-stamped by the member states, ends eight years of deadlock over repeated efforts to tighten up border management and asylum processes in the 27-member bloc.
Continue reading...Net migration to New Zealand hit a near record high in 2023 after a new temporary work visa was introduced after the pandemic
New Zealand will tighten its visa rules for some migrants as the coalition government moves to overhaul the immigration system it says has led to “unsustainable” levels of migration.
Last year, annual net migration to New Zealand hit a near record high of more than 173,000 non-New Zealand citizens in the year to December, Stats NZ reported.
Continue reading...Greens immigration spokesperson says bill expands ministerial power to reverse protection findings and deport people previously granted asylum
Labor’s “draconian” deportation bill expands ministerial powers to reverse protection findings, meaning refugees could be stripped of their status and deported, the Greens and lawyers have warned.
The controversial provision in the legislation delayed by the Senate this week could see a grandmother who fled Chile under Gen Augusto Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship forced to cooperate with deportation, Human Rights for All director Alison Battisson said.
Continue reading...Prof Sir John Curtice, the psephologist and lead election analyst for the BBC, said the chances of a Tory revival were small
In the House of Lords peers have just started debating the second reading of the leasehold and freehold reform bill. The bill has already passed through the Commons.
Normally, at this stage of the process, the content of a government bill is all but finalised. But, as No 10 admitted on Monday, the government has still not decided how far it will go in terms of cutting ground rents for existing leaseholders.
Continue reading...Fears of a new migration route grow as more than 800 people land on Gavdos, population fewer than 70, in a few months
Even by the standards of small Greek islands, Gavdos is tiny. In a population of fewer than 70 people, there are just two families with four children. The rest “are all old people mostly living alone”, its mayor, Lilian Stefanaki, explains.
It is a micro-world that in the depths of winter is served by a single school, a bakery, two mini-markets and four kafeneia cum tavernas. The remote island – separated from the coast of Crete by frequently unpredictable waters in the Libyan Sea – is watched over by Efsevios Daskalakis, who for much of the year is its sole police officer.
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