UK to pay France extra £16m in stopgap deal to patrol Channel beaches

Two-month arrangement aimed at preventing small-boat crossings comes as existing deal expires

The UK will pay France an extra £16.2m to keep police patrolling Channel beaches and prevent a surge in small-boat crossings after negotiators failed to agree a permanent deal before a midnight deadline.

The stopgap arrangement, which will last for two months, comes after French negotiators refused to agree to UK demands for further interventions and patrols to stop asylum seekers from reaching the UK via the Channel.

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At least 22 people die after six days adrift in boat en route to Europe from Libya

Survivors tell coastguard smugglers ordered victims to be thrown overboard after running out of food and water

22 people hoping to reach Europe from north Africa have died off the coast of Greece after six days at sea in a rubber boat, survivors told the Greek coastguard.

The coastguard said on Friday that 26 people, including a woman and a minor, were rescued by a European border agency vessel off the island of Crete.

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MEPs back plans for ‘return hubs’, raising fears of ‘human rights black holes’

European parliament votes in favour of sending refused asylum seekers to offshore hubs, in ‘historic setback for refugee rights’

People with no right to stay in the EU could be detained for up to two years or sent to offshore centres described by experts as possible “human rights black holes” under plans voted for by the European parliament on Thursday.

An alliance of mostly centre-right and far-right lawmakers voted for a proposal to increase returns of undocumented migrants to their home countries, in a further sign of strain on the grand coalition of centrist political forces that has traditionally driven EU lawmaking.

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EU healthcare workers say they ‘refuse to be instruments’ in deportation plans

Professionals from across Europe urge MEPs to reject plans, saying ‘climate of fear’ could stop people seeking care

More than 1,100 healthcare professionals from across Europe have urged MEPs to reject proposed measures aimed at increasing the deportation of undocumented people, warning they could threaten public health by transforming essential public services, including hospitals, into sites of immigration enforcement.

The draft plans, which are due to go to a vote on Thursday, have been in the works since last March, when the European Commission laid out its proposal to target people with no legal right to stay in the EU, including potentially sending them to offshore centres in non-EU countries.

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Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions – UK politics live

PM to face opposition leader and MPs in the House of Commons

Polanski says the government should be doing more to improve home insulation, and on the drive towards renewable energy.

And he says the government should commit to ensuring energy bills do not rise above the April-June price cap.

The government should guarantee right now that it will not allow energy bills to rise beyond the April-June price cap – instead setting aside approximately £8.4bn to prevent a rise of up to £300 per household that could be coming down the track.

No, it’s not cheap. But the alternative is unacceptable: if the price cap rises, we will see interest rate rises. Mortgage rates up. Bond yields up. And inflation up – and we will be back into the doom loop that has done untold damage to our economy and caused misery for households across the UK for years now.

There are ways to pay. Instead of scrapping the windfall tax on energy companies, as this government is planning to do, we should be strengthening it instead. We need a real, loophole-free windfall tax with no exemptions for reinvesting in fossil fuels. A robust tax that claws back every single pound of reckless profiteering from this crisis and repurposes it immediately to protect every home in the country. And while taxing extreme wealth in the ways we need to will take time to implement, there are levers the government could pull right now – like equalising capital gains tax with income tax and reforming the base, to raise £12bn.

It’s time for the government to act decisively, eliminate the uncertainty that is plaguing people and the markets and insulate us from some of the worst economic effects of Trump’s war.

This was not a war of self-defence, there was no imminent threat. Negotiations were ongoing. It was, as the BBC’s international editor said, a war of choice.

People across the Middle East are terrified of what Trump and Netanyanhu’s war will mean for them and their loved ones. And the repercussions are echoing across the world as instability spreads and oil prices spike.

People are already struggling so hard just to make ends meet. People feel like they’re running every day just to stay in the same place. The idea that yet again – for the second time in just a few years – that we are going to have to deal with another enormous spike in the cost of the basics is unacceptable.

It’s unacceptable because we didn’t need to be here. It’s unforgivable that just four years after we last saw an energy price shock, that one triggered by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, far too little has been done to protect this country, its people, and its economy – from the impact of yet another energy price shock.

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Deaths of 22 children in Channel due to ‘catastrophic failure’ by UK and France, NGO says

Project Play finds UK taxpayers are funding ‘record child fatalities’ and ‘repeated violence’ against children in northern France

The deaths of 22 children while trying to cross the Channel in the last two years, along with the mistreatment of thousands of others, were due to “catastrophic failures” of the UK and French governments, according to a new report.

Project Play, an NGO that has worked with 2,192 children hoping to cross the Channel from northern France to the UK to claim asylum in the last two years, has documented the impact of the hostile conditions in northern France due to regular teargassing, evictions and dinghy-slashing by the French police.

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More than 600 people have died trying to cross Mediterranean in 2026, UN says

Deadliest start to a year in more than a decade, according to the International Organization for Migration

A least 606 people trying to reach Europe in search of refugee have been reported dead or missing in the Mediterranean since the beginning of 2026, marking the “deadliest start to a year” in more than a decade, the UN’s migration agency said on Monday.

The figure includes at least 30 people who are feared dead or missing after their boat capsized in severe weather off the coast of Greece on Saturday. Authorities rescued 20 people, including four minors, and recovered the bodies of three men and one woman, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said.

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53 people dead or missing after migrant boat capsizes in Mediterranean

Only two survivors rescued after boat overturned off Libyan coast, UN migration agency says

Fifty-three people are dead or missing after a boat capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the Libyan coast, the UN migration agency said on Monday. Only two survivors were rescued.

The International Organization for Migration said the boat overturned north of Zuwara on Friday, in the latest disaster involving people attempting the perilous Mediterranean crossing in the hope of reaching Europe.

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Starmer says budget did not break manifesto tax pledge – as it happened

PM says: ‘We kept to our manifesto in terms of what we’ve promised. But I accept the challenge that we’ve asked everybody to contribute’

The Conservative party is attacking the budget on the grounds that Rachel Reeves is putting up taxes supposedly to fund more spending on benefit claimants. Even though the rationale for this claim is questionable, the Tories were making it before the budget was announced, and Kemi Badenoch firmed it up last night, claiming it was a “Benefits Street budget”.

On LBC this morning, asked if the budget meant “alarm clock Britain paying for Benefits Street”, Reeves said she did not accept that. She said 60% of the families that would benefit from the removal of the two-child benefit cap (the most expensive welfare announcement in the budget) were in work.

I don’t think children should be punished by this pernicious policy any longer. And the cost to society of this is huge, the cost for councils of temporary accommodation, when people can no longer afford the rent, putting families in B&Bs, kids having to move to school all the time because parents have moved from B&B to another lot of temporary accommodation, and there’s costs for years to come, because all the evidence shows that kids that are growing up poor are less likely to get into work and more reliant on the welfare state in the future for them.

So this is a good investment in those kids, to give them the chances that I want for my kids, and everyone wants for their kids. It also saves money for taxpayers on that accommodation, on those additional health costs, and ensuring that those kids grow up to be productive adults.

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Andy Burnham calls on Labour to rethink plans to make it tougher for asylum seekers to settle permanently – UK politics live

The home secretary’s plans ‘may leave people in a sense of limbo and unable to integrate’, Burnham said

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, is giving a speech in Salford this afternoon where he will set out details of his “good growth” plans, but he has already explained much of it overnight in a news release.

Explaining what his “new model of economic growth” is, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (the body Burnham runs) says:

Over the past decade, the city region has become the fastest growing part of the UK economy, driven by a high-performing centre unrecognisable from even 15 years ago.

Our trailblazing devolution deals and unique partnership approach have fuelled annual growth of 3.1 per cent – more than double the rate of the country as a whole. A recent report from Oxford Economics praised Greater Manchester’s growth journey, calling us a “trailblazer for local devolution.”

A new strategic partnership between GMCA and GMPF [Greater Manchester Pension Fund] – the first of its kind in the country – will prioritise local investment and align the GMPF’s investment to our integrated pipeline. Projects in the integrated pipeline will be able to access patient capital that aims for sustainable growth and long-term impact.

We’ll invest in a way that makes the most of every pound, delivering social as well as economic benefits.

Our Greater Manchester baccalaureate is transforming technical education, giving young people a clear line of sight to high quality jobs in our growing economy, and we’re helping residents to live healthier, happier lives and access new employment and training opportunities through our Live Well approach.

Underpinning all this is the Bee Network – our safe, green and affordable public transport system, which is seamlessly connecting people and places like never before. Next year eight rail lines will be brought into the network, which already includes bus, rail, tram, and active travel routes.

I appreciate the support, but I couldn’t have brought forward a plan of the kind I brought forward today [his Manchester “good growth” plan] without being fully focused on my role as mayor of Greater Manchester.

And I’m providing leadership on growth, which is what I think the country needs, and is helpful to the government right now.

And we’re doing this in advance of the budget, I hope, to really bring to life the growth story for the government.

I would just finish by saying this; I think part of the country’s problem is the political culture of Westminster, which is playing out in front of us right now. You go to Manchester, and we’ve built a new economy, and a new way of doing politics, and more of that is what the country needs.

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Wes Streeting defends asylum system shake-up despite his unease

Health secretary says he is not comfortable with some elements of policy but that it is the right thing to do for the country

Wes Streeting has admitted he is not comfortable with forcibly deporting families under the home secretary’s migration plans, while maintaining it is still the right thing to do.

The health secretary said he thought the number of forced removals would be low under the proposed model, which is similar to Denmark’s, because there would be an increased financial incentive for people entering the UK illegally to return to their country of origin.

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Reform’s plan to cut EU citizens’ benefits would risk trade war with Europe, Labour claims – UK politics live

As Reform announces what it claims are £25bn in savings through cuts, Labour says ‘Farage’s fantasy numbers don’t add up’

Alf Dubs, the Labour peer and former MP who came to the UK on Kindertransport in 1939 and who campaigns on behalf of migrants, told the Today programme this morning that he was “depressed” by the asylum politicies announced by the government yesterday. He explained:

I find it upsetting that we’ve got to adopt such a hard line – what we need is a bit of compassion in our politics, and I think that some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won’t help.

The hard line approach will not, in fact, deter people from coming here – at least on the basis of people I spoke to in Calais, for example – I don’t think it will deter them.

I think there is a proper case for children, there’s a proper case for family reunion – when there are children who are on their own and who’ve got family in this country, then I think the right thing to do is to have family reunion and bringing children over here.

But to use children as a weapon, as the home secretary is doing, I think is a shabby thing – I’m lost for words, frankly, because my concern was that if we remove people who come here, what happens if they’ve had children in the meantime?

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Shabana Mahmood tells MPs asylum system is ‘out of control and unfair’ amid Labour backlash over proposals – UK politics live

Labour MP calls government’s asylum plans ‘dystopian’ as home secretary announces measures in Commons

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has also denounced the government’s asylum plans. In a statement it says:

The home secretary’s new immigration plans are divisive and xenophobic.

Scapegoating migrants will not fix our public services or end austerity.

Draconian, unworkable and potentially illegal anti-asylum policies only feed Reform’s support.

The government has learnt nothing from the period since the general election.

Some of the legal changes being proposed are truly frightening:

Abolishing the right to a family life would ultimately affect many more people than asylum-seekers.

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Shabana Mahmood warns Labour MPs ‘dark forces are stirring up anger’ over migration

There is understood to be growing unease in party over home secretary’s sweeping overhaul of refugee rights

Shabana Mahmood has warned Labour MPs that “dark forces are stirring up anger” over migration, amid growing alarm among senior party figures over the most sweeping overhaul of refugee rights in a generation.

On Monday, Mahmood will announce controversial new laws to overhaul refugee status, which must be reassessed every two years, as well as curbing asylum appeals and toughening the approach to rights to family life.

Restricting asylum seekers to one single appeal rather than different appeals on multiple grounds.

Creating a new body for fast-tracking cases for dangerous criminals and those with little hope of success.

Legislating to restrict last-minute modern slavery claims

Joining other countries in seeking reform of ECHR article 3 rights, to more narrowly define the risk of torture and degrading treatment.

Changing the Home Office’s duty to provide support to asylum seekers to a discretionary power, enabling them to potentially be removed from accommodation.

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Asylum system in UK ‘out of control’ and dividing country, home secretary says

Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmark’s controversial system

Refugees who have established lives with homes and families in the UK – including Ukrainians – will still face having to return if their home countries become safe, the home secretary has said.

Shabana Mahmood said the asylum system was “out of control and putting huge pressure on communities” as she announced plans to end the permanent status of refugees, who would need to reapply to remain in Britain every two and a half years.

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Mahmood to unveil anti-migration measures modelled on Danish system

Home secretary to set out sweeping plans to deter people from coming to the UK and make deportations easier

The home secretary is due to announce sweeping changes next week aimed at making the UK less attractive for migrants and modelled on the Danish system.

Shabana Mahmood is expected to set out plans to deter migrants from coming to the UK and make it easier to deport those who do, in a statement to MPs on Monday.

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The UK wants to emulate Denmark’s hardline asylum model – but what does it actually look like?

Denmark has slashed asylum numbers by granting only short-term status and by targeting ‘ghettoes’, which critics say has damaged the country’s values

Of all the measures introduced to deter people from seeking asylum in Denmark over the last decade, it is the impermanence of refugees’ status that is often cited as the most effective.

Before 2015, refugees in Denmark were initially allowed to stay for between five and seven years, after which their residence permits would automatically become permanent. But 10 years ago, when more than a million people arrived in Europe fleeing conflict and repression, largely from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea, the Danish government dramatically changed the rules.

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Dire warnings over aid and hunger following RSF’s capture of Sudanese city

Fears rise for displaced civilians as UN reports deteriorating situation and MSF warns of ‘staggering’ malnutrition

There are grave fears for civilians who survived the capture of El Fasher by a Sudanese paramilitary group last month, as the UN warned relief operations were on the brink of collapse and an aid group said malnutrition in displacement camps had reached “staggering” levels.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured El Fasher – the capital of North Darfur state and the last urban centre outside of its grasp in the wider Darfur region – on 26 October. Survivor accounts and video and satellite evidence suggest more than 1,500 people were killed in ethnically targeted massacres in the immediate aftermath.

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Second man deported under ‘one in, one out’ scheme returns to UK on small boat

Man was detected as one of 94 people who had been removed from Britain under UK-France treaty

A second person who was removed to France under the government’s “one in, one out” deal has returned to the UK, the Home Office has confirmed.

The unnamed man arrived back in the UK after joining nearly 400 people who crossed the Channel in small boats on Sunday.

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Bad Bridgets podcast about crime among Irish women in US inspires film

Margot Robbie’s company to make movie based on Northern Ireland academics’ stories of poverty and prison

It started as a trawl of dusty archives for an academic project about female Irish emigrants in Canada and the US by two history professors, a worthy but perhaps niche topic for research.

The subjects, after all, were human flotsam from Ireland’s diaspora whose existence was often barely recorded, let alone remembered.

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