People fleeing persecution to be taken to stripped-back Hope guest house in Kigali, which has only 50 rooms
Asylum seekers flown to Rwanda by the British government will be put up in a no-frills hostel a mile away from Kigali city centre.
People fleeing war and persecution will be taken to a guest house, built in 2014, which only has 50 rooms available, although there are plans to expand the facility.
Continue reading...Politicians, legal experts and refugee groups condemn Johnson’s plan to ‘offshore’ Channel crossing crisis
Boris Johnson’s plans to send unauthorised asylum seekers on a one-way ticket to Rwanda have been roundly condemned amid warnings that it will be challenged in the courts and could result in further deaths in the Channel.
After the prime minister outlined plans to hand an initial down-payment of £120m to the Rwandan government in the hope that it will accept “tens of thousands” of people, politicians and refugee groups condemned the move as inhumane, unworkable and a waste of public money.
Continue reading...Analysis: Tories keen to shore up support with tough immigration policy but there are concerns about the detail
When Boris Johnson’s position was at its most precarious two months ago, he had to convince Conservative MPs sticking by his side was worth it.
A plan was devised – dubbed “Operation Red Meat” – to give those losing faith in his administration some belief that there was a higher purpose than just defending their leader through scandal after scandal.
Continue reading...Byelection triggered in Wakefield as MP expelled from Tory party says he is withdrawing from political life
Imran Ahmad Khan, the disgraced MP expelled from the Conservative party after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy, has announced he will resign, triggering a byelection in the Yorkshire seat of Wakefield.
Although Khan is appealing against Monday’s conviction, he admitted in a statement that the legal proceedings would last “many more months” and leave his constituents without proper political representation.
Continue reading...Small but vehement group have already expressed doubts about government’s outsourcing plan
Conservative opposition to plans to send asylum seekers for processing in Rwanda is likely to be led by a small but vehement group of peers and MPs who have already criticised outsourcing the issue overseas.
The House of Lords has now twice amended the nationality and borders bill to block the idea of non-UK processing for asylum claims. However, these government defeats were largely caused by Tory members staying away, giving opposition and crossbench peers a majority.
Continue reading...UK accused of shifting international obligations and Rwanda of ignoring issues causing its own refugees
Opposition politicians in Rwanda have criticised its agreement to accept thousands of unauthorised asylum seekers flown from the UK, saying wealthy western countries should “own up to international obligations on the migration issues”.
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the leader of DALFA-Umurinzi, said officials in Rwanda should focus on solving its political and social issues that made Rwandans seek refuge abroad before offering “to host refugees or migrants from other countries”.
Continue reading...Francois Olwage convicted of grooming after arranging to meet undercover officer he believed to be 13-year-old girl
A Metropolitan police counter-terrorism officer has been found guilty of three child sex offences after he arranged to a meet a 13-year-old girl for sex when he was “on duty working from home”.
Francois Olwage, a detective constable who was serving with the Met’s specialist operations unit, was convicted of grooming someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl he had met on the Lycos online chat forum.
Continue reading...Latest updates: opposition parties denounce plan as ‘shameful’ and ‘evil’; home secretary Priti Patel in Kigali today to unveil more details
Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, made a rare appearance on the morning broadcast round earlier today. He said the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda would mark a “humane step forward”. He told Sky News:
We have to deal with this problem. We have a very good relationship with Rwanda: it’s an up-and-coming economy, it has got a very good record with migrants in this particular issue.
And it’s an arrangement which I think suits both countries very well and provides the best opportunities for economic migrants, for those who have been in the forefront of this particular appalling problem for so long now.
We’ve put forward proposals to make it more difficult for smuggler gangs to advertise online on social media, which is partly how they do it.
We think there should be safe and legal routes that people need for family reunions and so on, so that they don’t have to arrive through these illegal routes in order to make their asylum claims.
Continue reading...Fine and dry weather expected for most, with possible showers in north-west, before cooler Monday
Most of the country will bask in fine and dry weather over the Easter weekend, with forecasters predicting that a new record for the hottest day of the year could be set on Good Friday.
Temperatures are expected to rise to more than 10C above average, peaking at 22C in some parts of the UK.
Continue reading...Medicines regulator says it is first in world to approve Valneva product
A Covid-19 vaccine developed by the French pharmaceutical company Valneva has been given regulatory approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, bringing the total number of jabs approved for use in the UK to six.
As the Covid pandemic swept the world, scientists began developing vaccines against it, with the Pfizer/BioNTech jab being the first in the UK to be authorised for emergency use by the MHRA in 2020. Since then the MHRA has approved the Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax vaccines, although, according to NHS England, Janssen and Novavax are not currently available.
Continue reading...ONS data shows slight falls in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with estimated one in 15 people infected UK-wide
Coronavirus infections have fallen slightly in most of the UK, figures from the Office for National Statistics show, although experts analysing the data say it is too soon to say whether infections have passed their peak.
The ONS data, which is based on swabs collected from randomly selected households, shows that in the week ending 9 April about 4.42 million people in the UK had Covid, about one in 15 people, down from one in 13 the week before.
Continue reading...News follows announcement last week that monarch, 95, would not attend Thursday’s Maundy church service
The Queen will not attend the Easter Sunday service in Windsor after pulling out of several events in recent months because of mobility problems.
Buckingham Palace said the Queen, who has experienced health problems recently, was not expected to attend the event on Sunday, although it is not known why.
Continue reading...PM insists east African country is safe and scheme will prove ‘very considerable deterrent’
Tens of thousands of unauthorised migrants who seek sanctuary in the UK will be flown more than 4,000 miles to Rwanda under a new set of immigration policies, Boris Johnson has said.
The prime minister insisted at a press conference that the African state, criticised last year by the UK for its human rights record, was one of the safest countries in the world. He also announced that the Royal Navy would take over patrolling the Channel to intercept small boats from France.
Continue reading...Mother is unlikely to survive without medical intervention, leaving her young son orphaned, say doctors
MPs and a human rights group have called on the UK government to repatriate a young British boy and his gravely ill mother from a detention camp in Syria, after doctors said she was at risk of dying and leaving the child orphaned.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said it was reviewing the case of Zaid* and his mother, Maryam* – who was injured in an explosion in Syria in 2019 and left with shrapnel in her head – “as a matter of priority”.
Continue reading...London-listed company facing financial pressures after UK placed sanctions on key Russian client
The London-listed mining company Petropavlovsk has warned investors they may be wiped out though a potential sale, as it struggles to regain its footing after UK sanctions against a key Russian client.
The miner said it was facing financial pressures due to UK government restrictions on Gazprombank, which is one of Petropavlovsk’s main customers and buys all of its gold. Gazprombank, which processes most payments for the Russian oil and gas sector, has been subject to UK sanctions since 24 March.
Continue reading...Politicians, charities and rights groups condemn plans as ill-conceived, inhumane and evil
Politicians have described Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as “evil” and “inhumane”, amid fierce criticism from refugee charities, which have said the move is ill-conceived.
The government is on Thursday expected to announce multimillion-pound plans for asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats to be flown for processing to Rwanda.
Continue reading...Latest updates: a Conservative MP calling for the PM to resign says he fears there are more fines to come for Johnson
More than 35 homebuilders have agreed to put £2bn towards fixing unsafe cladding on high-rise buildings in England identified in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster, Michael Gove, the housing secretary, has said. My colleague Rowena Mason has the story here.
The Conservative MP Nigel Mills has told PA Media more about why he thinks Boris Johnson should go now (see 9.10am) and why he does not accept that this would be a mistake because of the war in Ukraine. He said:
I have two comments on that. The first one is, when will Ukraine be any better than it is now? If you told me this crisis would be over in three months’ time, then you might say, ‘well OK, let’s get this done [then] the prime minister can meet his fate’.
But the Ukraine crisis could last for a very, very long time. Are we saying there’s no chance of a change of prime minister for years?
Continue reading...Amess’s family make plea for greater kindness in society after ‘beyond evil’ attack on MP
The family of Sir David Amess said they would “for ever shed tears” after his murder by a terrorist assassin who was sentenced to “die in prison” for an attack “on the heart of democracy”.
Ali Harbi Ali, 26, was handed a whole-life tariff by Mr Justice Sweeney after being convicted on Monday of murdering the MP and of planning terrorist attacks on other MPs, including the cabinet minister Michael Gove, for two years before he killed Amess.
Continue reading...Affiliates of Scientists for Extinction Rebellion highlight climate science they say government is ignoring
Twenty-five scientists have pasted pages of scientific papers to the windows of the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, and glued their hands to the glass to highlight the climate science they said the government was ignoring.
The scientists, affiliated with Scientists for Extinction Rebellion, swooped on the department’s building at 1 Victoria Street, Westminster, London, just after 11am. Doctors and health professionals staged a decoy action to give them space to get into position.
Continue reading...Three-year-old girl and five-year-old boy die after being taken to hospital following blaze on Friday
Two children have died after a house fire in Preston.
Lancashire police said the three-year-old girl and five-year-old boy died on Tuesday after they and their mother were taken to hospital on Friday evening. Emergency services had been called to the address in Coronation Crescent at about 8pm following reports of a house fire with several people trapped inside.
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