Home secretary says it is ‘moral mission’ for her to tackle asylum system. This live blog is closed
Ukrainians are in the UK on a “bespoke scheme”, Mahmood says, and it is on a temporary basis.
If Ukraine becomes a safe country again and the conflict ends, “the principle of the new reforms are that if your country becomes safe then you will return,” she says.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Commons committee report challenges ‘lazy narrative’ used by ministers that scapegoats wildlife and the environment
Nature is not a blocker to housing growth, an inquiry by MPs has found, in direct conflict with claims made by ministers.
Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.
Continue reading...Fallout continues over budget income tax U-turn, with Treasury saying expected fiscal gap has dropped to £20bn
This is from Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, on the market reaction to the chancellor’s reported budget U-turn.
Investors will have 2 broad concerns about news that Chancellor won’t increase income tax rates
1. Does it signal less willingness to do politically difficult things
Britain’s long-term borrowing costs were sent soaring as reports suggested the latest U-turn would leave Rachel Reeves scrambling to fill a gaping black hole in the nation’s finances just two weeks before the 26 November budget.
Yields on 30-year UK government bonds, also known as gilts, jumped as much as 14 basis points in early trading, and the yield on 10-year gilts also shot up 12 basis points – rising the most since July.
Continue reading...Ipsos survey reveals fake news, lack of accountability, extremism and corruption seen as biggest threats
Satisfaction with democracy is below 50% in eight out of nine western countries surveyed in a poll, and majorities in all but one fear for its future, with fake news, lack of political accountability, extremism and corruption seen as the biggest threats.
An Ipsos survey of almost 10,000 people in Croatia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US found satisfaction with democracy low in all except Sweden, with deep concerns about the future state of electoral politics.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...Labour had laid the ground to break a manifesto pledge on taxes for working people but has now made a U-turn
Rachel Reeves is set to abandon a plan to raise income tax in her budget with the chancellor reportedly “ripping up” the main measures in the wake of turmoil in the party.
A source told the Guardian that plans to break the manifesto pledge on income tax had been ditched by the prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the chancellor.
Continue reading...Row continues between camps of Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, whose company holds hundreds of thousands of pounds of party funds
The leftwing Your Party, set up by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, is embroiled in another public row over donations to the party.
A statement from Corbyn along with Shockat Adam MP, Adnan Hussain MP, Ayoub Khan MP and Iqbal Mohamed MP states that hundreds of thousands of pounds were donated to the party “by supporters in good faith, but have since remained beyond its reach”, which they describe as being “extremely frustrating and disheartening”.
Continue reading...Cabinet minister says PM would not have backed attacks on Wes Streeting but briefing is ‘longstanding aspect of politics’
Ed Miliband has said he was certain Keir Starmer would sack whoever had briefed against Wes Streeting, after a chaotic 48 hours in which No 10 launched an operation to shore up the prime minister against an anticipated leadership challenge.
The prime minister apologised to the health secretary in a phone call with him late on Wednesday. Starmer is facing mounting calls to sack his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the row.
Continue reading...Fallout from extraordinary briefing operation against Wes Streeting continues as calls grow for Starmer to sack his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney
Haroon Siddique is the Guardian’s legal affairs correspondent.
Five UN experts have written to ministers criticising the ban on Palestine Action as something that would be expected in an authoritarian regime rather than a liberal democracy.
In the work of UN experts in monitoring counter-terrorism laws globally, abuse of laws to proscribe organisations as terrorist that are not genuinely so has more commonly occurred in states that are authoritarian and lack legal and political cultures of respect for human rights, legality, due process and independent judicial safeguards, in order to target civil society organisations, human rights defenders, political dissidents and minorities.
It is deeply concerning that such practices appear to have spread to a number of liberal democracies. Organisations must never be listed as terrorist for engaging in protected speech or legitimate activities in defence of human rights.
We are concerned that proscription and its consequences result in unnecessary and disproportionate restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and the rights to take part in public affairs and to liberty.
The Scottish government’s tax decisions enable us to deliver higher investment in the NHS and policies like free tuition not available anywhere else in the UK.
Continue reading...Amendment restricts protection for animals to allow faster house building
Housing secretary Steve Reed has told Labour MPs to vote down an amendment to the new planning bill intended to protect British wildlife and its habitats from destruction.
The amendment, which was passed with a large majority in the House of Lords, restricts the most controversial part of the draft bill by removing protected animals such as dormice, badgers, hedgehogs, otters and nightingales, and rare habitats such as wetlands and ancient woodlands, from new rules which allow developers to sidestep environmental laws to speed up house building.
Continue reading...Kemi Badenoch probes Starmer over ‘toxic culture’ at Downing Street as PM denies authorising briefings against potential challengers
The No 10 briefing row is not the only story around this morning. Amy Sedghi is writing a live blog about the ongoing turmoil at the BBC and she has details of Donald Trump saying he has an “obligation” to sue the BBC.
In a related development, Reform UK has pulled out of a BBC documentary about the party amid a row over the broadcaster’s editing of the Trump speech. Robyn Vintner has the story.
Continue reading...Starmer defends Wes Streeting at PMQs but dodges question on his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney
Keir Starmer has condemned as “completely unacceptable” any briefings against cabinet ministers from inside Downing Street as he tried desperately to close a rift at the top of government.
Questioned by Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions, Starmer defended Wes Streeting, the health secretary, who was the apparent target of a pre-emptive No 10 push against a feared imminent leadership challenge against the prime minister.
Continue reading...Frustration with Starmer’s lack of visibility unlikely to be quelled by No 10 efforts to show up leadership challengers
For an operation that used to pride itself on its political instinct, Keir Starmer’s No 10 has been repeatedly caught off-guard.
There was the plunge in popularity in the immediate aftermath of the winter fuel decision, the decimation of loyalty among Labour MPs that led to the welfare vote catastrophe and the audacity of Andy Burnham’s open campaign for the leadership leading up to Labour conference.
Continue reading...Exclusive: No 10 said to be in ‘full bunker mode’ over fears of challenge after this month’s budget or May local elections
Downing Street has launched an extraordinary operation to protect Keir Starmer amid fears among the prime minister’s closest allies that he is vulnerable to a leadership challenge in the wake of the budget.
Starmer’s most senior political aides warned that any attempt to oust the prime minister over tanking poll ratings would be a “reckless” and “dangerous” move that could destabilise the markets, international relationships and the Labour party.
Continue reading...Culture secretary also condemns MPs who dismiss BBC as ‘institutionally biased’ in swipe at Badenoch and Farage. This live blog is closed
Here is a round-up of what various lawyers and commentators have been saying about Donald Trump’s legal case against the BBC.
Joshua Rozenberg, the legal commentator and a former BBC journalist, has said in a post on his A Lawyer Writes Substack that the corporation should settle. He explains:
Given what Brito is claiming, the lawyer is unlikely to be impressed with the BBC’s assertion that “the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech made by President Trump so that Panorama’s audience could better understand how it had been received by President Trump’s supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time”.
So the BBC would be well advised to draft a retraction and apology in terms that the president’s lawyer finds acceptable. Brito is also calling for this to be broadcast as prominently as the original programme. And the corporation will have to pay compensation.
George Peretz KC, chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers, says on Bluesky, commenting on Rozenberg’s blog, that the BBC might be better off with a more robust approach.
So at the moment, despite @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social’s piece, I wonder whether a better BBC response would be the Arkell v Pressdram one. proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/a...
(At least to the extent he’s seeking more than a formal apology limited to the obvious mistake and a very modest offer of compensation.)
There is, after all, the risk of a dangerous precedent here. The BBC will often offend foreign leaders – some worse than Trump. Sometimes it will make factual mistakes in reporting on them. Yield to Trump now, and who next?
Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, told BBC Breakfast that a court case could reflect badly on Trump. He said:
Every damning quote that he’s ever uttered is going to be played back to him and picked over – not great PR.
Trump risks turning what’s currently a PR skirmish with the BBC very much on the back foot into a global headline that the court finds Trump’s words were incendiary …
George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York and a former lawyer for the New York Times, told the BBC that Trump “has a long record of unsuccessful libel suits – and an even longer record of letters like the one you received that don’t end up as lawsuits at all”.
Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer who is trying to recover costs from Trump after the president sued him unsuccessfully in the UK, says Trump’s latest threat is preposterous.
Donald Trump’s threat to sue the BBC in London is preposterous. He remains in breach of English High Court orders in a case he brought and lost against Orbis 18 months ago. So any further abuse of the UK courts by him for such legal tourism and intimidation should be prohibited.
Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, says the BBC has been told Trump does not have a case.
The legal advice to the BBC I am told is that President Trump was not meaningfully damaged by Panorama’s manipulation of his 6 January speech, and that therefore there is no legal necessity to pay him compensation. The BBC board is therefore likely to resist and fight his demand to be “appropriately compensated” out of court, and will risk him carrying through on his threat to seek $1bn in damages by going to court.
These times are difficult for the BBC but we will get through it. We will get through it and we will thrive. This narrative will not just be given by our enemies. It’s our narrative. We own things.
I see the free press under pressure. I see the weaponisation. I think we have to fight for our journalism.
We have made some mistakes that have cost us but we need to fight for that.
Continue reading...Local authorities to be given powers to suspend rule-breaking officials and to withhold allowances
Mayors and councillors in England face suspensions of up to six months for serious misconduct and repeated rule breaches as the government seeks to overhaul standards in local government.
Under plans unveiled on Tuesday, local authorities will be handed powers to suspend rule-breaking councillors and mayors, including those found guilty of bullying and assault, and to withhold their allowances.
Continue reading...Senior insiders admit concern about big editorial errors and fear attacks are part of ongoing campaign to undermine the broadcaster
There is a joke regularly deployed by BBC staff that “deputy heads must roll” over big mistakes because they rarely appear to have any impact on those at the top of the organisation. That all changed on Sunday, when Tim Davie and Deborah Turness both quit their jobs.
Davie oversaw no shortage of scandals during his five years as director general – in recent months these included rows over a Gaza documentary and Glastonbury coverage – and was nicknamed “Teflon Tim” by BBC insiders because nothing seemed to stick.
Continue reading...Shabana Mahmood’s proposals draw scorn from some Labour MPs, while others want government to go further
• Why does the UK want to copy Denmark?
Shabana Mahmood is to announce changes to the UK’s immigration rules modelled on the Danish system, largely seen as among the most stringent in Europe, the Guardian understands.
Last month, the home secretary dispatched officials to Denmark to study its border control and asylum policies. Denmark’s tighter rules on family reunions and restricting some refugees to a temporary stay are among the policies being looked at.
Continue reading...UK expected to reduce contribution to Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 20%
A group of seven Labour MPs who served as ministers under Keir Starmer have written to the prime minister warning that an expected cut to UK funding for aid to combat preventable diseases would be both a “moral failure” and a strategic disaster.
With ministers and officials expected to decide the UK’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria within days, the letter renews pressure on Starmer to pull back from an expected 20% cut.
Continue reading...