Office for National Statistics estimate shows fall from 860,000 in 2023 to 431,000 last year
Net migration to the UK has nearly halved over the year to 431,000, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said, publishing figures that will bring some relief to Keir Starmer.
The drop from 860,000 in the year to December 2024 follows a series of policies implemented by the last Conservative government that have been continued by the present Labour government.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer says Britons have moved on but many in Thurrock think they were lied to in debate about leaving EU
When Keir Starmer was asked last week whether he thought Britons had finally moved on from the issue of Brexit, his answer was a definitive yes.
It’s not difficult to see why the prime minister would hope to settle the question, before a week in which he hopes to reset the UK’s relationship with the EU, clearing a way for easier access to a marketplace that could help increase the economic growth he badly needs.
Continue reading...PM on trip to announce increased cooperation against people smugglers alongside Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama
All Commons Speakers, at least for the past 30 years, have complained about the government making major announcements to the media first, and not to parliament first. But rarely have any of them sounded quite as furious about this as Lindsay Hoyle, who this morning delivered an extended reprimand to the government about this at the start of an urgent question.
The UQ was about plans to limit the use of prison recall – something announced by the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, at a press conference yesterday, while the Commons was still sitting. After pointing this out, and reminding MPs that details of the immigration white paper were given to the media extensively, long before the ministerial statement about it was delivered in the Commons on Monday, Hoyle went on to imply that, as well as regularly breaking the ministerial code, ministers were also guilty of hypocrisy. He said:
I note that those who now occupy senior ministerial roles were not slow to complain when the previous government made major policy announcements outside this house.
I will continue to uphold and defend the rights of this house, the rights of backbenchers, to be here, and hear it first, the most important announcements of government policy, and the right of honourable members to question ministers on those announcements in person.
When Parliament is in session, the most important announcements of government policy should be made in the first instance in Parliament.
If the government is not going to take the ministerial code seriously, who will?
I’ve got to say, I don’t like this. I believe I am here to represent all backbenchers and backbenchers have the right to ask questions. I’m not interested in Sky News or the BBC or political programmes. I’m here to defend all of you. I will continue to defend. Please do not take MPs for granted. It is not acceptable.
Continue reading...Kanbar Hossein-Bor, who says his mother once feared he ‘might not be British enough’, lands Fiji post
“In her mind this was a bastion of the establishment, she was a little worried of rejection,” Kanbar Hossein-Bor said of his mother’s reaction, two decades ago, to the news he was applying to work in the UK Foreign Office.
This week, the fear that “he might not be British enough” was proved wrong, when Hossein-Bor was appointed as the UK’s high commissioner to Fiji – the first refugee to achieve the rank.
Continue reading...Reform leader asks PM to declare a national emergency at the borders
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question at PMQs, which starts at noon.
In March Reform UK reported Rupert Lowe (at the time one of their five MPs) to the police, claiming he had threatened the party chair, Zia Yusuf, with violence. Reform UK announced the news shortly after Lowe gave a newspaper interview criticising Nigel Farage, the party leader,
Following a thorough and detailed review of the evidence in relation to an allegation of threats, we have decided that no criminal charges should be brought against a sitting MP.
Having considered a number of witness statements, we have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.
If Farage were ever to control the vast power of the British state, I believe he would not hesitate to do to his adversaries what they have tried to do to me. With real power, I fear he would wield that immense responsibility to crush dissent - as he has done time and again over the years …
Please listen when I say this: For the good of our country, Nigel Farage must never be prime minister.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has just started taking questions in the Commons. In response to the first question, Hamish Falconer, minister for the Middle East, said the UK has joined calls for an urgent meeting of the UN security council this afternoon to discuss the situation in Gaza.
After Foreign Office questions, Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, is asking an urgent question about the Mansion House accord – a deal with pension companies intended to get them to invest more in UK firms.
Continue reading...Some backbenchers already thought PM had moved too far right on issue but aides say aim is to make system ‘fairer’
“We must never accept the Tory or media narrative that often scapegoats and demonises migrants,” Keir Starmer wrote in 2020. “Problems of low pay, housing and public services are not caused by migrants – they are caused by a failed economic model.”
Much has changed since Starmer was running to be leader of the Labour party – not least, that as prime minister he now has a broader electorate to keep on side.
Continue reading...Prime minister’s ‘island of strangers’ speech was likened to rhetoric of Enoch Powell
Keir Starmer has defended his plans to curb net migration after an angry backlash from MPs, businesses and industry to a speech in which he said the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” without tough new policies.
The rhetoric was likened by some critics to the language of Enoch Powell, and the prime minister was accused of pandering to the populist right by insisting he intended to “take back control of our borders” and end a “squalid chapter” of rising inward migration.
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper to announce proposals to reduce net migration as government reacts to growing pressure from Reform UK
Visas for skilled overseas workers will be time-limited for those not taking a graduate-level job, the Home Office has announced.
The measure comes as part of a preview of wider plans being unveiled this week that are designed to reduce net migration to the UK.
Continue reading...Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn
A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.
A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.
Continue reading...Applicants will be targeted by Home Office due to suspicions they are most likely to overstay and claim asylum
Nigerians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans applying to work or study in the UK face Home Office restrictions over suspicions that they are most likely to overstay and claim asylum, Whitehall officials have claimed.
The government is working with the National Crime Agency to build models to profile applicants from these countries who are likely to go on to claim asylum.
Continue reading...Blow to Starmer’s hopes of post-Brexit reset and efforts to clear asylum claims amid rise of populist right
A UK request for access to shared European Union crime and illegal migration data has reportedly been rejected in a blow to Keir Starmer’s hopes of a post-Brexit relations “reset”.
British negotiators have been hoping to reach a deal on gaining access to the Schengen Information System (SIS), a vital tool for sharing police alerts across borders within the area where 29 countries have abolished passport controls.
Continue reading...Echoing comments by Nigel Farage, Zia Yusuf says judicial reviews, injunctions and planning laws will be used
Reform UK has vowed to use “every instrument of power” to resist housing people seeking asylum in areas where it now controls councils, its chair has confirmed.
Zia Yusuf, the party chair and a major donor, acknowledged Reform may not be able to stop people seeking asylum being put up in hotels where the Home Office has contracts with accommodation providers.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Ministers understood to be drafting white paper this month in move to reduce legal migration
Ministers will crack down on international students applying for asylum in the UK in a move designed to tackle migration figures, after a series of bruising losses to Reform in the local elections.
An immigration white paper setting out the proposed reforms in mid-May will include measures to bring down the numbers of UK student visa holders who make asylum claims, the Guardian understands.
Continue reading...Soaad Al Shawa had been barred from spending final days with her family, who fled Damascus to settle in Glasgow
A Syrian grandmother who is dying of cancer has been given permission to come to the UK to spend her final days with the grandchildren she has never met, after a Home Office U-turn.
The government had wanted to bar Soaad Al Shawa, who has liver cancer and has been given just weeks to live by doctors, from travelling to spend her last days with her daughter Ola Al Hamwi, son-in-law Mostafa Amonajid and their three children aged seven, five and one. Al Shawa has only been able to communicate with her grandchildren on video calls.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Leaked report says high visa costs also derailing clinical trials and research, denying NHS life-saving drugs
The world’s best cancer doctors, scientists and researchers are being put off moving to or staying in the UK by politicians’ rhetoric on immigration, a leaked report reveals.
Recruiting and retaining “global talent” to treat NHS patients and find new ways to cure cancer is vital, amid an acute British workforce crisis and rising numbers being diagnosed with the disease.
Continue reading...Exclusive: There were 380 safeguarding referrals of victims of hate crimes from January 2023 to August 2024
The Home Office is recording an average of 10 assaults a day on asylum seekers in its care, according to internal government data, amid harsh government rhetoric on those crossing the Channel.
Figures reveal that there were 5,960 referrals of assaults upon asylum seekers while in the care of the Home Office between January 2023 and August 2024. There were also 380 referrals of victims of hate crimes to their internal safeguarding hub during this period.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Continue reading...Home Office intervened after initial ruling allowing grandmother with terminal cancer to join family in Glasgow
A Syrian refugee says the Home Office has “broken her heart” by trying to bar her mother, who has weeks to live, from coming to the UK to spend her final days with the grandchildren she has never met.
Ola Al Hamwi fled Syria with her husband, Mostafa Amonajid, in 2015. They had lost their baby after a bombing and were unable to take Al Hamwi’s mother, Soaad Al Shawa, with them.
Continue reading...Mental Health Foundation says civil unrest last summer left many fearful of attacks by far-right protesters
Last summer’s riots, which took place after the murder of three girls at a Southport dance class, led to a deterioration in the mental health of asylum seekers, with many becoming fearful of walking down the street in case they were targeted by far-right protesters, according to a report.
The report from the Mental Health Foundation, published on Tuesday, identified a decline in the mental health of asylum seekers as a result of the civil unrest and attacks on hotels, compared with the state of their mental health when they published a similar report in February 2024.
Continue reading...Number of Brits crossing Atlantic down 14.3% from 2024 – and the travel industry fears decline could continue
After backpacker Rebecca Burke was arrested and locked up for nearly three weeks by US immigration officials in February, she started urging people not to travel to America.
Britons seem to have listened: UK residents visiting the US were down 14.3% in March compared with the same month in 2024, official figures show.
Continue reading...