Housing asylum seekers in former army barracks ruled unlawful for victims of torture

Judgment outlawing forcing of survivors of trafficking, torture and other forms of violence to share rooms is blow to Shabana Mahmood’s asylum plans

Shabana Mahmood’s plan to house more asylum seekers in former army barracks is facing a major hurdle after the high court ruled on Thursday that a policy change forcing torture victims to share rooms was unlawful.

According to a judgment seen by the Guardian, the government failed in its duties when it forced survivors of trafficking, torture and other serious forms of violence to share rooms with strangers.

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Burnham steps back from past calls to end immigration benefits restriction

Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate understood to have changed stance on no recourse to public funds policy

Andy Burnham has rolled back from his previous calls for ministers to scrap a restriction on immigrants claiming benefits as the Makerfield byelection places greater scrutiny on his policy positions.

As Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham has called several times for an end to the rule known as no recourse to public funds (NRPF), which since 1999 has prevented new arrivals getting access to benefits or public housing before they are granted settled status.

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Milburn says migrants not to blame for Neets crisis but falling immigration creates ‘opportunity’ – UK politics live

Major report on young people not in employment, education or training warns ‘we have neither a system or a plan to deal with it’

Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, is introducing Alan Milburn.

He says Milburn’s report is “really important and powerful”.

I could see in the first few weeks after being appointed as the secretary of state what was happening, both in human and in financial terms, [in terms of youth unemployment].

And I knew that we had to get properly under the bonnet of this problem, because there’s a lot more thing than one thing happening here …

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Labour says Reform UK ‘in chaos’ as Zia Yusuf publicly tells Jenrick he’s got party’s deportation policy wrong – UK politics live

‘Robert’s answer is not Reform policy’, Yusuf said about an answer that Jenrick gave to journalists days earlier

Keir Starmer has said that SNP leaders need to explain why they did not realise that Peter Murrell was stealing more than £400,000 from the party.

Asked about yesterday’s court proceedings in Edinburgh, where Murrell admitting embezzling money from the party to spend on luxury goods, Starmer said:

I think anybody looking at what’s happening up in Scotland will be baffled that those at the top of the SNP say they didn’t know anything about what was going on, so clearly there are questions that need to be answered.

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UK and France extend ‘one in, one out’ small boats pilot scheme until October

Asylum seekers express dismay at continuation of scheme agreed last year that has failed to stop crossings in Channel

The Home Office is extending a controversial scheme to stop asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats, the Guardian has learned.

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, signed a deal they hailed as “groundbreaking” last July, known as “one in, one out”.

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UK joins European deal to send rejected asylum seekers to third-country hubs

All 46 Council of Europe members sign agreement ‘deplored’ by human rights organisations

The UK and 45 other European countries have signed an agreement that explicitly endorses plans to send unwanted asylum seekers to third country hubs.

A political declaration from the 46 members of the Council of Europe, the body that oversees the European convention on human rights (ECHR), said states had an “undeniable sovereign right” to control their borders.

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UK ministers accused of weakening legal protections for torture victims

Council of Europe members plan to change interpretation of ECHR to make it easier to deport refused asylum seekers

Keir Starmer’s government has been accused of trying to water down legal protections for torture victims as ministers from 46 countries including the UK prepare to make it easier to deport refused asylum seekers and foreign criminals.

Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, is expected to agree a “political declaration” on Friday with other members of the Council of Europe, which oversees the European convention on human rights (ECHR).

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European ministers to discuss sending rejected asylum seekers to third-country hubs

Exclusive: Council of Europe to meet in Moldova on Friday, with human rights body expected to recognise countries’ right to control borders

European ministers will this week discuss plans to send thousands of rejected asylum seekers to third-country hubs, the head of the continent’s human rights body has told the Guardian.

Alain Berset, the secretary general of the Council of Europe, said discussions about the removal of people who arrived in Europe by irregular routes would take place “at a multilateral level” at a meeting in Moldova on Friday.

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Reform-led Lancashire county council to quit refugee resettlement scheme

Councillor announces plan to withdraw from government-funded programme in run-up to May elections

The Reform-led Lancashire county council will withdraw from the government’s refugee resettlement scheme, one of its cabinet members has said.

Councillor Joshua Roberts announced plans for Lancashire to leave the scheme, which would make it the first local authority to do so.

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Reform UK plan to set up migrant detention centres in Green-voting areas condemned by other parties – as it happened

Nigel Farage’s party proposed to place detention centres in places that vote for Green council leaders or MPs

Keir Starmer has said that Europe has to face up to the fact that its alliance with the US is under strain.

He made the remark in public comments during the plenary session at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan in Armenia.

And both of those are impacting all of us in a very material way.

In the United Kingdom, if you look at the economic forecast now and compare it to the economic forecast just three or four months ago, they are in materially different places, and this is going to play out with our electorates in all of our countries.

Reform are now openly threatening voters and not only that they’re threatening them with a power they don’t actually have. This is absolutely pathetic. People across Scotland are proud of the fact that this is a welcoming country that shows solidarity to people who need it.

Reform are essentially saying ‘If you don’t vote the way we want you to, we will punish you’. I think the people of Scotland and voters across the UK are not going to take kindly to that kind of Donald Trumpesque threat.

Reform know that absolutely bombed last week. The only thing they’ve got to move on to are open threats, not against the Greens but against voters across the country. It’s really quite sinister. This is exactly the kind of politics you see in Donald Trump’s America. People across Scotland are going to reject that on Thursday.

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Sudanese woman and 16-year-old girl reportedly die trying to cross Channel

Two were found dead in the early hours of Sunday in boat carrying about 82 people, several of whom were injured

Two female Sudanese asylum seekers have died trying to cross the Channel in the early hours of Sunday morning, off the coast of Boulogne.

According to some reports, one was a teenager aged 16 and the other a woman in her 20s. They were found dead in the boat, which had run aground on the beach of Neufchâtel-Hardelot, according to Christophe Marx, the secretary general of the Pas-de-Calais Prefecture.

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Asylum seeker sent back to France in ‘one in, one out’ scheme to be returned to Syria

Kurdish Syrian man, 26, said he fled forced conscription by YPG militia because he ‘didn’t want to kill people’

An asylum seeker sent back to France under the controversial “one in, one out” scheme faces being returned to Syria after authorities in Paris ruled it was safe to do so, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.

When the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced the “groundbreaking” deal in July 2025 to stop small boats crowded with asylum seekers from crossing the Channel – by forcibly returning one small-boat asylum seeker to France in exchange for bringing one in northern France legally to the UK – they emphasised that France was a safe country for returnees.

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Shabana Mahmood does not rule out sending back refused Afghan asylum seekers

Home secretary indicates Whitehall talks about returns programme, a move that would shock humanitarian groups

Shabana Mahmood has refused to rule out sending rejected Afghan asylum seekers back to the Taliban-controlled country.

The home secretary said she is “monitoring very closely” talks between Kabul and EU countries about a returns programme for refused claimants. She also indicated that “additional conversations” about Afghan returns were happening inside Whitehall.

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Albanians in UK scapegoated by rightwing media and politicians, says ambassador

In a letter to the Guardian, Uran Ferizi criticises ‘obsession’ with demonising Albanians

Albanians in Britain are paying the price in schools and workplaces of being scapegoated by rightwing media and politicians, the Albanian ambassador has said.

Uran Ferizi also criticised Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, for comments in parliament where she singled out Albanians when discussing problems with immigration.

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Man arrested after four die trying to cross Channel in small boat

Two men and two women were swept away by currents while attempting to board dinghy off French coast

A man has been arrested on suspicion of endangering life after four people died in a small boat Channel crossing on Thursday.

The man, described by prosecutors as a 27-year-old Sudanese national, was arrested by National Crime Agency investigators on Friday.

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Defence secretary reveals UK navy foiled secret Russian submarine operation in North Sea – UK politics live

John Healey says navy forced Russia to abandon activity in month-long operation

In interviews this morning Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, declined to confirm reports that a Russian warship has been escorting two sanctioned Russian ships through the English channel.

Sanctioned Russian ships carry oil being sold to fund the war in Ukraine, and the UK government recently announced that the armed forces have been authorised to board these ships in British waters to stop them.

What I can tell you is that we have given permission now for action to be taken against the Russian shadow fleet. Operational decisions then have to be taken in the right way by the military.

There are indications of the way in which not just the Russian shadow fleet is operating, but also the way in which we are seeing increased Russian threats, not just to the UK, but across Europe as well.

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Four people die in Channel small-boat sinking

At least 42 others rescued after incident in strong currents off coast of Boulogne

Two men and two women have died after a small boat sank in the Channel between France and Britain, French local authorities have said.

They died after being swept away by strong currents while trying to board a dinghy, according to François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais. The dinghy was described as a taxi-boat, which travels along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts, picking up refugees and migrants along the shore.

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Charity cleared after false claims online over migrant welcome project

Watchdog finds allegations against City of Sanctuary UK were misleading after complaint from Tory MP

A refugee charity subjected to vicious social media attacks over a migrant welcome project in schools has been cleared of wrongdoing after watchdogs found allegations it encouraged pupils to send Valentine’s Day cards to asylum seekers were misleading and false.

City of Sanctuary UK came under fire last year after rumours spread online that under its schools programme, children were being “forced” to write heart-shaped welcome cards to adult migrants, including cards addressed to “my fiance”.

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Farage says Trump’s Iranian ‘civilisation will die’ threats went ‘way too far’– UK politics live

The Reform UK leader says he is ‘shocked’ by the remarks which were ‘over the top in every single way’

The Green party is backing resident doctors who are on strike. This morning the party issued a statement on the dispute from its co-deputy leader, Mothin Ali, saying:

Rather than shifting goalposts or arm twisting resident doctors with threats over training places, Wes Streeting needs to get serious about resolving resident doctors long term concerns over pay, training and working conditions. The government’s 10-year plan for the NHS will go nowhere if the workforce feels unappreciated, devalued and demotivated.

I think I’m going to stay out of the selection of music by different bands. We live in a free country; people are going to say things. Let’s just let people listen to the music they want to.

People should choose their music and they don’t really they need advice from John Swinney unless they want to listen to The Jam or Amy McDonald.

Well, the government should go on and take their decisions within their powers, but I’m not going to give a running commentary on music taste.

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UK has detained 76 ‘age-disputed’ children under one in, one out scheme

Concerns raised over minors placed in adult detention centres since removals began under scheme in September

More than 70 children from various conflict zones whose ages were disputed by the Home Office have been held in detention centres in the UK in preparation for forced removal to France under the government’s “one in, one out” scheme, research shows.

The one in, one out initiative means each small boat arrival can be forcibly returned to France in exchange for another person – who has not attempted the crossing – being brought to the UK legally.

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