As tensions in the Middle East continue to rise, this week John Harris speaks to Niku Jafarnia of Human Rights Watch about the regional conflicts. The Rwanda bill passed its third reading and Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, reveals what happened behind the scenes. And the former No 10 adviser Gavin Barwell talks about the increasingly vicious struggles within the Conservative party
Archive: GB News
Continue reading...Flagship policy passes committee stage after tense lead-up in which Tory divisions came to the fore
Rishi Sunak has survived a damaging row over his flagship Rwanda bill after a Conservative rebellion melted away and dozens of rightwing MPs balked at further undermining the prime minister’s authority.
After a crucial 11th hour meeting of more than 45 Tory rebels, the group’s leaders concluded that defeating the bill by voting alongside Labour during an election year could risk collapsing the government.
Continue reading...Sunak’s press secretary says Downing Street not shown legal basis for rebel amendments, despite this being offered and asked for
Rishi Sunak starts with the usual spiel about his engagements, and how he has got meetings with colleagues.
Rishi Sunak is taking PMQs in 10 minutes.
Continue reading...Paul Kagame also says he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped
Rwanda’s president has said there are limits to how long attempts to implement an asylum deal with Britain can “drag on”, indicating he would be happy for the scheme to be scrapped.
Paul Kagame’s comments on Wednesday came before Rishi Sunak faced a potentially leadership-ending rebellion by Conservative MPs threatening to vote down his Rwanda deportation bill on Wednesday night.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: The controversial Rwanda bill is back in the Commons – what happens next could shape the party’s future
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Good morning. It’s been another miserable week for Rishi Sunak, and it’s only Wednesday. The fulcrum of his despair is today’s vote on the third reading of the government’s Rwanda deportation bill, which is meant to be a populist, lawyer-thwarting solution to the nightmare of the government’s policy on Channel crossings – but has come under serious threat from exactly the hardliners it was supposed to appease.
Yesterday, two Conservative deputy chairs, Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith, resigned from their jobs in order to vote for amendments to the bill alongside 58 of their peers. The government still looks likely to prevail later in the key vote today – but the row has dragged the Conservative party’s current self-loathing into the open once again. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to the Spectator’s political editor, Katy Balls, about the latest iteration of the Tory identity crisis, and what it tells us about the fight for the party’s future. Here are the headlines.
Post Office | Fujitsu, the technology company that built the flawed Horizon IT system at the heart of the Post Office scandal, has admitted for the first time that it should contribute to financial redress for victims. Fujitsu’s European boss, Paul Patterson, said there was a “moral obligation for the company to contribute”.
Iran | Iran has launched airstrikes on Pakistan territory, apparently aimed at a Sunni militant group, in the latest sign of a wave of violence rolling across the Middle East and beyond. Pakistan’s foreign ministry said two children were killed, and summoned Tehran’s senior diplomat in Islamabad to protest against the “unprovoked violation of its airspace”.
France | Emmanuel Macron wants to regulate French children’s screen time, test compulsory school uniform, and is not against all primary schoolchildren having to learn the national anthem, he has told a press conference. Macron’s promise of a “common sense” France comes as he tries to limit the potential gains of the far right in upcoming European elections.
Austria | Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who raped and incarcerated his daughter in a purpose-built prison beneath his home for 24 years, is applying for release from jail, according to his lawyer. Fritzl, 88, could be moved to a nursing home if his appeal is successful.
Guinness World Records | Bobi the Portuguese mastiff, who had comfortably clinched the title of the oldest dog ever when he died in October at the apparent age of 31, is having the distinction reviewed after doubts were raised about his lifespan. Pictures purportedly of the same dog in 1999 appear to show him with different-coloured paws.
Continue reading...Lady Carr, most senior judge in England and Wales, says she will decide if judges are allocated to asylum appeals hearings in apparent rebuke to No 10
More than 60 Tory MPs have signed at least one of the various rebel amendments to the Rwanda bill tabled by hardliners. But very few of them have said publicly that, if the amendments are not passed, they will definitely vote against the bill at third reading. Suella Braverman and Miriam Cates are among the diehards in this category. But Simon Clarke, in his ConservativeHome, only says, that, if the bill is not changed, he will not vote for the bill at third reading, implying he would abstain.
In an interview with Sky News, Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who has tabled the rebel amendments attracting most support, said he was “prepared” to vote against the bill at third reading. He said:
I am prepared to vote against the bill … because this bill doesn’t work, and I do believe that a better bill is possible.
So the government has a choice. It can either accept my amendments … or it can bring back a new and improved bill, and it could do that within a matter of days because we know the shape of that bill.
Continue reading...Most senior judge in England and Wales says government plans draw ‘matters of judicial responsibility into the political arena’
The most senior judge in England and Wales has criticised plans to recruit and train 150 judges to help implement Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda deportation policy.
The lady chief justice, Dame Sue Carr, said decisions on how judges were deployed should be “exclusively a matter for the judiciary”, adding that plans outlined by the government drew “matters of judicial responsibility into the political arena”.
Continue reading...PM will recall how Tory anger toppled May, Johnson and Truss as he seeks solution to party fractures
Rishi Sunak was the most junior of ministers when Theresa May faced her worst Brexit ructions, but as he battles Commons votes, endless amendments and mutinous Conservative factions, the prime minister might have some retrospective sympathy for his predecessor-but-two.
The parallels do not end there. With Brexit largely viewed as completed, Sunak’s Rwanda deportation bill has become emblematic of what many Tory MPs see as the party’s main ideological battleground: migration, and most specifically, small boats.
Continue reading...Paula Serre lost her job after being stripped of the right to live and work in the UK after confusion over immigration process
A French woman who lost her job in the UK after a mix-up over the Brexit immigration process has had her residency and work rights restored by the Home Office after publicising her story.
Paula Serre had been waiting for two years for a final decision on her application when her life was turned upside down.
Continue reading...Warning that bill is not compatible with international rules comes amid mounting revolt by Tory MP
Boris Johnson has backed calls by Conservative rebels to harden the Rwanda deportation bill in a direct intervention on the side of those defying his successor, Rishi Sunak.
The former prime minister used the social media platform X to retweet an article by a rightwing Tory rebel, Simon Clarke, who was describing the bill as a “flawed measure” and warning he would not support it if it was amended.
Continue reading...Lax employment law cited as motivation for ice-cold crossing in which five people died off Wimereux
The mayor of the French seaside resort where five people died off the coast trying to reach the UK has blamed the British immigration system for the crisis that engulfed the town at the weekend.
“What’s happening today is their fault,” said Jean-Luc Dubaële, the mayor of Wimereux, claiming Britain was offering “monts et merveilles”, a French expression meaning they were promising the world.
Continue reading...Defence secretary dismisses poll, saying things will change by time general election takes place
And here is some more comment on the YouGov poll on X from experts and commentators.
From Will Jennings, an academic and psephologist
At last, details of the @YouGov MRP. Bad for the Conservatives (unsurprisingly), but this is curious to say the least: “In constituencies across England and Wales, the Labour vote is up by an average of just four per cent compared to 2019”.
These results are actually *way better* for the government than the most recent standard YouGov poll, which would produce a 334 seat Labour majority according to Electoral Calculus. So something quite peculiar is going on...
Continue reading...‘I’ve been in love with the UK since I was a little girl’ says woman dismissed after missing official deadline
A French woman has spoken about how she lost her job in Shropshire and was left “heartbroken” about life in the UK because of a mix-up over the immigration process for EU citizens launched after Brexit.
Sophie, who is married to a British man, was in the UK for five years before Brexit but went back to France in 2020 for 18 months after a family tragedy.
Continue reading...Lee Anderson could be one of ‘six Conservatives on the payroll’ ready to support the amendments
Conservative rebels have said as many as 70 MPs could back amendments or abstain from supporting Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda bill, telling the prime minister he will have “nowhere to go” if he does not toughen up the legislation.
A leading figure on the right wing of the party said at least three junior ministers and six Tories on the payroll, including a vice-chair of the party, had already informed the whips they were “sympathetic” to the amendments.
Continue reading...Party may allow non-domiciles to live in Britain for four years before ending tax break, it is understood
Labour plans to scrap non-dom tax breaks would raise about a billion pounds less than the £3.2bn previously claimed, under an option being considered to allow a four-year grace period for those with the status.
Research suggesting that scrapping the breaks could raise £3.2bn a year was cited by Labour when it announced the plans in 2022 to scrap rules allowing some wealthy people to avoid tax on foreign earnings if they have lived in the UK for less than 14 years.
Continue reading...Assessment comes despite claims by Rishi Sunak that Rwanda is safe when making case for asylum policy
The government has admitted that Rwanda still has “issues with its human rights record” despite claims by Rishi Sunak that it is a safe country.
Documents released on Thursday said that “while Rwanda is now a relatively peaceful country with respect for the rule of law, there are nevertheless issues with its human rights record around political opposition to the current regime, dissent and free speech”.
Continue reading...Rise in salary requirements will further fuel staff shortages in industry that relies on skilled migrant workers
• Business live – latest updates
What do you call an Italian restaurant that doesn’t serve pizza?
During the 2022 Edinburgh fringe, Gusto’s restaurant in the city sounded like the punchline to one of the comedy festival’s jokes.
There’s a threshold at which it becomes impossible to make money, so you have to put prices up, which drives inflation, which flies in the face of what the government say they’re trying to do,” says Snell.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Leonard Farruku’s former roommate was offered no support after being relocated to another room without belongings
The man who was found dead on the Bibby Stockholm barge after it was suspected he had killed himself lay undiscovered for up to 12 hours, his former roommate has claimed.
Speaking publicly for the first time since Leonard Farruku, 27, an asylum seeker from Albania, was found dead in a shower room on the barge last month, Yusuf Deen Kargbo, 20, urged the Home Office to stop using it to accommodate those seeking refugee status.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. Youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org. 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...Study of European electoral data suggests social democratic parties alienate supporters by moving towards the political centre
Adopting rightwing policies on issues such as immigration and the economy does not help centre-left parties win votes, according to new analysis of European electoral and polling data.
Faced with a 20-year decline in their vote share, accompanied by rising support for the right, far right and sometimes the far left, social democratic parties across Europe have increasingly sought salvation by moving towards the political centre.
Continue reading...Party to ask for details of individual relocation costs and any payments to the Rwandan government
Labour will table a vote in parliament on Tuesday calling for the release of documents relating to the UK government’s Rwanda deportation policy amid claims from Conservative centrists that Rishi Sunak has promised to uphold international treaties.
The vote, which will be part of a humble address on the opposition day debate in the Commons, will ask for any documents that show the cost of relocating each individual asylum seeker to Rwanda as well as a list of all payments made or scheduled to be made to Rwanda’s government.
Continue reading...