Survey comes as government rhetoric on immigrants gets increasingly toxic, adopting far-right slogans
Britons have among the most positive attitudes towards refugees in the world, a new global poll has found, despite increased hostility from the UK government to asylum seekers.
An international survey of almost 22,000 adults across 29 countries found British people had the third-most enthusiastic outlook towards refugees, just behind Spain and New Zealand.
Continue reading...Chief inspector of immigration says there is ‘real danger’ that inhumane and dangerous conditions will return at Kent facility
Suella Braverman is facing the “real danger” that conditions for asylum seekers held at Manston processing facility will once again become inhumane and dangerous, the immigration watchdog has found.
David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, said the Kent asylum centre that became overcrowded and disease-ridden last year could again become overwhelmed because ministers and officials in the Home Office are unable to say where they plan to house at least 55,000 arrivals by small boats this year.
Continue reading...PM’s office says Mid Bedfordshire deserves ‘proper representation’ and delay to resignation ‘obviously unusual’
Fell put it to Braverman that customers were not learning to protect themselves from online fraud because, if they are cheated, they tend to get their money back from banks. He suggested that people were being “coddled”. It was as if they were leaving their front door open, leaving themselves vulnerable to burglary, he said.
Braverman said Fell had a point. She told him:
I think that’s a really important point and I’m passionate about increasing awareness - much like practice changed when it came to wearing a seatbelt …
I think we need a step change when it comes to online activity. We are far more vulnerable than we appreciate and I think people’s lives are lived so politically online that they forget that there are fraudsters operating in that online world.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson accepts post of crown steward and bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds after accusing PM of talking ‘rubbish’. This live blog is now closed
Full story: Boris Johnson formally steps down as MP
The EU has dashed UK hopes of an early review of the Brexit trade deal saying is unlikely to re-open talks until 2026.
European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič, who leads for the EU on Brexit matters, said the deal was only in force for two years and it would be pointless re-opening it until its full potential was realised.
If the decision is just to simply go for more divergence … some of the fundamentals of the withdrawal agreement and the TCA would be thrown into the shredder.
Rishi secretly blocked the peerages for Nadine and others. He refused to ask for them to undergo basic checks that could have taken only a few weeks or even days. That is how he kept them off the list – without telling Boris Johnson.
Continue reading...People who flee to seek sanctuary in UK should not routinely be granted asylum, home affairs select committee report says
Albania is a “safe” country and people who flee from there to seek sanctuary in the UK should not routinely be granted asylum, according to a report published on Monday from a cross-party group of MPs.
The report from the home affairs select committee found little evidence to indicate significant numbers of Albanian nationals are at risk in their own country but accepted that some Albanians making asylum claims, mainly women, have been trafficked. It recommends that this group should be returned to Albania only if appropriate safeguards are in place.
Continue reading...They came to fill gaps in a sector desperate for staff. Now an Observer investigation finds Indian nurses stuck in debt and despair, and wounded by broken promises
Nurses hired from abroad to work for one of Britain’s biggest social care chains have been left in debt and are in some cases suicidal after being stranded without pay for months.
They have also been paid lower wages than they were told they would receive and were in some cases given false promises about their accommodation and employment terms, an Observer investigation has found.
Continue reading...Downing Street crisis meeting hears that about 8,000 who arrived under Operation Warm Welcome will be evicted this summer with nowhere to go
Thousands of Afghan refugees in the UK face homelessness this summer, the government was warned last week at a secret crisis meeting in Downing Street.
Council officials told No 10 and Home Office civil servants that about 8,000 Afghan refugees, allowed into the country in 2021 under the slogan Operation Warm Welcome, are due to be evicted from hotels as early as August because of a government deadline, yet have nowhere to go.
Continue reading...Col Rabih Alenezi received advice after reporting death threats, of which he says he receives 50 a week
A Saudi Arabian dissident living in London was told to “emulate” the life of the US whistleblower Edward Snowden by a Metropolitan police officer, amid death threats he received after fleeing his country.
Col Rabih Alenezi, 44, had been a senior official in Saudi Arabia’s security service for two decades, but sought asylum in the UK after he claimed to have been ordered to carry out human rights violations. His life was threatened for criticising the regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Continue reading...Rishi Sunak confirms two more barges will house 1,000 people, as sources say discussions about other areas are taking place
Thousands of asylum seekers could be housed in vessels moored near Newcastle, Harwich, Felixstowe and the Royal London docks, the Guardian has learned.
Rishi Sunak confirmed on Monday that the government had acquired two more giant barges to house about 1,000 people seeking refuge in the UK.
Continue reading...Youssef Mikhaiel is at risk of forced removal to Egypt before he marries Sarah Bradley
A couple planning to marry soon could be forcibly separated by the Home Office because they are not cohabiting before their wedding.
Sarah Bradley, 29, a British digital marketing teacher, and Youssef Mikhaiel, 28, an Egyptian man who graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in aeronautical engineering, met in February 2022 through a Christian dating app.
Continue reading...Woman’s husband has been granted asylum in UK and has been trying to get her a visa to join him
A heavily pregnant woman who was shot at, escaped an overturned car and had to walk for hours in the middle of the night to reach a border crossing with her three-year-old daughter has given birth to a miracle baby, her husband has said.
The woman had been trapped in the war-torn Sudanese capital, Khartoum, after fighting broke out last month, while her husband, who works as a carer in Wolverhampton, tried to get her a UK visa.
Continue reading...Policy was uncovered by defenders of two women repeatedly detained when trying to re-enter the UK
A secret Home Office policy to detain people with the right to live in the UK at air and seaports has been found to be unlawful in the high court.
The policy applied to those with unpaid NHS debts and was only uncovered through evidence gathered from charities and lawyers fighting the cases of two mothers who were repeatedly detained.
Continue reading...Armed officers at the scene but no reports of injuries, Metropolitan Police says
Rishi Sunak is being interviewed on ITV’s This Morning.
He says immigration levels are too high, but he rejects claims it is out of control. This is from the Daily Mirror’s Lizzy Buchan.
Continue reading...Release on Thursday has already prompted responses from politicians but complex factors behind probable rise in numbers coming
The release of official statistics is often the focus of political scrutiny, but the latest annual figures for overall net migration to the UK, due Thursday at 9.30am, are sufficiently anticipated they have prompted two separate policy announcements already.
On Tuesday, Suella Braverman rushed through a plan to reduce the number of people arriving via student visas by greatly limiting the scope for them to bring along family members.
Continue reading...Only students on courses designated as research programmes will be able to bring dependants under home secretary’s policy
Suella Braverman has rushed out stringent curbs on international students who come to study in the UK amid growing pressure on the home secretary over her conduct in office.
Under proposals released in parliament on Tuesday, overseas students will no longer be able to bring family with them except under specific circumstances as the government seeks to reduce immigration numbers.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner tables question about criteria for launching investigation into potential breach of ministerial code
And here are some of the lines from what Rishi Sunak has been saying at the London defence conference.
Sunak said the challenge posed by China should not lead to a “blanket descent into protectionism”. He said that China’s rise represented an “epoch-defining challenge”. He explained:
It is a country that has both the means and the intent to reshape the global order.
Its behaviour is increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad and in light of that we do need to take the steps to protect ourselves.
There are a limited number of very sensitive sectors of our economy, or types of technology, where we want to take a particularly robust approach: semiconductors, for example, dual-use technologies, quantum, etc.
But this is not an excuse for a blanket descent into protectionism.
He said that G7 countries should not be engaged in subsidy competition. Asked whether the UK needed an industrial strategy, he replied:
That means different things to different people. If that means we should just be focusing on who can subsidise industries the most, then my answer is no.
We discussed that at the G7 and actually you will see in the G7 communique very specific language acknowledging that subsidy races that essentially just shift industrial capacity between allies in some kind of zero-sum competition are not appropriate.
Continue reading...PM has asked for further information before decided whether ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus will be asked to investigate Braverman. This blog is now closed
Starmer says Labour would zone in on the biggest killers.
He says it would get heart attacks and strokes down by a quarter within a decade.
Continue reading...Choose Love garden uses materials found in refugee camps and plants that grow on migration routes
A centrepiece garden at this year’s Chelsea flower show has been built with the help of a team of asylum seekers with a design that recreates Europe’s migration routes and uses materials found in refugee camps.
The Choose Love garden, named after a charity working with displaced people, uses the sustainable “superadobe” building technique found in camp architecture.
Continue reading...Home secretary’s proposal to cut work visas likely to exacerbate post-Brexit staff shortages in low-wage industries
It is a topic Rishi Sunak would no doubt prefer to avoid: the record-breaking jump in net immigration – soon to be revealed in official figures – which is already causing increasingly fractious rows within his cabinet.
Even a trip to the G7 summit in Japan was not far enough, with reporters on the flight asking directly whether the prime minister intended to stick to Boris Johnson’s 2019 manifesto pledge to bring net immigration down.
Continue reading...On flight to Japan for G7, PM says ‘economic optimism is increasing’ and insists Brexit is working
Rishi Sunak has been accused of being out of touch with ordinary families after claiming the economy was looking up and people’s household incomes were “hugely outperforming” expectations despite the cost of living crisis.
On a flight to Japan for the G7 summit of world leaders, the prime minister said that despite consumers struggling with high inflation and the cost of food and energy, there were “lots of signs that things are moving in the right direction” with the economy.
Continue reading...