Category Archives: Immigration and asylum

Fijian British army veteran injured on Afghan tour granted right to settle

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Ioane Koroiveibau’s case gives hopes to hundreds of other Commonwealth nationals who served in UK forces

A Fijian British army veteran who suffered from deafness after serving in Afghanistan has been allowed to return to the UK, in a case that gives hope to hundreds of other Commonwealth former soldiers living abroad.

Ioane Koroiveibau, 36, gave up on Britain in 2015 when his immigration paperwork was lost after his discharge on medical grounds, his hearing loss caused by repeated exposure to gunfire on a dangerous tour in Helmand.

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Jeremy Hunt fails to quash claims Treasury vetoed pay offer that may have averted rail strikes – UK politics live

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Chancellor did not contest claim when asked whether his department blocked a pay rise of around 10% for rail workers

Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, has refused to quash claims that the Treasury vetoed a pay offer that may have led to a resolution of the rail strike.

Last month the Daily Telegraph claimed that the Department for Transport wanted to offer rail workers a rise worth between 8% and 9% over two year, but that it was prevented from doing so by the Treasury.

There is unanimity across the government in that it wants high inflation to be temporary, and I think there is understanding that that is essential for the very people who are feeling most angry about their situation.

We have to be really careful not to agree to pay demands that have the opposite of the intended effect because they lock in high inflation.

So if we make the wrong choices now, we won’t have that 3.7% of inflation in January or February of 2024 and this will change from being a one-off problem, to being a permanent problem, which will be the worst possible thing for people working in public services. That is why it’s generally a very difficult issue.

I would urge everyone to boycott Netflix and make sure that we actually focus on the things that matter.

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Watchdog criticises UK ministers’ ‘antagonism’ towards human rights

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Council of Europe report finds government’s attitude is weakening protections for the public

The UK government has “an increasingly antagonistic attitude” towards human rights that is weakening instead of strengthening protections for the public, a European inquiry has found.

Inflammatory language used by MPs and officials to describe lawyers could put their safety at risk, according to the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović.

Provisions in the PCSC Act that de facto criminalise Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities leading a nomadic lifestyle must be rescinded.

There is “a high level of anxiety among stakeholders” about human rights protection in the UK, in view of the significant impact of recent and proposed legislation.

The UK’s policies towards refugees, asylum seekers and migrants are eroding their rights. Proposals criticised in the report include newly introduced inadmissibility rules for asylum claims, the possibility of removing persons to Rwanda, and the criminalisation of asylum seekers arriving irregularly.

The emergence of a harsh political and public discourse against trans people in the UK has a negative impact on their rights.

The UK government should consider withdrawing the legacy bill, which offers a conditional amnesty to people accused of killings and other Troubles-related crimes.

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Albanian children facing racist bullying due to UK asylum row, says envoy

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Albanian ambassador to UK calls for end to ‘campaign of discrimination’ amid debate over small boat arrivals

Albanian children are being subjected to racist bullying in UK schools because of the debate surrounding arrivals by small boats, the country’s ambassador in London has said.

Qirjako Qirko spoke out after Albanians were singled out by ministers and sections of the media during the recent rise in the number of his country’s citizens travelling across the Channel to claim asylum in the UK.

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UN refugee body criticises ‘errors’ in asylum report backed by Braverman

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Organisation questions use of ‘illegal’ to describe asylum seekers in report calling for radical crackdown

A report partially endorsed by the UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, calling for a radical crackdown on those seeking asylum has been criticised by a UN body for “factual and legal errors”.

Braverman wrote the foreword to the report by the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies that says “if necessary” Britain should change human rights laws and withdraw from the European convention on human rights in order to tackle Channel crossings by small boat.

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Refugee who brought injured niece to UK illegally given leave to remain

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Najat Ibrahim Ismail was jailed in 2017 and officials tried to deport him three times before judge’s ruling in his favour


A man whom the Home Office repeatedly tried to deport after he brought his badly burned baby niece to the UK illegally for treatment has won his right to remain in Britain after a six-year battle.

Najat Ibrahim Ismail, 35, fled torture in Iraq and came to the UK in 2004. He and his British wife, Emma Ismail, have three children and live in Portsmouth.

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Revealed: UK has failed to resettle Afghans facing torture and death despite promise

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Those who risked their lives helping British government face a ‘toxic combination of incompetence and indifference’

Afghan nationals who were promised resettlement to the UK nearly a year ago are facing torture and death while they wait for a response from the British government, the Observer can reveal.

Not one person has been accepted and evacuated from Afghanistan under the Home Office’s Afghan citizens’ resettlement scheme (ACRS), launched in January, prompting claims that ministers are showing a “toxic combination of incompetence and indifference”. The scheme was intended to help Afghans who worked for, or were affiliated with, the British government – including its embassy staff and British Council teachers – and all of whom face severe harm at the hands of the Taliban.

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Hundreds of Indonesian fruit pickers in UK seek diplomatic help

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Exclusive: More than 200 people have approached Indonesian embassy since July to report difficulties faced

More than 200 Indonesian fruit pickers have sought diplomatic help since July after facing difficulties working in Britain this season, the nation’s embassy has revealed.

The Guardian has spoken to a pair of workers sent to a farm in Scotland that supplies berries to M&S, Waitrose, Tesco and Lidl. They claim pickers were sent back to the caravan if they could not work fast enough and left with large debts to repay.

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Conditions at Manston asylum centre prompt torture monitor visit

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Council of Europe’s ‘rapid reaction visit’ followed reports of diphtheria outbreak and squalid conditions

Conditions for small boat arrivals at the Manston reception centre in Kent have sparked international concern and triggered a “rapid reaction” visit from European torture monitors in the last few days.

A seven-strong delegation from the Council of Europe’s Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Committee carried out a the visit to Manston from 25-28 November due to concerns over conditions there.

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Charities call for Windrush-style inquiry into Manston asylum failings

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Letter from 44 charities urges independent investigation into ‘appalling’ treatment of people at Kent processing centre

Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is being urged by 44 leading charities to launch a Windrush-style inquiry into the crisis that engulfed Manston processing centre.

Organisations including the Refugee Council, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee have written a letter to the Guardian seeking an independent investigation into how people seeking refuge in the UK were forced to live in cramped and insanitary conditions.

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Brexit has worsened shortage of NHS doctors, analysis shows

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Exclusive: More than 4,000 European medics have chosen not to work in NHS since Britain left EU, data reveals

Brexit has worsened the UK’s acute shortage of doctors in key areas of care and led to more than 4,000 European doctors choosing not to work in the NHS, research reveals.

The disclosure comes as growing numbers of medics quit in disillusionment at their relentlessly busy working lives in the increasingly overstretched health service. Official figures show the NHS in England alone has vacancies for 10,582 physicians.

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Cap on foreign student numbers could send UK universities ‘over the edge’

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Chair of Migration Advisory Committee warns that some institutions would struggle to survive financially

Universities could go bankrupt if the government limits the number of foreign students in a bid to bring down net migration, an adviser on immigration policy has warned.

Rishi Sunak’s potential plan to clamp down on international students taking “low-quality” degrees could “send many universities over the edge”, particularly in poorer regions, the chair of the government’s Migration Advisory Committee said.

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Channel dinghy tragedy: investigation confirms boat was in UK waters

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Marine Accident Investigation Branch condemned for slow progress in determining how last November’s tragedy occurred

Bereaved families who lost relatives in a mass drowning in the Channel a year ago have criticised the UK body investigating the tragedy for a lack of progress in determining how and why dozens of lives were lost.

An interim report from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) published on Thursday confirmed that the boat had reached UK waters.

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Suella Braverman says people coming to UK illegally ‘at fault’ for processing chaos

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Home secretary faces five legal challenges over crisis at Manston processing centre for asylum seekers

Suella Braverman is facing five legal challenges over a crisis at Manston processing centre but insisted that people seeking asylum in small boats and their smugglers were to blame for the chaos.

The home secretary told MPs that legislation planned to tighten the asylum system would not come before parliament this year. Her most senior civil servant has not yet signed off a £140m deal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as “value for money”, it emerged.

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Keir Starmer walks fine line in shifting Labour’s stance on immigration

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Party leader is reluctant to hint he will allow thousands into UK but wants to avoid upsetting his pro-migration MPs

In his speech to a hall packed with business leaders, Keir Starmer came with the message that Labour had changed, hoping to sweep away the years of antipathy between his party under its previous leadership and growth-hungry executives.

But another change in position was clear to see: on immigration, Starmer held up the recruitment of overseas workers as a sticking plaster solution to the problem of significant worker shortages in the UK.

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Starmer rules out taking UK back into single market or customs union if Labour win election – UK politics live

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Latest updates: Labour’s Keir Starmer is speaking to the CBI

Starmer says Britain is trapped in a “vicious cycle of stagnation”.

The UK has had the worst record for growth in centuries, he says. He says a new model is needed. And this should be a turning point.

They put our public finances in a perilous position, wasted the chance to transform our potential in an era of low interest rates, and created an economy with weak foundations.

But the war didn’t ban onshore wind. The war didn’t scrap home insulation. And the war didn’t stall British nuclear energy.

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Manston asylum centre now empty after weeks of controversy

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Apparent vacating of Home Office site follows series of concerns including over outbreak of diphtheria

Manston asylum centre, the troubled Home Office site in Kent where people arriving in the UK in small boats are taken for initial checks, is understood to be completely empty, the Guardian has learned.

Just a few weeks ago about 4,000 arrivals were placed there by the Home Office, almost three times the maximum 1,600 capacity of the tented site in Ramsgate.

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Immigration is still the nettle preventing Tory detente with business

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Rishi Sunak’s visit to CBI conference found old allies keen to mend fences, but impeded by hard politics of immigration

Amid the steady grey Birmingham drizzle, Britain’s leading business lobby group tried to walk a careful path on immigration.

Members of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), present in greater numbers than in recent years at its annual conference, have been clamouring for more flexibility on hiring foreign workers, as a tight labour market wreaks havoc on their businesses and drives up wages.

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Inquiry into worst Channel disaster for 30 years fails to contact victims’ families

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At least 27 people died when their dinghy capsized in November 2021, but the UK investigation has yet to talk to their relatives

A UK investigation into the drowning of at least 27 people trying to cross the Channel in a small boat has yet to contact most of the victims’ families 12 months after the tragedy, the Observer can reveal.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has not yet been in touch with the majority of the families despite legal sources claiming it has all their contact details, prompting accusations that the inquiry’s progress is “dehumanising” the dead.

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Rural areas will be asked to house more asylum seekers, minister suggests

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Robert Jenrick says accommodation being sought in ‘much broader range of local authorities’

Rural areas will be asked to accept more people seeking asylum, a minister has suggested, as the government faced criticism from Conservative MPs for placing migrants in their constituencies.

Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said small towns and the countryside may be asked to house more people crossing the Channel in small boats “as long as numbers are so high”.

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