Only handful of rebels vote against government to support Lords amendments
The actor Juliet Stevenson has made an 11th-hour plea to Conservative MPs voting on the government’s controversial immigration bill on Wednesday to “be brave and vote with your heart, not with your party membership card”.
Stevenson has urged MPs who are backing the nationality and borders bill to instead back Lords amendments in support of refugees.
Continue reading...Downing Street refuses to deny PM told MPs archbishops were being unfairly critical as church figures defend Justin Welby
Downing Street has gone into open battle with the Church of England over its condemnation of the Rwanda deportation scheme, with No 10 officials doubling down on Boris Johnson’s claim that archbishops were being unfairly critical.
The prime minister reportedly told Conservative MPs on Tuesday evening that senior clergy had criticised plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda more than they had condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This was not denied by No 10.
Continue reading...Latest updates: the prime minister apologises for breaking Covid lockdown rules but Labour says the public ‘don’t believe a word he says’
Boris Johnson must have known parties were taking place in Downing Street in breach of lockdown rules, Emily Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, told the Today programme this morning. Asked to justify Labour claims that Johnson was lying when he told MPs that the rules had always been followed and parties had not taken place, she replied:
The sheer number of parties going on at Number 10 on a regular basis make it perfectly clear to any reasonable person, let alone the person who made the rules, that those rules were being broken and they were being broken consciously.
The fact that Dominic Raab said that when he was in charge there weren’t any parties shows that people knew there were parties going on and he made sure that, when he was in charge of Number 10, when the prime minister was in hospital, that those sorts of things stopped, I think, again makes it clear.
Whatever means we take, the difficulty we will always have is that, since the 2019 election, the Conservatives have an 80-seat majority when there is a vote.
Unless Conservative MPs can look at their consciences and vote the right way, we are not going to get the sort of result that we should get.
The Stormer vehicle launches Starstreak anti-aircraft missiles which can be used to target planes and helicopters.
Boris Johnson is expected to speak to allies including the US president, Joe Biden, today to discuss western support for Ukraine as Russian forces focused on capturing the Donbas region.
Continue reading...UK home secretary attacks critics of plan to give unauthorised asylum seekers one-way tickets to African country
Priti Patel has defended plans to send unauthorised asylum seekers on a one-way trip to Rwanda, saying critics of the scheme have failed to offer any alternative solution to the migration crisis.
The proposal, announced last week, has been widely condemned as inhumane, illegal, unworkable and prohibitively expensive. Critics have included Conservative MPs and peers, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) and a former and the current archbishop of Canterbury, who said, in his Easter Sunday sermon, that the scheme “does not stand the judgment of God”.
Continue reading...Questions raised over home secretary’s claim that new law would allow ‘safe and legal route’
Priti Patel is under pressure to apologise after being accused of misleading parliament over a central claim relating to her deeply controversial proposals to change immigration law.
The home secretary told MPs that the widely criticised nationality and borders bill would create new safe and legal routes to the UK for asylum seekers, suggesting that new routes would ensure that people no longer need to risk their lives trying to reach the UK.
Continue reading...Unions say civil servants could stage mass walkouts after home secretary overruled their concerns
Priti Patel could face a Home Office mutiny over plans to process migrants 5,000 miles away in Rwanda after overruling officials to push through the scheme.
The home secretary issued a rare ministerial direction to overrule concerns of civil servants about whether the scheme would deliver value for money.
Continue reading...Wooden vessel launched from Sabratha, a major departure point for Europe, says UN migration agency
A boat carrying 35 people has capsized off the Libyan coast, , the UN migration agency has said.
The incident took place on Friday off the western Libyan city of Sabratha, a major launching point for the mainly African people making the dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean, said the International Organization for Migration.
Continue reading...Gillian Triggs, assistant high commissioner at UNHCR, says plan is ‘symbolic gesture’ that will prove unworkable
The UN’s refugee agency has condemned Boris Johnson’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as “a symbolic gesture” that will be unworkable in practice.
Speaking to the Guardian, Gillian Triggs, the assistant high commissioner at the UNHCR, said the proposed arrangement would only accommodate a few hundred people a year, making it extremely expensive as well as illegal and discriminatory.
Continue reading...Claim about long-term benefits disputed by MP Andrew Mitchell who describes reported cost of £30,000 a person as ‘eye-watering’
Britain will save money in the “longer term” by sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda, a minister has said after the reported cost of about £30,000 a person was described as “eye-watering”.
Defending the decision to fly out many of those who arrive on the Kent coast to a country more than 4,000 miles away, the Home Office minister Tom Pursglove said it would “crush” the business model of people smugglers.
Continue reading...People fleeing persecution to be taken to stripped-back Hope guest house in Kigali, which has only 50 rooms
Asylum seekers flown to Rwanda by the British government will be put up in a no-frills hostel a mile away from Kigali city centre.
People fleeing war and persecution will be taken to a guest house, built in 2014, which only has 50 rooms available, although there are plans to expand the facility.
Continue reading...Politicians, legal experts and refugee groups condemn Johnson’s plan to ‘offshore’ Channel crossing crisis
Boris Johnson’s plans to send unauthorised asylum seekers on a one-way ticket to Rwanda have been roundly condemned amid warnings that it will be challenged in the courts and could result in further deaths in the Channel.
After the prime minister outlined plans to hand an initial down-payment of £120m to the Rwandan government in the hope that it will accept “tens of thousands” of people, politicians and refugee groups condemned the move as inhumane, unworkable and a waste of public money.
Continue reading...Analysis: Tories keen to shore up support with tough immigration policy but there are concerns about the detail
When Boris Johnson’s position was at its most precarious two months ago, he had to convince Conservative MPs sticking by his side was worth it.
A plan was devised – dubbed “Operation Red Meat” – to give those losing faith in his administration some belief that there was a higher purpose than just defending their leader through scandal after scandal.
Continue reading...Small but vehement group have already expressed doubts about government’s outsourcing plan
Conservative opposition to plans to send asylum seekers for processing in Rwanda is likely to be led by a small but vehement group of peers and MPs who have already criticised outsourcing the issue overseas.
The House of Lords has now twice amended the nationality and borders bill to block the idea of non-UK processing for asylum claims. However, these government defeats were largely caused by Tory members staying away, giving opposition and crossbench peers a majority.
Continue reading...UK accused of shifting international obligations and Rwanda of ignoring issues causing its own refugees
Opposition politicians in Rwanda have criticised its agreement to accept thousands of unauthorised asylum seekers flown from the UK, saying wealthy western countries should “own up to international obligations on the migration issues”.
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the leader of DALFA-Umurinzi, said officials in Rwanda should focus on solving its political and social issues that made Rwandans seek refuge abroad before offering “to host refugees or migrants from other countries”.
Continue reading...Latest updates: opposition parties denounce plan as ‘shameful’ and ‘evil’; home secretary Priti Patel in Kigali today to unveil more details
Simon Hart, the Welsh secretary, made a rare appearance on the morning broadcast round earlier today. He said the plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda would mark a “humane step forward”. He told Sky News:
We have to deal with this problem. We have a very good relationship with Rwanda: it’s an up-and-coming economy, it has got a very good record with migrants in this particular issue.
And it’s an arrangement which I think suits both countries very well and provides the best opportunities for economic migrants, for those who have been in the forefront of this particular appalling problem for so long now.
We’ve put forward proposals to make it more difficult for smuggler gangs to advertise online on social media, which is partly how they do it.
We think there should be safe and legal routes that people need for family reunions and so on, so that they don’t have to arrive through these illegal routes in order to make their asylum claims.
Continue reading...PM insists east African country is safe and scheme will prove ‘very considerable deterrent’
Tens of thousands of unauthorised migrants who seek sanctuary in the UK will be flown more than 4,000 miles to Rwanda under a new set of immigration policies, Boris Johnson has said.
The prime minister insisted at a press conference that the African state, criticised last year by the UK for its human rights record, was one of the safest countries in the world. He also announced that the Royal Navy would take over patrolling the Channel to intercept small boats from France.
Continue reading...Politicians, charities and rights groups condemn plans as ill-conceived, inhumane and evil
Politicians have described Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as “evil” and “inhumane”, amid fierce criticism from refugee charities, which have said the move is ill-conceived.
The government is on Thursday expected to announce multimillion-pound plans for asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats to be flown for processing to Rwanda.
Continue reading...Analysis: Windrush scandal wrongly categorised people as illegal immigrants, while most Ukrainian refugees have documentation
Why has Britain, unlike every other country in Europe, insisted on requiring all Ukrainian refugees to obtain visas before travelling here?
In justifying the decision, Priti Patel has again pointed to the Windrush scandal as a key factor in the government’s refusal to waive visas for people fleeing Ukraine. But it is a reasoning that has left immigration experts baffled.
Continue reading...Peers find fault with many aspects of nationality and borders bill, in particular proposal to divide refugees into classes
Priti Patel’s nationality and borders bill has been ripped apart for a second time by the House of Lords as the government suffered more than 10 defeats over controversial proposals to tighten immigration rules.
Peers supported proposals to ensure that the bill complied with the 1951 Refugee Convention and challenged the government’s plan to redefine refugees into two classes based on how they arrived in the UK.
Continue reading...Shadow home secretary says tens of thousands of desperate people still stuck in system
The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said refugees in Ukraine are facing “Kafkaesque” bureaucracy as they try to navigate Home Office visa requirements.
Cooper had tabled an urgent question over the government’s two visa schemes, with MPs from both sides of the house rounding on the government.
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