Costs of trying to deport asylum seekers cannot be recovered if Labour wins and disbands policy
More than £320m spent by the government on the controversial scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is likely to be lost if the Conservatives are voted out of power at Thursday’s general election.
The sum has been spent on economic development money for Rwanda, along with set-up costs for the scheme, which cannot be recovered if it does not go ahead.
Continue reading...PM again declines to say whether he told Craig Williams in advance about his decision to hold the election in July
Rishi Sunak is returning to the campaign trail on Thursday, PA reports, after a two-day hiatus for the Emperor and Empress of Japan’s state visit and preparations for the final head-to-head debate with Sir Keir Starmer.
With one week to go until polling day, the deepening gambling scandal is still likely to feature heavily when he faces the media during a tour of the East Midlands and Yorkshire.
He is expected to visit a factory in Derbyshire and hold an evening campaign event in Leeds.
Keir Starmer accused Rishi Sunak of using transgender issues “as a political football to divide people” during their head-to-head debate on Wednesday.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read our full report on this debate here
YouGov will have a snap poll on who won the debate, with the results available minutes after it finishes.
This is what Labour is putting out ahead of the debate, in a stateement from Pat McFadden, the national campaign coordinator.
Tonight, the British people will witness the choice at this election: five more years of chaos with Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives or change with Keir Starmer and Labour.
On 4 July, the British people will have the chance to vote for change. To stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild our country with Keir Starmer and a changed Labour party.
Tonight, Keir Starmer has the opportunity to announce loud and clear to the British public what his intentions are.
Throughout this campaign we have challenged the Labour party, time and time again, to come clean on their plans for taxes. Time and time again they have declined to do so.
Continue reading...‘Unfair’ rejection rates of up to 70% harm cultural diversity and create a ‘global apartheid’, say promoters and musicians
Musicians, authors, producers and festival managers have hit out at “humiliating” and costly visa-rejection rates for African and Asian artists visiting Britain and European Union countries, saying it is having a chilling impact on cultural diversity.
Analysis shows the UK last year raised £44m in fees for visa applications that were then rejected, mainly coming from low- and middle-income countries. The EU made €130m (£110m).
Continue reading...Prime minister faces claim Tories are ‘stealing the candlesticks’ on the way out of government
After a passage in his speech attack Labour on familiar grounds, Rishi Sunak also hit out at Reform UK.
[Reform UK] are not on the side of who you think they are.
Reform are standing candidates here in Scotland that are pro independence and anti monarchy.
Continue reading...Total of 12,901 people seeking asylum have crossed this year, passing previous six-month record of 12,747 in 2022
A record number of people seeking asylum in small boats have crossed the Channel in the first six months of this year.
Home Office figures show that 257 people made the journey in four boats on Sunday, taking the provisional total for the year so far to 12,901. The previous record for arrivals in the six months from January to June was 12,747 in 2022. In the first half of 2023, arrivals stood at 11,433.
Continue reading...Sir Anthony Seldon leads analysis that concludes that equality, growth and the UK’s standing in the world have all declined since 2010
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And here are some of the best pictures from yesterday’s campaigning. As more voting people than ever appear poised to turn away from the Tories, Sunak appeared in several photographs with sheep and lobsters as he visited North Devon, held by the Tories since 2015. The Guardian’s Archie bland named the sheep the “Dubious photo opportunity of the day”, after the sheep ran away:
Starmer, meanwhile, appeared on LBC where he clarified that Premier League Football Clubs would not be subject to a 10% transfer tax to fund clubs lower down the pyramid. “Let me just kill it dead, we’re not looking at that,” Starmer said. He also visited a tennis club and a pub in Reading West and mid Berkshire.
Continue reading...Border Forensics say dozens of deaths in 2022 at EU’s Melilla border was result of antagonistic security policy
Moroccan authorities took a series of fateful decisions that led to the deaths of dozens of asylum seekers attempting to scale the border fence into the Spanish north African territory of Melilla two years ago, survivors and an investigation by an NGO have claimed.
At least 27 migrants and asylum seekers died when up to 2,000 people tried to climb over the fence on 24 June 2022 – the deadliest day in recent memory along the EU land border with Africa – while 70 others are still missing and unaccounted for.
Continue reading...FOI reveals non EU migrants could be caught in ‘Windrush style scandal' at end of 2024 as Home Office struggles to contact them
More than 4 million non-EU migrants living in Britain will need to switch to digital “eVisas” by the end of this year or risk being unable to prove their legal rights, according to figures seen by the Observer.
Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) – given to all foreign nationals with permission to live in the UK for at least six months – demonstrate proof of an individual’s right to study, access public services and claim benefits. But they are being replaced under the Home Office’s digitisation programme.
Continue reading...‘Abject failure’ of family reunion scheme to provide legal route is leaving children at risk of trafficking or even death
Children are being trapped in war zones as a result of “impossible” bureaucratic requirements imposed on one of the few legal routes for asylum seekers, a charity has found.
The government has championed family reunion processes as a means for refugees to safely reunite with loved ones in Britain, but according to a new report by Ramfel, a charity that supports vulnerable migrants, the scheme is “not fit for purpose” and applicants have been abandoned, leaving them at risk of trafficking or even death.
Continue reading...UK prime minister says he sees ‘eye-to-eye’ with his Italian counterpart on issue of migration
Rishi Sunak has praised his “fantastic” Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, as he announced the launch of a G7 coalition to tackle people-smuggling.
The prime minister, who is in Puglia in Italy for the G7 summit, said he and Meloni saw “eye-to-eye” on the issue and had spearheaded efforts to tackle it since they were elected.
Continue reading...European court also orders Budapest to pay €200m for ‘unprecedented’ breach of rules
Hungary has been ordered to pay a €200m (£169m) fine for its refusal to uphold the rights of asylum seekers in what was described as an “unprecedented” breach of EU law by the bloc’s highest court.
The European court of justice in Luxembourg also ordered Budapest to pay €1m a day until it complies with EU laws guaranteeing refugees the right to claim asylum inside Hungarian borders.
Continue reading...Sharp rise, equivalent to population of London, means nearly 120 million have been driven from their homes
The number of people forced out of their homes around the world last year was the equivalent of the population of London, according to the UN’s refugee agency.
The latest annual assessment from the United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said a sharp rise in the number of people forcibly displaced during 2023 had brought the total to a record high of more than 117 million. Conflicts were largely to blame with many, such as those in Ukraine and Sudan, showing little sign of ending.
Continue reading...Labour leader says prime minister’s claim he would raise people’s taxes by £2,000 is ‘nonsense’
The Guardian’s visuals team has produced an interactive boundary map for the UK general election which shows you if your constituency has been altered because of boundary changes. You can check it out here:
Ed Davey has been speaking about his party’s plan to provide free personal care for adults. The Liberal Democrats leader said he wants carers to have a special, higher minimum wage.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yvette Cooper says a Labour government would instruct new enforcement body to act over alleged exploitation of workers
Labour will launch an investigation into the treatment of migrant workers in the British social care sector if it wins the election, the party has announced, after dozens of cases of alleged exploitation were uncovered.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, called the allegations revealed by the Guardian “a disgrace”, accusing the government of turning a blind eye to the problem.
Continue reading...Even her toughest opponents admit she’s played it cleverly. Yet the long-term aims of Italy’s prime minister remain unclear
When she became Italy’s prime minister in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni looked like Brussels’ worst nightmare. Until then, the fiery leader of the Brothers of Italy – a party with neofascist roots – had seemed anything but EU-friendly.
For years, railing against the bloc had been Meloni’s stock in trade: the euro amounted to enslavement, the European Commission was effectively a loan shark. “Bring down this EU!” she urged the 2019 conservative CPAC conference in the US.
Continue reading...Migrants seek redress for ‘immense distress’ from deportations now thrown into chaos by election announcement
Asylum seekers detained by the Home Office and threatened with deportation to Rwanda are set to take legal action against the government after Rishi Sunak admitted that no flights will take place before the general election.
The Home Office started raiding accommodation and detaining people who arrived at routine immigration-reporting appointments on 29 April in a nationwide push codenamed Operation Vector.
Continue reading...Committee says department pressed ahead with plans without adequate understanding of what would be required
The Home Office has made “unacceptable and avoidable mistakes” in its haste to use disused barracks and a giant barge to house asylum seekers, parliament’s spending watchdog has concluded.
The public accounts committee said the department “does not have a credible plan” to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and has little to show for hundreds of millions of pounds spent so far on the policy or its accommodation plans.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Johnston Busingye formally appointed days after UK agreed Rwanda asylum deal with Paul Kagame in 2022
Rwanda’s top diplomat in the UK oversaw the use of the international justice system to target opponents of the country’s rulers around the world, the Guardian can reveal.
New details of the Rwandan government’s suppression of opposition beyond its borders add to concerns about the regime at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s asylum policy.
Continue reading...Appeal allowed Sudharsan Ithayachandran to return to UK to be with his family, but he died in Sri Lanka while awaiting visa
The family of a man who died abroad after being wrongly deported by the UK Home Office have blamed the department for causing delays that stopped him being reunited with his children.
Sudharsan Ithayachandran, 41, was deported from the UK to Sri Lanka on 24 December 2019 – his wedding anniversary – after admitting to working illegally at Tesco and using false documents.
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