As ministers aim to ‘smash’ people-smuggling gangs, milestone passes almost a month earlier than previous record of 2022
The number of people arriving in the UK after crossing the English Channel in small boats has passed 25,000 faster this year than since records began.
As ministers aim to “smash the gangs” involved in people-smuggling, 898 people made the journey in 13 boats on Wednesday, bringing the total for 2025 so far to 25,436.
Continue reading...Home Office to move 445 more people to MDP Wethersfield site, scene of previous anti-migrant protests
The Home Office is increasing the number of asylum seekers accommodated at a controversial military base by more than 50%.
There are about 800 asylum seekers housed at the remote former RAF base MDP Wethersfield in Essex and the Home Office is moving in 445 more.
Continue reading...Former Labour leader says his new party will inspire hope, not fear, and promises to reset ‘broken’ political system
Jeremy Corbyn has accused the Labour government of “appeasing” Reform UK by “scapegoating” migrants and minorities for its own domestic policy failures, saying his new leftwing political party would take on Nigel Farage instead.
The veteran leftwing MP, who confirmed last week he was launching a new, as yet unnamed, movement with former Labour MP Zarah Sultana, said British politics was at a “critical juncture” with the rise of rightwing populism. He said he saw their role as providing hope, not fear.
Continue reading...Newly-appointed shadow housing secretary James Cleverly says there is no excuse for recent riots but government is making a difficult situation worse
Charities have warned of the increasing danger to asylum seekers posed by far-right protesters after small boat arrivals were moved from their usual landing place in Dover to further along the coast to avoid clashes.
The Guardian understands that Home Office officials received intelligence that some of those participating in what was billed the Great British National Protest in Dover on Saturday afternoon could have been planning to target Kent Intake Unit, where small boat arrivals are initially processed after being escorted to shore in Dover by the Border Force.
Continue reading...Home Office orders diversion from usual landing place to Ramsgate to avoid clashes with far right
Charities have warned of the increasing danger to asylum seekers posed by far-right protesters after small boat arrivals were moved from their usual landing place in Dover to further along the coast to avoid clashes.
The Guardian understands that Home Office officials received intelligence that some of those participating in what was billed the Great British National Protest in Dover on Saturday afternoon could have been planning to target Kent Intake Unit, where small boat arrivals are initially processed after being escorted to shore in Dover by the Border Force.
Continue reading...Deputy PM says government must show it is helping people amid concerns about potential for more riots in England
Immigration and deprivation are the main factors causing public disenchantment with politicians and the government that has led to social unrest and rioting, Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, has warned.
According to an official summary of Tuesday’s meeting of the cabinet, Rayner, who is leading a wider government project on improving social cohesion, also highlighted the increasing amount of people spending time alone and online as a driver of disturbances.
Continue reading...David Lammy announces sanctions regime to target anyone who helps people smugglers
Corrupt foreign officials, including police officers who profit from people smuggling, face being banned from the UK and having their assets frozen.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, has announced a sanctions regime that from Wednesday will target anyone involved in assisting illegal immigration.
Continue reading...Coastguard log raises new concerns over safety and viability of flagship policy to intercept dinghies crossing Channel
New concerns about the safety and viability of the flagship UK-French policy to intercept migrant dinghies at sea have emerged after a coastguard log leaked to the Guardian revealed a recent boat-slashing incident that failed to stop people reaching the UK.
Despite the government’s pledge to stop overcrowded dinghies crossing the Channel, the number of people arriving in the UK on small boats this year has increased by about 50% compared with the same period last year, with more than 21,000 crossing so far in 2025.
Continue reading...Shapps, defence secretary when the superinjunction was imposed, said its use was ‘entirely justified’ to save lives
The former defence secretary Grant Shapps has defended the use of an unprecedented superinjunction to suppress a data breach that led to the UK government relocating 15,000 Afghans.
The Afghanistan Response Route (ARR) was created in haste after it emerged that personal information about 18,700 Afghans who had applied to come to the UK had been leaked in error by a British defence official in early 2022.
Continue reading...Johnny Mercer, former veterans minister, sharply critical of how Afghan resettlement programme handled
In an interview with LBC Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, hit back at his former ministerial colleague Johnny Mercer rather more forcefully than he did on the Today programme (see 8.09am) over Mercer’s comments about the Afghan resettlement programme.
Tom Swarbrick, the presenter, quoted what Mercer said about how this “whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of ineptitude by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government”.
No, I don’t agree with it. I think my record would show the opposite. It was me and Priti Patel, before the collapse of Kabul, who decided we were going to accelerate bringing people back who were under threat …
People hadn’t come out before. And we made sure that we did this. I think what Johnny, you know, fails to grasp, is quite the massive scale of collapse that happened very quickly in Afghanistan, leaving people at risk, and we had to do our very best.
Continue reading...Defence secretary says it was ‘never the plan to bring everyone’ on dataset to UK, while Ben Wallace denies Tories sought superinjunction
The defence secretary, John Healey, has said there is no automatic right to resettlement for Afghans named in a leaked Ministry of Defence database, as the former Conservative ministers Ben Wallace and Johnny Mercer clashed over whether “thousands of people with little or tenuous links” had been admitted to Britain.
The controversy revolves around a dataset containing the personal information of nearly 19,000 people who applied for the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) that was released “in error” in February 2022 by a British defence official.
Continue reading...Law firm representing thousands says some already killed and others in hiding as a result of government ‘blunder’
When Abdullah received an email from the British government saying his details had been included in the military data leak, it became “the worst day in all time”.
Speaking from Afghanistan, where he is in hiding, Abdullah fears he will be tortured and killed.
Continue reading...Leaked details are just another example of how the UK let down Afghans who believed in what Britain promised their country
This week’s revelations about the UK’s dangerously cavalier treatment of Afghans who worked with British forces are shocking but not surprising.
The carelessness with which Britain went to war in Afghanistan was matched by the carelessness with which it left the country and its people to Taliban rule two decades later.
Continue reading...Former chancellor says employees’ contributions should rise to help address a £6bn shortfall caused by recent U-turns
The Unite union has voted to re-examine its relationship with the Labour party in the light of the government’s failure to support its members in the Birmingham bin strike.
It has also said it was suspending Angela Rayner’s membership, given her role as minister in charge of the department that oversees local government. The union is in dispute with Birmingham city council over proposals to reorganise waste disposal services in the city, and Unite has repeatedly said the government should step in and force the Labour-led council to settle.
Unite is crystal clear it will call out bad employers regardless of the colour of their rosette. Angela Rayner has had every opportunity to intervene and resolve this dispute but has instead backed a rogue council that has peddled lies and smeared its workers fighting huge pay cuts.
The disgraceful actions of the government and a so-called Labour council, is essentially fire and rehire and makes a joke of the Employment Relations Act promises.
Continue reading...Starmer and Macron expected to announce migration deal that will involve the UK accepting some cross-Channel asylum seekers
The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has fallen for the second month in a row and is now at its lowest level for more than two years, PA Media reports. PA says:
An estimated 7.36 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of May, relating to just under 6.23 million patients – down from 7.39 million treatments and just over 6.23 million patients at the end of April.
These are the lowest figures since March 2023 for treatments and April 2023 for patients.
Monthly NHS data shows the overall waiting list dropped by nearly 30,000 in May to 7.36 million – the lowest total since March 2023 – with 60.9% waiting 18 weeks or less for planned care (the highest proportion since July 2022).
Staff carried out an average of 75,009 planned treatments each working day in May – the highest number on record – with a total of 1.5 million treatments across the month, which is up on 1.45 million in April and higher than 1,437,914 pre-pandemic (May 2019).
Continue reading...UK prime minister will have talks with Emmanuel Macron later today
The BMA strike decision must be a tempting topic for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, which is starting very soon. The Conservatives have repeatedly criticised the government for the way they swiftly settled public sector pay disputes when they took office; they argue that Labour was too generous to the unions, thereby encouraging them to threaten further strikes.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
Streeting says he is “disappointed” by the proposed strike, and he insists resident doctors have had a relatively good outcome on pay. He says:
I remain disappointed that despite all that we have been able to achieve in this last year, and that the majority of resident doctors in the BMA did not vote to strike, the BMA is continuing to threaten strike action.
I accepted the DDRB’s recommendation for resident doctors, awarding an average pay rise of 5.4%, the highest across the public sector. Accepting this above inflation recommendation, which was significantly higher than affordability, required reprioritisation of NHS budgets. Because of this government’s commitment to recognising the value of the medical workforce, we made back-office efficiency savings to invest in the frontline. That was not inevitable, it was an active political choice this government made. Taken with the previous deal I made with the BMA last year, this means resident doctors will receive an average pay rise of 28.9% over the last 3 years.
He says the NHS is “finally moving in the right direction” and that a strike will “put that recovery at risk”.
He offers to hold meet the BMA to hold talks to avert the strike. He says:
I stand ready to meet with you again at your earliest convenience to resolve this dispute without the need for strike action. I would like to once again extend my offer to meet with your entire committee to discuss this.
As I have stated many times, in private and in public, with you and your predecessors, you will not find another health and social care secretary as sympathetic to resident doctors as me. By choosing to strike instead of working in partnership to improve conditions for your members and the NHS, you are squandering an opportunity.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As the French president arrives in the UK for a state visit, tackling migrant crossings in the Channel is top of the agenda
Good morning. Emmanuel Macron arrived in the UK yesterday for a three-day state visit. While the British royal family and political elite rolled out the red carpet for the French president, with all the expected pomp and pageantry, the real focus was, and remains, the politics behind the scenes. Top of the agenda: how Britain and France intend to deal with the small-boats crisis.
The UK has backed recent moves by French police to immobilise the inflatable boats used by people smugglers by slashing them. It’s not yet clear whether this was a one-off instance or part of the broader shift in strategy expected to be outlined soon by Keir Starmer and Macron.
Middle East crisis | Medical officials, humanitarian workers and doctors in Gaza say they have been overwhelmed by almost daily “mass casualty incidents” as they struggle to deal with those wounded by Israeli fire on Palestinians seeking aid.
Post Office | More than 13 people may have killed themselves as a result of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal, while it drove at least 59 more to contemplate suicide, according to the first findings from the public inquiry into what has been labelled the worst miscarriage of justice in UK history.
NHS | Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, in England have voted in favour of strikes that could result in industrial action lasting until January next year, the British Medical Association has announced.
Crime | Thousands of defendants in England and Wales could lose the right to a jury trial under plans designed to save the criminal justice system from collapse.
UK News | Gregg Wallace has been sacked as MasterChef presenter ahead of a report into misconduct allegations, including claims, denied by Wallace, of groping and indecent exposure. Over 50 new complaints have since been made to the BBC.
Continue reading...Home secretary says working with French is vital to stop boats crossing, as UK prepares for Emmanuel Macron visit
Yvette Cooper has lauded new tactics used by the French to reduce the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats, before Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the UK this week, during which new initiatives are likely to be announced.
It is understood that a French review of how police could intervene to block boats that are already in the water has been completed, and French and British officials were continuing talks this weekend about what more could be done.
Continue reading...Government under pressure on issue after stories of asylum seekers working illegally as takeaway delivery riders
The Home Office has announced what it is calling a “nationwide blitz” on asylum seekers who take jobs, after recent political controversy about people in asylum hotels working as food takeaway delivery riders.
In a statement, which gave few specifics, the Home Office pledged to begin “a major operation to disrupt this type of criminality” based around enforcement teams focusing on the gig economy, particularly on delivery riders.
Continue reading...NGO says rise in interventions has only increased danger as new data shows at least 15 children died in transit last year
Children and babies coming to the UK on small boats from northern France have been teargassed and subjected to tactics such as the discharge of rubber bullets and the slashing of dinghies with knives, according to a report.
The publication on Tuesday of We Want to Be Safe, by the French non-governmental organisation Project Play, came as the latest figures on daily crossings released by the UK government reached an all-time high of 19,982 for the first six months of the year, a 40% increase compared with the same period last year.
Continue reading...