Presenters back to cover FA Cup quarter-final after row that nearly cost BBC director general and chairman their jobs
Gary Lineker returned to presenting Match of the Day on Saturday evening after a row that threatened to topple the BBC chairman and director general.
As the former England international introduced live BBC coverage of the FA Cup quarter-final between Manchester City and Burnley, pundit Alan Shearer touched on the recent controversy.
Continue reading...After a year of murder, rape, disease and looting, aid workers ask the international community: ‘Where the hell have you been?’
More than 300,000 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have had to abandon their homes because of fighting between the M23 rebel group and the government last month.
According to the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, more than 800,000 people have now been displaced by the conflict since last March, and there is a humanitarian crisis that regional and international powers have allowed to fester.
Continue reading...Former prime minister’s session with inquiry will be televised
Humza Yousaf, the Scottish health secretary who is seen by many as the frontrunner in the SNP leadership contest, claimed this morning that his support has “dramatically increased” among SNP voters.
Speaking on a visit in Dundee, he acknowledged that he and his opponents’ approval ratings were a long way behind Nicola Sturgeon’s. “What we’re trying to do is build upon that legacy,” he said.
In three weeks I’ve also quadrupled my support among the Scottish public.
If I’ve been able to do that in three weeks, I believe that bodes well for the next three months and even the next three years.
Continue reading...Crowd demonstrate in Westminster as MPs debate government’s controversial immigration reforms
Hundreds of people have gathered in Parliament Square to protest against the government’s controversial new asylum and migration law as MPs debated the measures in the Commons.
The crowd, which first congregated around the Winston Churchill statue, chanted “What do we want? Safe passage. When do we want it? Now”, and “Who built the NHS? Migrants built the NHS.” Many held placards, which read “migrants and refugees welcome here: blame austerity, not migrants”.
Continue reading...Downing Street declines to say whether PM has confidence in BBC director-general after furore over Match of the Day presenter
The former journalist and Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell praised Lineker for his “professionalism, accountability and integrity” and Tim Davie for “admitting they got it wrong” after the BBC apology.
Before the BBC statement, the former BBC director of news James Harding told Radio 4’s Today programme that the corporation had got itself into a bit of a muddle over impartiality.
Continue reading...Senior Tories condemn ‘sickening’ plans which would allow unaccompanied minors to be held, in U-turn on past legislation
Rishi Sunak’s plan to reduce small boat crossings will effectively reverse a ban on child detention implemented under David Cameron and open the door to an expansion of the practice, the Observer understands.
With a potential Tory rebellion already brewing over the proposals, it has emerged that the Illegal Migration bill will allow the detention of families with children and even allows the deportation of unaccompanied children if it is deemed to be safe in their country of origin.
Continue reading...PM announces £500m package to stop people trying to cross Channel, after meeting Emmanuel Macron in Paris
Britain will help fund a detention centre in northern France as part of a £500m package to stop refugees trying to cross the Channel, Rishi Sunak has said, amid continuing criticism of his plans to lock up and deport those arriving in small boats.
After a meeting in Paris, Sunak and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said they had agreed joint funding for more French border patrols, including 500 additional officers and new drones.
Continue reading...Alternative für Deutschland leaders were among those lauding Sunak’s bill, while other EU figures raised doubts about its legality
European far-right leaders have praised Rishi Sunak’s illegal immigration bill, after a senior EU official repeated her doubts about the legality of the plans.
“Bravo,” wrote the Alternative für Deutschland party on social media. “Way to go! The current [British] government plans now to deny asylum to illegal immigrants and fly them out to Rwanda,” the party wrote on Facebook, saying Germany should follow this approach. “When will we finally have it?”
Continue reading...Paris gathering is first such UK-France summit in five years
Rishi Sunak and a series of his ministers are heading to Paris for a summit at which he will push Emmanuel Macron to assist him over Channel migrant crossings – but with little apparent chance of securing an immediate deal on returning people.
The gathering in Paris, the first such UK-France summit in five years, is also based around wider bilateral issues such as defence and Ukraine. However, for Sunak’s domestic focus, it seems set to be dominated by the issue of small boats.
Continue reading...Kate Forbes, Ash Regan and Humza Yousaf take part in debate hosted by Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy
Lucy Frazer won’t be happy. (See 10.40am.) Interviewed by reporters leaving home this morning, Gary Lineker said that he had had a conversation with the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie. He would not reveal what was said. “We chat often,” was all Lineker said.
But Lineker did not look chastened. In fact, he was smiling like a Cheshire cat. Asked if he regretted sending his tweet, he replied “No,” and, asked if he stood by what he said, he replied, “Of course.”
Continue reading...Latest updates: home secretary says ‘it’s vital we fix this problem’ as Rishi Sunak prepares to face Keir Starmer at PMQs
Suella Braverman has denied the government is breaking the law with its illegal migration bill in interviews this morning. But, as my colleague Aletha Adu reports, Braverman struggled to clarify if the Olympian Sir Mo Farah would have been deported as soon as he turned 18 years old under the proposed regulations.
Good morning. When Rishi Sunak made five pledges in January, four of them looked relatively easy to meet, and one of them looked impossible. He promised to “pass new laws to stop small boats, making sure that if you come to this country illegally, you are detained and swiftly removed”.
Continue reading...In Australia, hostile rhetoric has fuelled a toxic public debate and sought to dehumanise people fleeing harm
“Stop the boats.” The white-on-red slogan on Rishi Sunak’s podium on Tuesday was – word for word – the slogan used by Tony Abbott to win the Australian prime ministership a decade ago.
To Australian audiences, so much of the rhetoric emerging from the UK over its small boats policy is reminiscent of two decades of a toxic domestic debate. A succession of Australian prime ministers have led the rhetorical charge against asylum seekers, insisting that their arrival is an issue of “national security” and “border protection”. They are “illegals”, “queue jumpers” and “terrorists”, Australians have been told, while people-smugglers are the “scum of the earth”.
Continue reading...UNHCR says bill extinguishes the right to seek refugee protection in the UK for those who arrive irregularly
Downing Street has said that Rishi Sunak is going to Dover to meet frontline officers dealing with small boat crossings. He will then return to London for a press conference later in the afternoon.
One of the questions raised by Rishi Sunak’s small boats bill – or illegal migration bill, to give it its formal name – is to what extent ministers believe it will work, and to what extent they are not that bothered about whether it works because they believe that, if it fails, they will be able to use this in election campaign against Labour.
Unlike Labour who have voted against taking action on this issue, this government has a plan to break the business model of people smugglers.
A plan to do what’s fair for those at home and those who have a legitimate claim to asylum – a plan to take back control of our borders once and for all.
Labour and others who oppose these measures are betraying hard-working Brits up and down the country - they don’t have any answers themselves but they will still seek to block us in parliament.
Continue reading...Lawyers condemn EU asylum policies and demand freedom for young Afghans jailed for 2020 blaze at ‘hellish’ Lesbos camp
A new investigation has casts doubt on evidence used to imprison six Afghan teenagers over a fire that destroyed much of a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.
Four were sentenced to 10 years in jail for “arson with risk to endanger life” and two were given five years by a youth court. The fire reduced much of the infamous “hell on earth” Moria refugee camp to ashes in September 2020.
Continue reading...Immigration Service Union says criminals will get people across channel before rules change
Good morning. Rishi Sunak started the year with two urgent, intractable problems in his in-tray. Last week he unveiled a solution to the Northern Ireland protocol problem which has attracted more support, and less opposition, than had been expected. Tomorrow he will unveil his legislation to “stop small boats”.
Sunak announced the key elements of his plan in December. There has been more briefing over the weekend, but nothing that substantially alters what we were told three months ago, and nothing that addresses the claims made by many experts in asylum law who argue that trying to stop small boat crossings by legislating to say that people who arrive in the UK illegally will be banned from claiming asylum here just won’t work. The Nationality and Borders Act passed last year already says migrants arriving in the UK illegally are not eligible to claim asylum, but the small boats keep coming.
Not as things stand at the moment. In fact, it’s actually going to be the converse when these things are published and announced in this way.
What it actually does is fuel the service, if you like, that the criminals provide.
Continue reading...Fears of future blazes after health, learning and religious facilities also destroyed in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
An estimated 12,000 Rohingya have been left without shelter after a fire tore through part of a cramped refugee camp in southern Bangladesh on Sunday, destroying health centres, learning facilities and mosques.
The fire broke out at Camp 11 of Cox’s Bazar refugee camp, which is home to more than 1 million Rohingya refugees, including 700,000 who fled their home country, Myanmar, after a brutal military crackdown in 2017.
Continue reading...Asylum seekers in Karachi tell of terror of being sent back to the Taliban and despair at being shackled and held in Pakistani jails
Refugees are reportedly dying in Pakistani prisons, and children are being arrested and tied together with ropes, as a wave of detentions and deportations spreads fearamong the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who have crossed the border since the Taliban took power.
According to lawyers representing Afghans in detention, at least four people have died in custody, and thousands more, including children, are being held in prisons as Pakistan hardens its stance against Afghan citizens.
Continue reading...Patrols dispatched to frontier as migration minister calls for fences and surveillance as well as aid to preempt migration
Greece has reinforced border controls along its land and sea frontier with Turkey amid expectations of a new wave of arrivals by people displaced in the earthquakes that have devastated south-east Turkey and northern Syria.
Hundreds of extra border guards began patrolling the Greek-Turkish land frontier in the Evros region at the weekend as contingency measures were stepped up to stave off the expected flows.
Continue reading...Boat believed to be bringing refugees from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan struck rocks off coast of Calabria
Fifty-nine people, including a newborn baby and other children, have died after a wooden sailing boat believed to be carrying refugees crashed against rocks off the coast of Italy’s Calabria region.
Many of the bodies were reported to have washed up on a tourist beach near Steccato di Cutro, while others were found at sea.
Continue reading...Kais Saied claims migrants are part of campaign to make country ‘purely African’ in move critics say is to distract from economic crisis
Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied, has told a meeting of security officials that migrants are part of a wider campaign to change the demographic makeup of the country and make it “purely African”.
The president’s comments come alongside an extensive crackdown on critics and opposition figures in a campaign that human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have labelled a witch-hunt.
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