Yvette Cooper says change needed in England and Wales after concerns over marches near synagogues and mosques
The government plans to give police in England and Wales powers to change the route or timing of protest marches planned outside places of worship in order to give greater protection against intimidation.
The government is to include the powers in an amendment to the crime and policing bill after concerns were raised about protests near synagogues and mosques.
Continue reading...Review concluded extending definition to cover extreme violence by ‘loners’ such as Axel Rudakubana is unhelpful
The decision not to classify Axel Rudakubana as a terrorist following the Southport murders was right because it would be unhelpful to stretch the definition of terrorism to cover all extreme violence, the UK’s terror watchdog has concluded.
Jonathan Hall KC wrote that the “legal definition of terrorism is already wide and should not be changed any further” in his post-Southport review of how extreme violence is legally classified. Expanding the definition would “increase the possibility of inaccurate use and, in theory, abuse”, he said.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Nursing union says it continues to receive complaints about low pay, unfit housing and illegal fees
Ministers are dragging their heels on an investigation into the mistreatment of migrant carers, the country’s largest nursing union has said, as it continues to receive complaints about low pay, substandard accommodation and illegal fees.
Nicola Ranger, the general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, has written to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, to urge her to speed up her promised investigation into the abuse of foreign care workers.
Continue reading...Young Afghan refugee brings case after move to prevent those who arrived on ‘dangerous journey’ from citizenship
Plans to prevent refugees who arrive in the UK on a small boat, lorry or via other “irregular” means from becoming a British citizen are facing their first legal challenge.
The challenge is being brought by a 21-year-old Afghan refugee who arrived in the UK aged 14, after fleeing the Taliban and being smuggled to Britain in the back of a lorry. He was granted refugee status and after five years was granted indefinite leave to remain. He was due to apply for British citizenship on 1 March.
Continue reading...Head of Unison Christina McAnea is one of 148 signatories of letter warning rules will ‘breed division and mistrust’
Keir Starmer’s most generous union backer has joined faith leaders to warn Yvette Cooper that new rules refusing citizenship to refugees who arrive in small boats will “breed division and distrust” and could fuel attacks on migrant hotels.
Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison, and nine Church of England bishops are among 148 signatories of a letter saying the home secretary’s plan to bar naturalisation for anyone who has made a dangerous journey will label tens of thousands of people “second-class citizens”.
Continue reading...New UK ambassador to US says is hoping to persuade Trump administration to maintain isecurity guarantee for Europe and boost growth
During PMQs yesterday Keir Starmer implied there were national security factors not in the public domain that explained why the government was so committed to transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
Alex Wickham from Bloomberg says he has cracked the secret. It is all to do with the International Telecommunication Union, apparently. He explains this in a post on social media. Here is an extract.
The US and UK currently have full and unrestricted access to the electromagnetic spectrum at the Diego Garcia military base, allowing them to securely control American and British military and diplomatic communications in the region, as well as monitor hostile activity from foreign states, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity discussing sensitive information …
The US and UK are members of the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency based in Geneva, Switzerland which coordinates the electromagnetic spectrum and global satellite communications. If an international court was to rule in future that the US and UK were using Diego Garcia to run satellite communications in breach of international law, that would have consequences for the base and defense and technology companies involved in supply chains used there, the people said, highlighting the need to secure its legal status.
There must be no forced displacement of Palestinians, nor any reduction in the territory of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian civilians should be able to return to and rebuild their homes and their lives. That is a right, guaranteed under international law.
The UK is clear that we must see a negotiated two state solution, with a sovereign Palestinian state, which includes the West Bank and Gaza, alongside a safe and secure Israel with Jerusalem as the shared capital that has been the framework for peace for decades.
Continue reading...Home secretary rules out return to full union with bloc as Keir Starmer prepares for talks in Brussels this week
Keir Starmer will seek to improve customs arrangements with Europe without returning to a full union with the bloc, the home secretary has said.
As the prime minister heads to Brussels as part of his attempted reset with the EU, Yvette Cooper said it was still a red line that the UK would not be part of a customs union or single market.
Continue reading...PM to face Tory leader following decision to announce tougher checks for people buying knives online
A new online train ticket retailer backed by the UK government is to be created, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced, with the aim of simplifying the process of buying tickets from different rail operators. Joanna Partridge has the story.
PMQs is almost with us.
Continue reading...Home secretary also says inquiry into the attack will cover wider threat posed by youth violence
Starmer says nothing will be off the table in the inquiry.
There are also questions about the accountability of the Whitehall and Westminster system – a system that is far too often driven by circling the institutional wagons, that does not react until justice is either hard won by campaigners, or until appalling tragedies like this [take place].
Time and again we see this pattern, and people are right to be angry about it. I’m angry about it.
There are also bigger questions, questions such as how we protect our children from the tidal wave of violence freely available online.
Because you can’t tell me that the material this individual viewed before committing these murders should be accessible on mainstream social media platforms, but with just a few clicks, people can watch video after horrific video – videos that, in some cases, are never taken down,
Continue reading...Senior officers say fraction of child abuse cases relate to gangs and funding could be diverted from current cases
Senior police officers fear that government pressure to reinvestigate closed historic cases of gang grooming could make it harder to catch those targeting children today.
The government on Thursday announced more reviews of past cases and also that victims, whose cases did not end in prosecutions, will be given a new right of appeal to have their investigations reopened.
Continue reading...Yvette Cooper’s unveiling of a rapid review of evidence, after week of arguments against new inquiry, has already been called inadequate
When is a U-turn not officially a U-turn? When it is less a change of direction than one of speed and extent. And on those terms, the announcement of a review into grooming gangs is Keir Starmer’s second such policy shuffle this week alone.
On Tuesday, the Treasury minister, Tulip Siddiq, departed over her links to much-disputed claims of family corruption centred on her aunt, the former president of Bangladesh. Downing Street had insisted for days that the facts must first be established.
Continue reading...PM says previous government ‘deliberately liberalised’ post-Brexit immigration as he announces deal with Iraq
Keir Starmer has accused the Conservatives of running an “open borders experiment” after new figures showed that net migration to the UK hit a record high of nearly 1 million in a period covering Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s administrations.
The prime minister announced a deal with Iraq to tackle people-smugglers and a white paper to overhaul the visa system, before demanding “an explanation” from Kemi Badenoch for her party’s decision to “deliberately liberalise immigration” after the Brexit vote.
Continue reading...Moscow bans Labour figures including Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves under new sanctions
Russia has banned cabinet ministers including Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves from entering the country under new sanctions announced by Moscow’s foreign affairs ministry.
More than a dozen other senior Labour politicians are among the 30 British citizens on the Russian “stop list” after tensions between London and Moscow rose following Ukraine’s recent use of British missiles to strike deeper into Russia.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: A police visit to a Daily Telegraph columnist about a tweet unleashed a barrage of coverage – but the story is more complicated than it appears
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Good morning. A journalist visited by police over an erroneous tweet. A barber accused of racism over a dodgy haircut. And someone in Warwickshire reported for refusing to shake hands. These are some of the examples cited in recent days in an escalating media storm over “non-crime hate incidents” recorded by police.
The problem, frequently laid at the door of the woke mob, is so catastrophically vexing that former Conservative MEP and Daily Telegraph columnist Daniel Hannan declared it evidence of “the bleak reality of our DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] police state”. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has now said that the police should apply a “common sense and consistent approach”, an apparent nod to the criticisms of how the system works. And there are some reasonable objections to the status quo. But there are also important reasons for its existence that have very little to do with haircuts or handshakes.
Unemployment | Teenagers will get training at the Premier League, Royal Shakespeare Company and Channel 4 in a government drive to get hundreds of thousands into jobs or education. The scheme is part of a suite of changes to the welfare system and out-of-work support being announced today.
US politics | Donald Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order imposing a 25% US tariff on products from Mexico and Canada. He said the tariffs would only be lifted if Mexico and Canada clamp down on migrants and illegal drugs crossing the border, and promised an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports.
Storm Bert | Forecasters, environment officials and politicians have been criticised over the warnings issued before Storm Bert and the fitness of flood defences to cope with increasingly common extreme weather. The Met Office defended its work, saying that the storm was “well forecast, 48 hours in advance”.
Regulation | Britain’s financial sector watchdog is “incompetent at best, dishonest at worst”, according to a damning report by MPs and Lords which called for a big shake-up. An examination of the Financial Conduct Authority found “very significant shortcomings” after a series of financial scandals.
Health | Weight-loss drugs can reduce the risk of worsening kidney function, kidney failure and dying from kidney disease by a fifth, according to a study. Compared with placebo, GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic reduced the risk of kidney failure by 16% and the worsening of kidney function by 22%,
Victim-led hate reporting has had significant and important positive impacts for police, and communities, in diagnosing harm, extremism, and failing integration or community-cohesion efforts … We all know that recording rules can be complex, but they should not be a concern to a victim at their time of distress.”
Continue reading...Court documents contain admissions by officials that they were unable to control the situation at the Kent facility where 18,000 asylum seekers were illegally detained
Home Office officials have admitted that “we completely lost our grip” on the situation at a notorious asylum processing centre that led to 18,000 people being unlawfully detained in horrific conditions.
Overcrowding at Manston, a former RAF base in Kent, in autumn 2022 led to an outbreak of diphtheria and scabies. Asylum seekers who had crossed the Channel in small boats were forced to sleep on filthy floors or on flattened cardboard boxes, while toilets were overflowing with faeces. Women and children were forced to sleep close to unrelated men and there were claims of assaults by guards.
Continue reading...Persistent offenders will face up to two years in prison under Respect orders, as police get powers to seize vehicles
People who persistently demonstrate antisocial behaviour will face up to two years in jail under Labour’s Respect orders, the home secretary will say on Friday.
Yvette Cooper will also announce that police will be given new powers to immediately seize off-road bikes, e-scooters on pavements and street-racing cars as part of the clampdown.
Continue reading...PM gave speech at Glasgow’s Interpol general assembly as Kemi Badenoch works on shadow cabinet appointments
Starmer went on to say the government was “going to treat people smugglers like terrorists”. And he explained what that meant.
So we’re taking our approach to counter terrorism, which we know works, and apply it to the gangs with our new Border Security Command.
We’re ending the fragmentation between policing, Border Force and our intelligence agencies, recruiting hundreds of specialist investigators, the best of the best, from our National Crime Agency, Border Force, immigration enforcement and the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service] and our intelligence agencies, all working together.
We have the powers to trace suspects’ movements using information from the intelligence services.
We can shut down their bank accounts, cut off their internet access, and arrest them for making preparations to act before an attack has taken place.
I will work with anyone serious who could offer solutions of this, anyone, because without coordinated global action, it will not go away.
And unless we bring all the powers we have to bear on this in much the same way as we do for terrorism, then we will struggle to bring these criminals to justice.
Continue reading...Assessment finds detention unit is subjecting families to ‘unnecessary suffering’ amid lengthy Home Office delays
Young children are being traumatised while held at a Gatwick airport deportation centre that should be closed down, a watchdog has found.
The independent monitoring board (IMB) also said the children’s parents were being subjected to “callous treatment and unnecessary suffering” because of the Home Office’s lengthy decision-making process over removals.
Children are witnessing or overhearing their parents’ “considerable distress” at their expected deportation, despite staff efforts to shield them.
Children are being asked by staff to translate for their distraught parents, despite having been taken from their homes and facing removal to a country they may know very little about.
The use of the Family PDA may prolong or add to trauma already experienced, particularly for children.
Continue reading...James Cleverly asks Yvette Cooper if she intervened to ensure popstar’s London concerts went ahead
Ministers are facing questions over whether they intervened to grant Taylor Swift VIP police protection in order to stop her cancelling her London concerts.
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, wrote to his opposite number, Yvette Cooper, on Wednesday to ask whether she had personally made representations.
Continue reading...Young child reportedly found on overcrowded boat trying to cross Channel, hours after G7 countries agree plan to combat smuggling gangs
A two-year-old child was crushed to death and three other people died in two attempts to cross the Channel from France on Saturday.
French authorities said the infant died after being trampled following a “wave of panic” among migrants trying to board a dinghy.
Continue reading...