Home Office misled refugees about UN involvement in Rwanda plans, court told

Letters to asylum seekers assured them UNHCR was ‘closely involved’ in deportation scheme, high court hears

The United Nations refugee agency has made a dramatic intervention to try to halt Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

In a late submission of evidence, the UNHCR claimed the home secretary misled refugees over the organisation’s support for the plan. The agency has also said the scheme failed to meet the required standards of “legality and appropriateness” for transferring asylum seekers from one country to another.

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Home Office’s Rwanda deportation plans face high court challenge

About 30 asylum seekers expected to be sent to Rwanda on 14 June

Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as soon as next week is facing a legal challenge under emergency proceedings launched in the high court on Wednesday.

An application for a judicial review claims that the home secretary’s policy is unlawful. Claimants are also seeking an injunction that will attempt to stop the plane from taking off.

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Number of people to reach UK in small boats in 2022 nears 10,000

People continuing to cross Channel to reach UK, figures show, with a vessel of 40 brought ashore on Friday

Nearly 10,000 people have arrived in the UK on small boats from across the Channel so far this year, according to new government figures.

A total of 9,988 have reached the UK after leaving the French coast in vessels such as dinghies since New Year’s Day.

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First Rwanda deportation flight to leave UK on 14 June, says Priti Patel

Group of asylum seekers sent formal notices advising they will be relocated to east African country, say officials

The first deportation flight to Rwanda carrying people who arrived in the UK without authorisation is scheduled to leave on 14 June, Priti Patel has announced.

A group of asylum seekers has been sent formal notices by the Home Office advising they will be relocated to the east African country, officials have said.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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Grenfell families ‘enraged’ by plan to keep ‘stay put’ policy

Grenfell United criticises Home Office papers outlining reason for retaining policy against inquiry recommendations

Bereaved relatives of the Grenfell Tower blaze have said they are “enraged” by government plans to keep the controversial “stay put” policy instead of adopting an inquiry recommendation.

Grenfell United has criticised new Home Office papers which outline its reasons for retaining the policy – meaning that residents of most buildings should wait for rescue services rather than leaving in the event of a fire.

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Private papers show extent of row between Patel and police leaders

Home Office plans have been described as a power grab by chief constables and crime commissioners

The home secretary faces fresh criticism over plans described by chief constables and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) as a “power grab”.

It comes as the Guardian publishes private documents at the centre of an extraordinary row between Priti Patel and police leaders.

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Priti Patel accused of ‘power grab’ over new policing proposals

Exclusive: chief constables and commissioners criticise plans to make it easier for home secretary to intervene

Police leaders have accused Priti Patel of a “power grab” that would allow the home secretary to intervene in local law enforcement matters and silence chiefs who want to speak out on issues deemed politically sensitive.

An extraordinary row has broken out behind the scenes, with police bosses accusing Patel of trying to obtain new powers without parliamentary approval.

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Priti Patel lifts restrictions on police stop and search powers

Home secretary announces the end of limitations on use of section 60 powers where serious violence anticipated

The government is lifting restrictions placed on police stop and search powers in areas where they anticipate violent crime, the home secretary has announced.

In a letter to police forces on Monday, Priti Patel outlined the easing of conditions on the use of the tactics under section 60 of the criminal justice and public order act.

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Ukraine refugees who enter UK via Ireland may be sent to Rwanda, MPs told

Minister also refuses to say whether Ukrainians who cross Channel in small boats could be sent to Africa

Undocumented people who travel from Ukraine to the UK via Ireland could be considered for removal to Rwanda, a senior Home Office official has told MPs.

During the same select committee hearing, a minister refused to say under repeated questioning whether Ukrainians who arrive in the UK across the Channel by boat could also be sent to the central African country.

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Priti Patel blames lawyers as she admits Rwanda plan will ‘take time’

Home secretary attacks ‘specialist lawyers’ as Labour calls delayed plan little more than a press release

Priti Patel has admitted that it will take time to establish the government’s high-profile plan to send people who arrive in the UK without authorisation to Rwanda, amid growing suspicion that it will not solve the migration crisis in the Channel.

In a further attack on the legal profession, the home secretary blamed “specialist lawyers” as the main reason for the delays in setting up the scheme.

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Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan for UK asylum seekers faces its first legal challenge

Home secretary is violating international law, the UN refugee convention and data protection rules, say lawyers

The first legal action has been launched against Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as the UN’s refugee agency raised concerns that the UK is “inviting” other European countries to adopt the same divisive immigration policy.

Lodged last Tuesday, the legal challenge states that the home secretary’s proposals run contrary to international law and the UN refugee convention, as well as breaching British data protection law.

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Activists disrupt Priti Patel speech in protest against Rwanda refugee plan

Green New Deal Rising campaigners were escorted from the dinner to chants of ‘out, out, out’

A speech by the home secretary, Priti Patel, was disrupted on Friday evening after pro-refugee activists infiltrated a Conservative party “spring dinner”.

Eight young social justice and climate campaigners from Green New Deal Rising disrupted the Bassetlaw Conservative Association Spring Dinner and demanded she drop controversial plans to offshore asylum seekers to Rwanda.

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Priti Patel’s Rwanda asylum seeker plan faces first legal challenge

Charity Freedom from Torture says it has ‘serious concerns’ about lawfulness of policy

Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is facing its first legal challenge after a charity instructed lawyers to demand the disclosure of documents because of fears the policy is contrary to international law.

In a pre-action letter to the Home Office, which is expected to lead to a judicial review claim, the solicitors Leigh Day stated that the charity Freedom from Torture “has serious concerns about the lawfulness of the policy”.

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‘Unsafe’ UK accommodation threatens asylum seekers’ health – report

Exclusive: poor healthcare and conditions at sites such as Napier worsen mental and physical illness, Doctors of the World says

Asylum seekers’ accommodation is “unsafe” due to inadequate healthcare, while poor living conditions are exacerbating or creating mental and physical health problems, according to a new report by Doctors of the World.

The charity’s research, published on Wednesday, details the barriers to medical care and medication for asylum seekers in initial accommodation across the UK.

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Priti Patel’s refugee pushback policy withdrawn days before legal review

Government lawyers confirm Home Office plan to force small boats back to France has been abandoned

Priti Patel’s refugee pushback policy has been officially withdrawn by the government days before a judicial review of the tactic was due to be heard in the high court.

The government’s legal department acknowledged in a letter on Sunday that the plan to try to force people in dinghies back to France has been abandoned after Boris Johnson’s announcement that the Royal Navy would take over operations in the Channel.

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Johnson’s ‘dishonest’ excuses over Partygate fine an insult to public, says Starmer – UK politics live, as it happened

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.

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Priti Patel: Rwanda plan critics ‘fail to offer their own solutions’

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”.

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Priti Patel accused of misleading parliament over controversial borders bill

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.

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Priti Patel could face Home Office mutiny over Rwanda asylum plan

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.

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Sending UK asylum seekers to Rwanda will save money, claims minister

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.

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