Former finance secretary who was narrowly beaten by Humza Yousaf in last year’s SNP leadership contest, has announced that she will not standing this time
Swinney has confirmed he is standing for SNP leader.
John Swinney is about to speak at his press conference in Edinburgh.
Continue reading...Dozens of demonstrators in Peckham surround coach before it can take people to barge in Dorset
A standoff was under way in London on Thursday after a coach sent to collect asylum seekers and take them to the Bibby Stockholm barge was surrounded by protesters.
Dozens of demonstrators blocked the coach before it was able to pick up passengers, surrounding it on all sides. Hours later, the bus was still at the scene while protestors were also sitting in front of a number of police vans carrying a number of people who were arrested.
Continue reading...Refugee Council sounds warning after children wrongly issued with notices of intent by Home Office
Lone child asylum seekers are at risk of being sent to Rwanda because the Home Office has wrongly classified some as adults, it has been claimed.
The Refugee Council, which works with these children, has warned of the risk after more than a dozen of the children it works with were wrongly issued with notices of intent for Rwanda.
Continue reading...Sudanese man being held in Croydon after arriving for routine sign-in believed to be first potential deportation under new law
An asylum seeker who turned up for a routine Home Office appointment on Monday was detained and told that he was being sent to Rwanda, an NGO has said.
In what is believed to be the first potential deportation case under the Rwanda scheme since Rishi Sunak’s bill received royal assent, the Sudanese man was held in Croydon, south London, the organisation Soas Detainee Support (SDS) told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Minister says ‘officers are used to this’, as figures suggest Home Office is in contact with only 38% of people it wants to remove
The Home Office is “used to” losing contact with asylum seekers, a UK government minister has said, after official figures suggested thousands of people it hoped to deport to Rwanda had stopped reporting.
The impact assessment on the Home Office’s website on Monday suggests the department is in contact with 38% of those it intends to remove to Rwanda. Only 2,145 “continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention”, the impact assessment says, of the 5,700 it has identified to put on the first flights.
Continue reading...Union threatens ministers with legal action amid fears staff could be obliged to breach civil service code and international law
Rishi Sunak has said he is confident Home Office staff will enact the Rwanda deportation scheme, despite fears that could put them in breach of international law.
The FDA, the union for senior civil servants, has threatened ministers with legal action if they are forced to implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.
Continue reading...Saleh Ahmed Handule Ali, now 33, had indefinite leave to remain in UK, but Home Office failed to keep a record
A refugee who left the UK on holiday as a teenager in 2008 has been stranded in east Africa for the last 16 years in a case that senior judges have described as “extraordinary”.
Saleh Ahmed Handule Ali, now 33, arrived in the UK at the age of nine in April 2000 with his mother and two younger siblings from Somalia. They came to join Ali’s father, who had been granted refugee status by the UK government. The family were also recognised as refugees by the Home Office and Ali was given a travel document in 2004 under the refugee convention, which was valid for 10 years.
Continue reading...Families of those who helped British forces could be deported from Pakistan despite promise to resettle them in UK
Afghan families who helped UK forces and then fled to neighbouring Pakistan are in danger of being deported back to the Taliban due to Home Office delays in bringing them to the UK.
In the chaotic evacuation period in the Afghan capital, Kabul, in August 2021 some family members eligible for resettlement in the UK became separated from the rest of their families. Some boarded flights while others were unable to due to crushes at the airport and instead fled over the border to Pakistan.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Data reveals 239% rise among those evicted from assigned accommodation, including hotels, in two years
There has been a 239% increase in homelessness among asylum seekers evicted from Home Office accommodation including hotels in two years, according to a report.
Data analysed by the Refugee Council found that 12,630 households in England faced homelessness after eviction from asylum accommodation in the two years to the end of September 2023.
Continue reading...Families brought legal challenge after Home Office refused to decide on reunion applications without biometric data
Families in Gaza have won a legal case against the Home Office after a judge ruled the department’s decisions were a “disproportionate interference” in their right to a family life.
Two challenges were brought against the Home Office in February this year after it refused to decide on family reunion applications from families in Gaza without biometric data, including fingerprints and photographs.
Continue reading...HM chief inspector of prisons says detainees held unnecessarily despite volunteering for fast-track deportation
Albanians volunteering to be repatriated under a fast-track deportation deal are being detained unnecessarily for several weeks at taxpayers’ expense, the prisons watchdog has found.
HM chief inspector of prisons also found that staff did not know about the vulnerabilities of detainees held in deportation centres before being removed to Tirana, and some were not being given privacy while using the lavatory.
Continue reading...Trhas Tesfay, who fled war in Ethiopia, says she suffers hunger headaches as she cannot eat Home Office hotel meals
One of Ethiopia’s elite female cyclists will be pedalling at the front of one of London’s biggest bike races next month while living in an asylum seeker hotel on less than £10 a week.
Trhas Teklehaimanot Tesfay, 22, rode a bicycle for the first time when she was 13 years old. She has achieved success in a range of competitions such as the African Continental Championships and the national championships of Ethiopia.
Continue reading...Five years after payment scheme launched, a former soldier says delays mean plan should be run independently
A former soldier who was a victim of the Windrush scandal has said he fears the government is “waiting for us to die off” before it pays compensation.
Conroy Downie, 67, and his daughter Katie Wilson-Downie have helped advise thousands of people affected by the Windrush scandal and have called for the compensation scheme to be run independently instead of by the Home Office.
Continue reading...Robert Halfon quits as skills, apprenticeships and higher education minister as James Heappey confirms decision to step down
In interviews this morning Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, admitted that special educational needs provision was in crisis, Ben Quinn reports.
Universities in England could be told to terminate their arrangements with foreign countries if freedom of speech and academic freedom is undermined, the government’s free speech tsar has said. As PA Media reports, Prof Arif Ahmed, director for freedom of speech and academic freedom at the Office for Students (OfS), said many universities and colleges in England have “international arrangements” – including admitting overseas students on scholarships and hosting institutes partly funded by foreign governments. PA says:
The higher education regulator launched a consultation on guidance about freedom of speech, ahead of universities, colleges and student unions taking on new free speech duties.
The guidance includes examples to illustrate what higher education institutions may have to do to fulfil their new duties – due to come into effect in August – to secure freedom of speech within the law.
University A accepts international students on visiting scholarships funded by the government of country B. Scholars must accept the principles of the ruling party of country B, and direction from country B’s government via consular staff. Depending on the circumstances, these arrangements may undermine free speech and academic freedom at University A. If so, that university is likely to have to terminate or amend the scholarship agreement.
If it means that there are people who are employed by an institute who are preventing legitimate protests or shutting down lecturers from covering certain kinds of content regarding that country for instance, or that country’s foreign policy … If that behaviour amounts to a restriction of freedom of speech within the law, and someone brings a complaint to us, then we may find that the complaint is justified and then we make recommendations …
If there are problems, universities will have to do everything they can to act compatibly with their freedom-of-speech duties. Insofar as that means a rethinking of their relationship with other countries, obviously that’s something that would be a good idea for them to start thinking about now.
Continue reading...Exclusive: newly obtained footage and leaked documents show how a ‘mass casualty event’ could arise from aggressive tactics employed by border forces
French police funded by the UK government have endangered the lives of vulnerable migrants by intercepting small boats in the Channel, using tactics that search and rescue experts say could cause a “mass casualty event”.
Shocking new evidence obtained by the Observer, Lighthouse Reports, Le Monde and Der Spiegel reveals for the first time that the French maritime police have tried physically to force small boats to turn around – manoeuvres known as “pullbacks” – in an attempt to prevent them reaching British shores.
Continue reading...Scammers claim they can help people go to Rwanda in exchange for £3,000 government payment
The Home Office has condemned scammers who “cruelly attempt” to trick people by pretending they can help them go to Rwanda in exchange for a £3,000 government payment.
The reported scam is the latest blow to government plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Union says Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement deportations
Civil servants have threatened ministers with legal action over concerns that senior Home Office staff could be in breach of international law if they implement the government’s Rwanda deportation bill.
The FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, have warned they could also be in violation of the civil service code – and open to possible prosecution – if they followed a minister’s demands to ignore an urgent injunction from Strasbourg banning a deportation.
Continue reading...‘Hasan’, 24, argued he would face persecution in Israel on grounds of his race, faith and its ‘apartheid regime’
A Palestinian citizen of Israel has been granted asylum in the UK after claiming he would face persecution in his home country on the grounds of his race, his Muslim faith and his opinion that Israel “is governed by an apartheid regime”.
“Hasan”, whose real identity is not being disclosed for his own protection, has attended pro-Palestinian protests in the UK, and his lawyers also argued that his activism would place him at increased risk of hostile attention on his return.
Continue reading...Ministers said to have dropped opposition to inquiry into alleged assaults and mistreatment of people at Manston centre
The Home Office is to concede to demands for a statutory inquiry into alleged assaults and mistreatment of asylum seekers at Manston processing centre, Whitehall sources have told the Guardian.
The move comes after the government spent a year fighting off demands in the courts for an independent figure to investigate chaos, which led to claims of violence, drug dealing and filthy conditions at the Kent camp.
Continue reading...A lecturer doing his PhD on a British Council scholarship in York is frightened for his wife and two small children who are under Israeli bombardment
When Bassem Abudagga heard in 2022 that he had won a British Council scholarship to do his PhD in Britain, he was elated. “I was so proud,” he recalls. “It is what every academic in Palestine hopes for: to gain a qualification from the UK.
“It felt like a turning point for my career, my future, my family. It would shift my prospects to a completely different place.”
Continue reading...