Channel migrants reaching 50,000 underneath Labour is ‘unacceptable’, training minister says
Now we have some extra feedback from Jacqui Smith, an training minister who served as house secretary for 2 years throughout Gordon Brown’s premiership.
She mentioned it’s “unacceptable” that fifty,000 migrants are set to have crossed the Channel since Labour got here to energy final yr.
Chatting with BBC Breakfast, she mentioned: “It’s an unacceptable variety of folks. It type of demonstrates the way in which during the last six or seven years that the legal gangs have gotten an absolute foothold within the tragic trafficking of individuals throughout the Channel.”
Smith added:
Our borders invoice, which is at present going by means of parliament, can even allow there to be even stronger terrorist fashion powers to assist us to problem the gangs and the criminals who’re benefiting from folks’s misery and who’re behind this horrible commerce …
It’s regarding if folks assume we don’t have a grip on our borders, as we’ve seen over latest years. And it’s regarding as a result of it is a horrible commerce by which folks die and are exploited for revenue, and that’s why the sensible steps that we’ve taken when it comes to the take care of the French, when it comes to extra powers for our Border Drive, when it comes to extra folks to have the ability to make the type of arrests that I’ve been speaking about, when it comes to the doubling of the asylum claims that we’ve been in a position to course of, as a result of ultimately, what’s going to put folks off is knowing that if you happen to get to the UK choices will likely be made shortly about you.
And if you happen to don’t have a proper to be right here, you’ll be returned and we’re already seeing that with the French scheme.
The federal government mentioned final week that the brand new “one in, one out” returns take care of France was up and working.
The deal will permit the UK to return one one who has entered the nation by irregular means in return for taking somebody in France whose declare for asylum within the UK is predicted to have a better likelihood of success.
However Dwelling Workplace sources advised the Guardian’s Dwelling affairs editor, Rajeev Syal, it can solely apply to about 50 asylum seekers at first.
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron attend a plenary on the UK-France summit in Downing Road in July 2025. {Photograph}: Yui Mok/APShare
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UK unemployment stays at 4 yr excessive as job vacancies shrink
The UK’s unemployment fee remained at a four-year excessive within the newest quarter as job vacancies declined once more, in accordance with figures launched by the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics on Tuesday.
The information confirmed that UK unemployment edged increased within the three months to June however the official jobless fee was unchanged at 4.7%, a four-year excessive.
It got here as UK job vacancies tumbled by 44,000 over the three months to July to 718,000 – the bottom variety of job openings since April 2021.
The ONS mentioned its analysis “suggests some companies is probably not recruiting new employees or changing employees who’ve left”.
In the meantime, common earnings development, excluding bonuses, remained at 5% for the interval to June. You may learn extra on all these figures right here.
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David Lammy faces potential authorized motion over International Workplace secondments
Rajeev Syal
Rajeev Syal is house affairs editor of the Guardian
David Lammy is dealing with potential authorized motion over a plan to ask employees from the oil agency Shell and the defence agency BAE Methods to work contained in the International, Commonwealth and Improvement Workplace.
A pre-action letter seen by the Guardian warns the overseas secretary that the scheme leaves the federal government open to allegations of a battle of curiosity and creates the potential for “improper affect”.
The scheme, which was first mooted by Lammy in March, is meant to embed FCDO employees in companies to realize business expertise whereas inviting private-sector employees to take placements in authorities.
The Nook Home, an environmental organisation, has raised issues about alleged problems with compliance with human rights and different authorized obligations. Leigh Day, the solicitors agency, has written to the FCDO warning that it could deliver court docket proceedings on behalf of The Nook Home.
David Lammy mentioned in March that the International Workplace wanted ‘sustained cultural transformation’ to allow it to completely signify the pursuits of enterprise. {Photograph}: Suzanne Plunkett/PA
A authorized letter seen by the Guardian claims that the scheme might be unlawful and in breach of the civil service code.
The letter, addressed to Lammy, has highlighted:
An alleged lack of transparency as to how the proposed scheme will function.
The potential for improper affect by representatives of Shell and BAE Methods on UK authorities practices, together with in relation to overseas coverage.
The potential for conflicts of curiosity.
You may learn the total story right here:
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Channel migrants reaching 50,000 underneath Labour is ‘unacceptable’, training minister says
Now we have some extra feedback from Jacqui Smith, an training minister who served as house secretary for 2 years throughout Gordon Brown’s premiership.
She mentioned it’s “unacceptable” that fifty,000 migrants are set to have crossed the Channel since Labour got here to energy final yr.
Chatting with BBC Breakfast, she mentioned: “It’s an unacceptable variety of folks. It type of demonstrates the way in which during the last six or seven years that the legal gangs have gotten an absolute foothold within the tragic trafficking of individuals throughout the Channel.”
Smith added:
Our borders invoice, which is at present going by means of parliament, can even allow there to be even stronger terrorist fashion powers to assist us to problem the gangs and the criminals who’re benefiting from folks’s misery and who’re behind this horrible commerce …
It’s regarding if folks assume we don’t have a grip on our borders, as we’ve seen over latest years. And it’s regarding as a result of it is a horrible commerce by which folks die and are exploited for revenue, and that’s why the sensible steps that we’ve taken when it comes to the take care of the French, when it comes to extra powers for our Border Drive, when it comes to extra folks to have the ability to make the type of arrests that I’ve been speaking about, when it comes to the doubling of the asylum claims that we’ve been in a position to course of, as a result of ultimately, what’s going to put folks off is knowing that if you happen to get to the UK choices will likely be made shortly about you.
And if you happen to don’t have a proper to be right here, you’ll be returned and we’re already seeing that with the French scheme.
The federal government mentioned final week that the brand new “one in, one out” returns take care of France was up and working.
The deal will permit the UK to return one one who has entered the nation by irregular means in return for taking somebody in France whose declare for asylum within the UK is predicted to have a better likelihood of success.
However Dwelling Workplace sources advised the Guardian’s Dwelling affairs editor, Rajeev Syal, it can solely apply to about 50 asylum seekers at first.
Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron attend a plenary on the UK-France summit in Downing Road in July 2025. {Photograph}: Yui Mok/APShare
A number of assertions made by senior politicians about immigration have been disputed or debunked in latest days and weeks. My colleagues Eleni Courea, Adam Bychawski and Jessica Elgot have debunked just a few of them on this explainer. Right here is one instance:
Conservative Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, mentioned on Radio 4’s At this time programme final Monday that 40% of sexual crimes in London final yr have been dedicated by overseas nationals.
The declare was sourced from the Centre for Migration Management (CMC), a thinktank and weblog that describes its objective as “controlling and lowering migration to Britain”. It’s run by the Reform UK activist Robert Bates …
CMC’s claims come from the Metropolitan police’s response to a freedom of data request. The Met issued a breakdown of the quantity of people that had been proceeded in opposition to – ie introduced earlier than a court docket – for sexual offences by nationality. This doesn’t imply they’ve been discovered responsible of committing the offence as Jenrick mentioned. For instance, there have been 14,242 defendants dropped at court docket for sexual offences at magistrates courts in England and Wales in 2024, however 8,098 convictions, in accordance with Ministry of Justice statistics.
“Among the knowledge we’re seeing may be very putting,” Jenrick additionally mentioned. “Afghans and Eritrean nationals are 20 occasions extra prone to be convicted of a sexual crime than a British nationwide.” The statistic about Afghans has been repeated by Reform UK’s chair, Zia Yusuf.
It is a muddled determine that additionally got here from the CMC, after it submitted freedom of data requests to the MoJ. It’s primarily based on inhabitants statistics from 2021 however knowledge on offences protecting the years between 2021 and 2023.
Meaning the statistic is prone to be primarily based on a major underestimate of the variety of Afghan and Eritrean nationals within the UK – that means the comparability with British charges is unlikely to be 20 occasions as excessive. Immigration to the UK from Afghanistan has risen considerably since 2021 due to the Taliban’s return to energy, whereas Eritrean migration has additionally risen as a result of wars in Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia.
Robert Jenrick has beforehand been accused of stoking neighborhood divisions to gasoline his personal management ambitions. {Photograph}: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/ShutterstockShare
Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, Sarah Pochin, advised journalists yesterday that ladies are vulnerable to sexual assault and rape from small boats migrants.
Throughout a press convention for Girls for Reform, she accused unlawful migrants from “predominantly Muslim” international locations of getting a “medieval view of girls’s rights basically alien to our personal western values”.
Jacqui Smith, an training minister, advised LBC this morning that Reform is unsuitable to single out small boat migrants as a risk to girls’s security.
Smith, a former house secretary, mentioned:
No I don’t assume they’re proper to single these folks out. They’re an issue for all the explanations that we’ve talked about. However I feel that there are sadly … too many largely males who’re accountable for violence in opposition to girls, of all sorts.
That’s why we have to take the type of motion that this authorities is taking, and that’s why I hope Reform will change their place and assist us within the powerful laws that we’re bringing ahead to sort out that violence.
And likewise, in fact, to make sure that we now have extra police on our streets, which we’re starting to ship, reinvigorating our neighbourhood policing groups, ensuring we now have the legal justice system that will likely be on the aspect of victims and assist to cut back this drawback.
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Up to date at 04.51 EDT
As we talked about within the opening publish, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative social gathering chief, advised on a walkabout in Essex yesterday that “camps” must be arrange for asylum seekers whereas their functions to stay within the UK are assessed.
Badenoch, who met anti-migrant protesters and native folks in Epping excessive avenue on Monday, didn’t say how this might work in observe.
Kemi Badenoch doing media interviews whereas on a walkabout in Epping, Essex on 11 August 2025. {Photograph}: Lucy North/PA
Matt Vickers, the shadow Dwelling Workplace minister, was requested about Badenoch’s feedback on Sky Information this morning.
He mentioned the one approach to remedy the issue is to “finish the pull elements” attracting folks to come back to Britain illegally and to make sure those that do arrive illegally are usually not allowed to remain.
Vickers mentioned:
Kemi went all the way down to Epping. She met the households, the neighborhood, people who find themselves affected by these folks, who daren’t ship their youngsters down the park or allow them to play on the street.
Girls who have been nervous about going house late at evening at the hours of darkness, people who find themselves actually affected by these enormous teams of lone males hanging round city centres in public areas. She’s additionally seen the impression on companies.
For those who take away these 300 resort rooms, the companies that depend on that tourism impulsively should not have any enterprise.
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Up to date at 04.21 EDT
Take a look at for Labour as figures prone to present over 50,000 migrants have crossed Channel since final July
Good morning and welcome to our dwell protection of UK politics.
The quantity of people that have crossed the Channel on small boats since Labour took workplace final summer time will in all probability move 50,000 later right this moment when official figures are launched.
Official figures from Monday advised 49,797 had crossed in small boats from northern France since 5 July 2024.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, is underneath appreciable strain to cut back the variety of folks arriving on small boats throughout the Channel, together with his promise to “smash the gangs” clearly not working,
The federal government has set out its plan to shut asylum resorts by the top of the parliament and Starmer introduced a “one in, one out” returns take care of France final month.
However there’s a rising political urgency across the situation as Nigel Farage’s Reform UK social gathering continues to guide polls after assaults on Labour for failing to curb irregular migration.
Individuals arriving on small boats at file excessive
Reform politicians have not too long ago been linking sexual offences to immigration as a part of the social gathering’s “Britain is lawless” marketing campaign, stuffed with disputed claims.
Kemi Badenoch advised yesterday that asylum seekers must be housed in camps which might be policed, as a substitute of in resorts, as they at present are. We must always get extra element about this proposal later right this moment. Here’s what else is on the agenda:
09.30am: New welfare statistics, together with the variety of common credit score claimants, will likely be revealed by the Division for Work and Pensions.
10.45am:The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is prone to face questions from journalists in regards to the newest ONS employment knowledge when she speaks to regional media.
The training secretary, Bridget Phillipson, will likely be chatting with regional media and LBC right this moment.
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Up to date at 04.10 EDT
