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Suella Braverman has been accused of endangering lives by claiming Britain was being invaded by migrants, the day after the firebomb attack on an asylum processing facility in Dover. Refugee charities said the embattled home secretary’s remarks were “abhorrent” and “dehumanizing” to refugees and migrants, adding that she also put Home Office staff and volunteers at risk. Labor accused her of “grossly irresponsible” language that did not take public safety seriously. Answering questions in the Commons yesterday, Ms Braverman suggested Labor was not “serious” about cracking down on illegal immigration. She said: “Illegal immigration is rampant and too many people are interested in playing political parlor games, covering up the truth rather than solving the problem,” adding that her policies were designed to fend off an “invasion” on the south coast. Ms Braverman challenged critics to “get rid of” her after rejecting calls for her to resign over her response to overcrowding at a short-stay treatment facility in Manston, Kent. The Home Secretary has denied ignoring legal advice to buy more accommodation amid warnings of dangerous conditions at the centre.
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BP profits double amid calls for unexpected tax hike
BP has revealed that profits more than doubled last quarter (Zoe Tidman writes). The London-listed oil giant said underlying replacement cost earnings – BP’s preferred measure – rose to $8.2bn (£7.1bn), compared with $3.3bn (2.9 £bn) a year earlier. It was significantly ahead of the $6.1bn (£5.3bn) expected by market analysts. The report comes amid calls for a higher windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas giants. Liam James November 1, 2022 07:50 1667287579
Suella Braverman ‘puts lives at risk’ with ‘immigrant invasion’
Suella Braverman has been accused of endangering lives after she claimed the south coast was facing an ‘invasion’ from migrants, the day after the Dover bomb attack (Kate Devlin writes). Refugee charities described the embattled home secretary’s comments as “abhorrent” and “dehumanizing”, while Labor accused her of “grossly irresponsible” language that did not take public safety seriously. The row erupted as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak came under mounting pressure over his decision to reappoint Ms Braverman to the role last week, days after she resigned for breaching the ministerial code. Liam James November 1, 2022 07:26 1667285307
Treasury ‘warns of tax hikes’ to plug economic black hole
The Treasury has reportedly warned of “inevitable” tax rises as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tries to plug a “black hole” of up to £50bn in public finances. Mr Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt yesterday agreed to freeze the thresholds at which people start paying different rates of income tax and national insurance, according to the Daily Telegraph. Mr Hunt is seeking to cover the deficit through a combination of 50% tax rises and 50% public spending cuts in his autumn statement on November 17, the paper said. The Treasury said “everyone will have to contribute more in taxes in the coming years”, without elaborating. “It’s going to be rough,” a Treasury source told the BBC. “The truth is that everyone will have to contribute more in taxes if we want to maintain public services.” Given the scale of borrowing to support energy bills and the Covid-19 pandemic, the source said the ministry “will not be able to cover the fiscal black hole through spending cuts alone”. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 06:48 1667284379
What is Manston Asylum Centre?
Home Secretary Suella Braverman is under increasing pressure to ease “catastrophic overcrowding” at Britain’s main asylum processing center for Channel migrants. Ms Braverman is said to be considering plans to house asylum seekers in hotels, holiday camps and other resorts – alongside members of the public, rather than blocking entire facilities on behalf of applicants – after it emerged the Manston facility is overcrowded. The facility currently holds around 4,000 people, even though it was designed for just 1,600. The site, which opened in January at an abandoned airfield formerly used as a Firearms Training and Development Center, was supposed to be a short-term detention facility where immigrants could be housed for 24 hours and processed by Border Patrol personnel before being transferred to temporary accommodation.
What is Manston Asylum Centre?
The Kent facility opened in January and was intended for short-term detention and processing of applicants, but is already struggling with overcrowding after a high number of Channel crossings Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 06:32 1667283570
Voices | Listening to Suella Braverman is like being sucked into a viral Facebook scam
“I made a mistake, I took responsibility, I resigned,” said Suella Braverman, standing in the House of Commons dispatch box. The words she chose were a direct quote from her own resignation letter, which she sent to the former prime minister less than two weeks ago. And yet somehow, by some strange alchemy, she is still the home secretary. Here she was, praising her moral courage for admitting her mistake and doing the decent thing and resigning as home secretary, all while she was home secretary, writes Tom Peck. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 06:19 1667282599
Rishi Sunak has ‘full confidence’ in Suella Braverman
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has “full confidence” in his Home Secretary Suella Braverman, Downing Street has said. The statement came as Ms Braverman was embroiled in two rows over leaks about her mobile phone and worsening conditions at the Manston migrant processing center in Kent. Questioned about reports that Ms Braverman fueled the overcrowding at Manston by refusing to book hotel rooms to house migrants, the prime minister’s official spokesman pointed to a Home Office statement describing the claim as “baseless”. Asked if the prime minister had full confidence in his home secretary, the spokesman told a regular Westminster media briefing: “Yes.” Andrew Woodcock has more. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 06:03 1667281253
Braverman’s office requested that the article be “rewritten.”
Interior Secretary Suella Braverman’s office asked a 120-year-old magazine for lawyers to remove an opinion piece because they didn’t like what it said. They told the Law Society newspaper that the article “should not have been published as it is”. One added: “I’d love for it to be taken down and rewritten,” a Freedom of Information (FOI) release shows. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 05:40 1667280361
Starmer said to focus on key commitments to win the election
Labor leader Keir Starmer has been told to prepare his party for the next general election with a “sharp” focus on expanding the voting base with a small number of key promises that demonstrate the party’s priorities. Josh Simons, who worked with former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, said the party had “so much work to do” to secure the significant lead in the polls that translates into an election victory. “The phrase I often come back to is ‘it may be true that governments lose elections, but the opposition determines how much they lose,’” Simons told the Guardian. He added: “We’ve won some big and notable policy victories over the Conservative party in recent years and that’s really helped to position Labor in the minds of voters as a serious potential governing party.” “But what we need to do now is turn it into a coherent narrative about the moment we live in, the challenges facing the country and how Labor will address them.” Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 05:26 1667280163
Rishi Sunak warned of a return to austerity with cuts in public spending
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt have “fiscal space” to avoid cuts to public spending in the next mini-budget, an economic think tank said. The prime minister and Mr Hunt also have an opportunity to deliver help for the cost-of-living crisis without breaking the government’s rules on tax and spending, the Institute for Public Policy Research said. In a report released yesterday, the think tank said spending cuts were not inevitable but would represent a “political choice” to return to the austerity pursued by Conservative governments in the “lost decade” of the 2010s. Reports suggest Mr Sunak is considering a 50/50 split between tax rises and spending cuts in his autumn statement on November 17 to plug a budget gap estimated at £40 billion. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 05:22 1667278019
The Home Office must “get to grips” with the Manston crisis, says the watchdog
A watchdog has called on the Home Office to “get to grips” with problems at the Manston migrant processing centre. Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor said the government department and its contractors needed to speed up the processing of migrants and make “appropriate arrangements” so people could be moved from the site to Kent. His comments came as he published the findings of an inspection carried out at the facility in July, which warned that serious challenges remain for migrants crossing the Channel to Kent Mr Taylor told Radio 4’s Today: “The Home Office and the contractors need to take control, they need to speed up the processing of migrants, they need to make the right arrangements so that people can be moved off-site as soon as possible and housed in humane and dignified conditions”. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar1 November 2022 04:46
