Tomorrow Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, is set to announce changes to Britain’s asylum system, designed to discourage those who arrive through illegal routes. Those changes will include making housing and financial assistance ‘discretionary’ so that they can be denied to those who are able to work, and increasing the length of time asylum seekers have to wait before they can apply to settle permanently to 20 years. On Sky News this morning, Trevor Phillips asked Mahmood how she responded to the accusation that she is being ‘panicked into a racist immigration policy’. The Home Secretary rejected the claim, saying this is a ‘moral mission’ for her as the child of immigrants. She added that illegal immigration is ‘creating divisions’ across the country and called the current asylum system ‘broken’. Mahmood continued: ‘It is my job therefore to think of a proper solution to this very real problem… so that I can unite a divided country. That matters more to me than almost anything else in politics.’
Chris Philp: Labour’s asylum proposals are mostly ‘gimmicks’
Speaking to the BBC, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Laura Kuenssberg that Labour’s proposals are ‘gimmicks’ and nowhere near radical enough. Philp said ‘legal and illegal immigration is in danger of breaking Britain’ and that we have to leave the European Convention on Human Rights to ‘deport every single illegal arrival within a week of their feet touching the shore’. Kuenssberg asked if Philp agreed with Labour’s plan to grant asylum seekers a temporary right to stay for 20 years. Philp said the Conservatives would go further and not grant asylum to anyone who arrives illegally, which would create a ‘deterrent effect’. He agreed in principle that the UK should be allowed to send refugees back to their country of origin if the circumstances in that country change.
Shabana Mahmood: ‘None of [these briefings] are acceptable’
Laura Kuenssberg also asked Shabana Mahmood about the storm created this week after anonymous briefings suggested Wes Streeting was plotting a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer, which the Health Secretary denied. Mahmood said the Prime Minister had made it clear that briefings against any minister are unacceptable, and claimed: ‘It’s not how he does politics.’ The Home Secretary said her party must focus on ‘the people who put us in government’, adding that it is an ‘incredible privilege’ as Labour governments ‘don’t come along that often in the history of this country’. Kuenssberg noted that Starmer’s leadership has been questioned by many, and asked if Mahmood would go for the role if it was available. The Home Secretary said she would not indulge in ‘ridiculous chitter chatter’ and that Starmer had ‘the full support of all of his cabinet’ despite things having been ‘difficult’.
Ed Davey: ‘There’s no way [the BBC] should pay Donald Trump’
President Donald Trump has said he will push ahead with a lawsuit against the BBC over its misleading edit of a 2021 speech in a Panorama documentary, despite the corporation’s apology this week. Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey said the BBC is ‘crucial to our free media’ and called on Keir Starmer to use the relationship he’s been building with the President to urge Trump to withdraw the lawsuit. Kuenssberg asked if Trump had the right to seek ‘redress or perhaps revenge’ because the BBC did make a mistake. Davey said the BBC was right to apologise, but argued that it was ‘outrageous’ for the head of an allied nation to be ‘undermining our public institutions’. Davey claimed that Trump had ‘undermined the freedom of American press’ and added that he was concerned Trump’s America could become ‘[Nigel] Farage’s Britain’ because the Reform leader was encouraging Trump in his BBC attacks.
Chris Philp: ‘I’m relatively optimistic about what the future holds’
On GB News, Camilla Tominey asked Chris Philp whether he thought Keir Starmer would still be Prime Minister this time next year. The shadow home secretary said it was looking ‘pretty dicey’ for Starmer and claimed Angela Rayner was ‘sniffing blood in the water’. He accused the Prime Minister of running a ‘failing government’ and claimed those within the Labour party were more interested in fighting each other than fixing the country’s problems. Tominey pointed out that a recent poll from Find Out Now puts the Conservatives below the Greens. Philp said it takes time to recover from a big election loss and argued that the Tories set out a new policy agenda at their conference which ‘sensible British citizens’ can get behind.
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