Illegal migrants

Express
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has pledged to bring an end to migrant tragedies as she set out her battle plan to take back control of Britain’s borders.
She vowed she “will not rest” until she has tackled illegal immigration, telling voters: “Judge us by our actions.”
The Government has been warned it faces electoral oblivion if it fails to remove those who come to the UK illegally.
But Ms Braverman said: “This is a government on the side of hard-working people who play by the rules. We have a plan and the team in place to tackle illegal immigration, and we will not rest until this is done.”
The Home Secretary laid out her three goals as she fights to defeat people traffickers: “No more illegal entry, no more uncontrolled immigration, no more tragedies.”

Telegraph
Suella Braverman has privately urged Rishi Sunak to remove the influence of the European Court of Human Rights when considering the appeals of illegal migrants, The Telegraph can disclose.
The Home Secretary has sided with Tory rebels who believe the Government’s immigration reforms announced this week do not go far enough to deal with the migrant crisis, and has proposed tougher legislation to circumvent Strasbourg rulings.
Mr Sunak has said that under new rules, all illegal migrants will be placed in detention centres before being flown either to Rwanda or another designated safe country.
His plan includes a new law, to be tabled within weeks, that will “make unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally you should not be able to remain here”.
But Ms Braverman is concerned that the deportations will be hampered by rulings from Strasbourg, which judges take into consideration, unless the legislation sidesteps its rulings using “notwithstanding clauses”.
The clauses would direct British courts to ignore ECHR rulings in specific cases, such as when an illegal migrant requests to remain in the UK to preserve their right to a family life.

ITV News
The Home Secretary’s “crazy rhetoric” on migrants is stoking an increase in racism in Britain, according to a Government adviser who announced her resignation this week because she did not feel comfortable serving under Suella Braverman.
Nimco Ali, a campaigner and survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM), who was appointed as an independent Government adviser on tackling violence against women and girls in 2020, effectively quit live on air on Friday during a radio interview.
Ms Ali, told Times Radio she was on a “completely different planet” from the Home Secretary when it came “to the rights of women and girls”.
On the weekend, she followed up these comments by saying Ms Braverman’s “crazy rhetoric” about migrants was “basically feeding into this Nigel Farage stuff”.
“When you start to normalise these things it’s really hard to put it back in its box,” the 39-year-old told The Sunday Times.
Asked by the newspaper if she believed Ms Braverman’s language was helping fuel racism in the UK, Ms Ali said: “100%. It’s legitimising it. When somebody like her says it, you think, you’re still talking about people of your own heritage to a certain extent but you’re also normalising the Nigel Farages.”

BBC News
About 1,200 members of the military and 1,000 civil servants are to be drafted in to cover for striking ambulance and Border Force staff over Christmas.
The government say the personnel will plug staffing gaps and keep front-line services running.
Some 10,000 ambulance staff in England and Wales will strike on 21 and 28 December in a pay dispute.
Unions say military staff are not “sufficiently trained” to taking on ambulance roles.
But Health Secretary Steve Barclay said his “number one priority” is keeping patients safe.

Sun
A CHANNEL people smuggler has revealed how French police watch them launching flimsy boats full of migrants and say: “Take them to England.”
He also said uncaring cops have not arrested any of the near 600 traffickers operating in camps along the coast.
And he told how the smuggling gangs make a fortune from their deadly trade — and even offer free crossings to desperate women and girls in return for sex.
The crook, who has been convicted, spoke to The Sun on Sunday after he was sickened by the drowning deaths of four migrants in the freezing Channel last week.
The Kurd, known only as Tofan to protect his identity, told us: “Gangs say the French police are the best in the world.
“There’s nearly 600 smugglers in the camps around here and not one has been arrested.”
Tofan said that every night nearly 200 migrants travel by bus from the Grande-Synthe camp in Dunkirk to the beach dunes of Plage de Leffrinckoucke.
They pay between £5,000 and £10,000 each to the smugglers to facilitate the dangerous crossing, with around eight inflatable dinghies setting sail each night.
He said French police watch as they make their way into a forest to wait for a weather window to start their perilous journey.

Brexit

Express
Brexit freedoms will allow us to create the next Silicon Valley here in the UK, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has declared.
Sir Patrick Vallance, the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor who featured regularly on TV screens during the Covid crisis, is to draw up new regulations designed to promote innovation and replace burdensome red-tape from Brussels.
Leading figures from the UK’s high-tech industries will assist him to ensure Britain can lead the world in digital technology, green industries, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and the creative industries.
Mr Hunt said: “I want British firms to lead the world in turning fantastic science into new products and services – and we need to make sure government is doing everything we can to encourage innovation and competition.
“We have already set out how we will back our formidable financial services sector to unlock private investment in new industries, and we will show the same ambition in other high-growth sectors to ensure that future Silicon Valleys are based here in the UK.

Express
Guy Verhofstadt has insisted the UK will one day rejoin the European Union. The Belgian MEP lashed out at Brexit, claiming Britain’s departure from Brussels was a “con”. Mr Verhostadt also branded Brexit as “the elephant in the room of British politics” and a “travesty”.
He added that he has “no doubt” that a “young British politician” will bring the country back into the EU in the future.
Writing for the Independent, the Belgian MEP said: “Many in the EU, including myself, thought Brexit was a travesty for the British people.
“We want the Brits back, but we also know there will be a special deal for London.
“The elephant in the room of British politics is Brexit and will get larger and larger until the main parties address it.

Conservative Party

Observer
The Conservative party is under threat from a rightwing insurgency after a “drag to the left” under Rishi Sunak, one of its biggest recent donors has warned, amid growing tensions on the Tory right.
Peter Cruddas, the peer who has given the party more than £3.5m, said the Conservatives were “no longer a centre-right party” under Sunak, adding that he refused to back it financially until it changed course.
His intervention comes as the latest Opinium poll for the Observer shows support for Reform, the successor the Brexit party, is up to 8% of the vote – up 2 points and almost neck-and-neck with the Lib Dems. The poll also found that a fifth of voters (19%) are considering voting for Reform. This includes 23% of 2019 Conservative voters and 11% of 2019 Labour voters.
In a sign of the political pressures already facing Sunak, Cruddas, a former Tory co-treasurer, said that the recent tax-raising budget, as well as policies over Brexit and immigration, meant the party could face a threat from Reform should Nigel Farage opt to lead it in the run-up to the next election.
“There is a conduit for right-leaning, centre-right people to find a new home and that’s the Reform party, especially if Farage comes out and says he is going to lead the Reform party,” he told the Observer. “What you’re seeing today is a coup and a hijacking of the Conservative party by centre-left leaning people. The senior Conservatives that I’ve spoken to are also frustrated. Something’s going to come to a head because the members don’t want Rishi Sunak. The odds are stacked against him.

Energy

Mail
Britain is facing the prospect of rolling power cuts, with the Met Office being blamed for not giving enough warning of the severe cold snap that has strained energy supplies.
Westminster insiders say that had experts predicted the big freeze early enough, officials could have stocked up with gas to meet demand.
And they questioned whether the Met Office’s work-from-home policy might have contributed to failings.
Independent energy analyst Tony Jordan agreed that forecasters had been caught ‘off-guard’, adding: ‘If you get weather forecasting wrong – especially during extreme conditions – it can be catastrophic.’
One Whitehall insider told The Mail on Sunday that the Civil Service forecasters ‘dramatically underestimated’ the scale of the winter chill when they drew up a long-term outlook, failing to predict the extent of the cold snap that has seen temperatures fall as low as -17C (1F) in some parts of the country.
As demand for heating soars, emergency plans have been drawn up to impose power cuts between 5pm and 7pm, hitting different areas on different days, should the National Grid struggle to cope.
But sources say that in October, the Met Office – which costs taxpayers £97.8 million a year – told the then Energy Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg there was ‘less than a one-in-ten chance’ of temperatures falling as low as they have done.

Strikes

Telegraph
Teachers’ unions fear that strikes in the New Year could be met with a backlash because public sympathy has been strained by protracted disputes in sectors like rail, The Telegraph can disclose.
One union source said there was a risk that the “mood music” could turn against strikers in 2023 making planned industrial action less effective.
Schools in Scotland have already been disrupted by walkouts from the EIS, SSTA and NASUWT unions, with those in Northern Ireland also hit by action short of strike.
In 2023, the unrest in schools could spread to the rest of the UK, with the NASUWT, National Education Union and National Association of Head Teachers all currently balloting members on strike action in England and Wales, while the Association of School and College Leaders has launched a consultative ballot.
In England, the unions decided to ballot their members after the Government accepted the recommendation of the independent pay review body for experienced teachers and school leaders to receive a 5 per cent pay increase and new teachers an 8.9 per cent rise.
Union sources said it was still an open question about whether they would reach the necessary legal thresholds for strikes in England and Wales.

Observer
Union leaders threatened on Saturday night to order a fresh wave of more severe strikes in the new year in which nurses would offer “less generous” support inside hospitals, in a dramatic escalation of their pay dispute with the government.
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), in a marked hardening of its line, said there would be “more hospitals and more nurses taking part than at present” in strikes throughout January, unless ministers backed down by Thursday.
The RCN said it would reveal its timetable of bigger and wider disputes if ministers failed to open new talks on pay within 48 hours of a second day of action planned for this Tuesday.
In a further round of disputes, it would work to ensure nurses restricted the kind of work they were prepared to do on strike days to a shorter list of activities in fewer areas than had been the case on the first strike day last Thursday.
Some nurses claimed they were bullied and threatened with disciplinary action if they tried to limit their duties on the strike day.

Telegraph
Nurses are the only striking workers with public support to walk out at Christmas, a poll has found.
It comes as the UK braces itself for another round of strikes in the week leading up to Christmas Day next Sunday, with railway workers, postal workers, border staff, nurses and ambulance drivers all staging walkouts.
Savanta surveyed 2,045 UK adults about their views on industrial action across different sectors.
Asked whether it was reasonable or unreasonable for various groups of workers to strike over the festive period, nursing was the only profession where more people than not said it was reasonable.
Fifty-six per cent of respondents said it was reasonable for nurses to walk out at Christmas, compared to 41 per cent who said it was unreasonable.

Mirror
Nurses have given PM Rishi Sunak until Friday to increase their pay offer or face even worse NHS disruption.
After Thursday’s walkout and another to come on Tuesday, they have given the Government a 48-hour window to head off strikes in January. If there is no deal on the table within two days of their return to work, nurses’ leaders say more will join the 100,000 already taking action.
The Royal College of Nursing says new walkouts will hit more hospitals and cut skeleton levels of care further.

ITV News
Unions have lashed out at plans for the armed forces to cover for striking public sector workers in the run up to Christmas.
They claim military personnel are not “sufficiently trained” to plug staffing gaps on the front line. The government is deploying 1,200 troops from the Army, Navy and RAF to fill in for ambulance drivers and border staff during widespread walkouts over the festive period, with more than 1,000 civil servants also drafted in to help.But while ministers have insisted their chief concern is public safety, unions have accused the government of trying to “mask” the “effectiveness” of strike action, having spent time on contingency planning that could have been “better” invested in securing a deal.They warned military personnel are not properly qualified to guard the borders or drive ambulances, insisting troops should not be put in such an “invidious” position when they already have “enough on their plate”.
Ambulance crews in England are due to walk out for two days on December 21 and 28 in a row over pay, while border staff in the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) will strike for eight days from December 23 until New Year’s Eve.
Health Secretary Steve Barclay said his “number one priority” is keeping patients “as safe as possible” as he reiterated the government’s position that union demands are “not affordable”.

Harry & Meghan

Express
In a stream of claims, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are said to be after an apology from the Royal Family before King Charles’ coronation in May.
Harry and Meghan are said to be wanting a “sit-down meeting” with senior members of the Royal Family, following the release of the explosive Netflix documentary series this week, it has been claimed. The Sussexes are reported to want the Royal Family to “take responsibility” for the “hurt and damage” they put the couple through. A source close to the couple told The Times that they want a meeting before attending King Charles‘ coronation in May.
The source is reported as saying that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex want to “sit down with the Royal Family” for a meeting to address the “issues” they raised in the six-hour Netflix series.
According to The Times, couple are particularly incensed that the Palace facilitated a warm reconciliation meeting between Ngozi Fulani, a charity boss, and Lady Susan Hussey, a former lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth.

Times
“It is like living through a soap opera where everyone else views you as entertainment,” the Duke of Sussex said about life in the royal family, during six hours of prime-time, “Kardashian-style” Netflix access into Harry and Meghan’s world of “truth”.
It is now clear that theirs is a soap opera the royal family want no part in.
Last year, in the aftermath of the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey, or “Soap Oprah” as the Palace dubbed it, Queen Elizabeth issued her masterstroke statement that “some recollections may vary” when the royal family stood accused of racism and callous disregard for the couple’s mental health. This time, the silence from Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace is deafening.
The royal family’s actions speak for themselves.

Mail
Harry and Meghan ‘want their own apology’ after Lady Susan Hussey met with black charity boss Ngozi Fulani for ‘reconciliation’ talks at Buckingham Palace this week, it has emerged.
The 83-year-old, who served the late Queen for six decades, stepped down from her honorary role ‘with immediate effect’ amid a furious outcry after Miss Fulani tweeted how she repeatedly asked her ‘where do you really come from?’ at a royal reception last month.
The scandal prompted an intervention from Prince William, with his office criticising his godmother’s ‘unacceptable comments’ and saying ‘racism has no place in our society’.
Lady Susan apologised in person to Miss Fulani on Thursday, which she accepted before an agreed statement said both wanted to ‘rebuild their lives in peace’ following the ‘distressing’ ordeal.
But it seems the saga has left Harry and Meghan miffed, as the Sussexes are now reportedly demanding a ‘sit down with the royal family’ to address their own ‘issues’ – many of which were aired in their six-part bombshell Netflix documentary this week, seen by many as an unprecedented attack on the Firm. 

Sun
PRINCE Harry and wife Meghan want a royal apology — after insulted charity boss Ngozi Fulani received one at the Palace.
They are said to be furious after royal aides set up a “reconciliation” meeting with Ms Fulani — but have not done the same with them.
The Sussexes are pushing for the family to make the first peace offering at a royal summit and to recognise they were wronged..
Harry and Meghan — who have fiercely criticised the royals on their Netflix docuseries — are said to believe they are the victim of “double standards” after Ms Fulani met Lady Susan Hussey on Friday at Buckingham Palace.
The meeting ­— at which Lady Hussey, 83, apologised for “interrogating” the charity chief over her background — was swiftly arranged after she insulted her at a function last month.

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