Nigel Farage is set to announce a pledge to ban anyone from being granted asylum for five years if Reform were elected, the Press Association reports. PA says:
The Reform UK leader will announce a plan this morning to suspend the asylum system for a full parliamentary term and declare void any applications in progress.
All asylum tribunals, legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes will be scrapped.
A Reform government would not hear the around 90,000 outstanding asylum and humanitarian protection appeals and instead deport the claimants.
The party would immediately close resettlement schemes that home secretary Shabana Mahmood recently said would reopen, with around a quarter of those admitted to the UK expected to be Palestinians and women and girls from Afghanistan.
Reform says there is “no mandate” for such schemes and that anyone who has arrived under them would be deported.
Any refugees granted asylum in the last five years would have their cases reviewed by the Home Office under the plans.
Farage told The Telegraph: “The country is currently facing a national security emergency and the first duty of government is to protect its citizens. We cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose. A Reform government will always put British people first and protect our borders.”
The party will also pledge to use tariffs to force countries to take back migrants.
Summing up his announcement on social media this morning, Farage said:
Today, I am announcing that a Reform UK Government will SHUT DOWN the asylum system.
This is a national security emergency and must be dealt with.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has praised Andy Burnham for confirming that Russia tried to influence the outcome of the 2016 Brexit referendum. (See 9.28am.) In a statement, he said:
I’m not going to agree with Andy Burnham on everything, but this statement needed to be said by a prime minister. After the Conservatives suppressed the truth for years, this took courage.
We must do far more to protect our democracy from attack by the Kremlin and other hostile states, before it is too late.
Good morning. The last time Andy Burnham gave a statement to MPs after a recess, it went on for more than three hours. This prompted Kemi Badenoch to make a lewd joke later about the PM’s stamina (which she repeated at a party conference reception with an additional line about how she just had to “sit back and lie there”.) Today we are getting another post-recess, potentially wide-ranging statement from the PM, but the mood might not be so cordial.
Quite a lot has happened since MPs were last in the chamber almost a month ago, and they will want to ask the PM about issues like the cost of living, North Sea oil and gas, the Iran war and Ukraine. We have not been told yet exactly what Burnham’s statement will cover. But, as Aletha Adu reports, Burnham will talk about Brexit, restating what he told Labour’s conference about how he thinks it has done more harm than good and making the case for trying to find a better, closer relationship with the EU.
The statement will come after 3.30pm
Burnham has also given an interview to the Rest is Politics podcast and in it he confirmed that Russia interfered in the Brexit referendum. This is one of those statements, quite common in politics, which are simultaneously unremarkable and newsworthy. Unremarkable – because it has been obvious to anyone reading the news for the past decade that the Russians were trying to help the leave campaign. And newsworthy – because it is not something that any previous PM has been keen to say.
For some years ministers have been using the line – set out in 2020 in the government’s response to the intelligence and security committee’s report on the threat posed by Russia – that “we have seen no evidence of successful interference in the EU referendum”. That implies there is evidence of unsuccessful interference. But in the past prime ministers have not said that explicity. Post-2016 Tory PMs, whether they voted leave or remain, did not want to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the leave vote, and Keir Starmer was also reluctant to poke his stick into that particular hornets’ nest.
Burnham is taking a different approach. In his interview, Burnham was not asked, and did not say, if he thought that Russian interference had an impact on the result. Stephen Doughty, a Foreign Office minister, has been giving interview this morning and he told Times Radio:
The result is the result, and I think the prime minister has been very clear that he’s talking about attempts to interfere. The security minister has spoken about this before. I’m confident that both the British people and the British state are able to respond to and defend against these types of threats, but we need to be very honest that those threats exist.
(“I think the PM has been very clear” is the sort of thing a minister says when what they mean is “Of course, the PM wasn’t clear at all, but I’m happy to give you the line now.” Doughty later told LBC the Russians “haven’t succeeded in their many, many attempts to undermine our [democratic] processes”.)
The Conservatives have criticised Burnham for even raising the topic. Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy secretary, told Times Radio this morning:
That Brexit referendum was a legitimate vote. People voted in this country in record numbers to leave the European Union. And I actually think it’s very dangerous and divisive of the prime minister to reopen this debate in such an explosive fashion.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Kanishka Narayan, the AI minister, gives a speech.
11am: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Zia Yusuf, its home affairs spokesperson, hold a press conference.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
Afternoon: MLAs (members of the legislative assembly) will vote on a no confidence motion in Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin first minister, over her support for a protest against the proposed Orange Order march down the Garvachy Road.
After 3.30pm: Andy Burnham makes a statement to MP.
Late afternoon: Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, makes a statement to the Commons on the safety of MPs.
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