No 10 refuses to say it is confident UK-France migrants deal will bring number of small boat Channel crossings down
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson confirmed that there are no targets attached to the UK-France asylum deal for how it should reduce small boat Channel crossings. Echoing the stance taken by James Cleverly this morning (see 9.23am), No 10 won’t even say it is confident the deal will bring numbers down. This is from Lucy Fisher from Times Radio.
Extraordinary!
Govt has stumped up £70m for new migration partnership with France, but has agreed *no* concrete targets for deal to reduce small boat crossings, says No 10 spox
Downing St won’t even say the govt is confident the deal will bring numbers down… 🫠
— Lucy Fisher (@LOS_Fisher) November 14, 2022
I will post more from the lobby briefing shortly.
Key events
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Rishi Sunak has recoreded a pooled interview with Beth Rigby from Sky News. As she reports, Sunak insisted that it was right for him to attend the G20 summit even if, as a group, it does not issue a joint condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia is a member of the G20, which is one reason why there won’t be a joint communique condemning the invasion. But some other G20 members have been unwilling to criticise Vladimir Putin over Ukraine too.
Here are some more pictures of Rishi Sunak arriving in Bali, where he is attending the G20 summit.
No 10 refuses to deny concern expressed about Raab’s conduct towards staff when he was Brexit secretary
As my colleague Pippa Crerar reports, at the lobby briefing Downing Street also refused to deny a report in the Observer that a “serious expression of concern” about Dominic Raab’s conduct towards staff was sent to the Cabinet Office when he was Brexit secretary.
💥No 10 repeatedly fails to deny cabinet office received a “serious expression of concern” about Dominic Raab’s alleged behaviour while DExEU secretary – simply saying it had “not received a formal complaint”.
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) November 14, 2022
No 10 refuses to say it is confident UK-France migrants deal will bring number of small boat Channel crossings down
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson confirmed that there are no targets attached to the UK-France asylum deal for how it should reduce small boat Channel crossings. Echoing the stance taken by James Cleverly this morning (see 9.23am), No 10 won’t even say it is confident the deal will bring numbers down. This is from Lucy Fisher from Times Radio.
Extraordinary!
Govt has stumped up £70m for new migration partnership with France, but has agreed *no* concrete targets for deal to reduce small boat crossings, says No 10 spox
Downing St won’t even say the govt is confident the deal will bring numbers down… 🫠
— Lucy Fisher (@LOS_Fisher) November 14, 2022
I will post more from the lobby briefing shortly.
Sunak says he does ‘not recognise’ bullying claims against Raab
Rishi Sunak has defended his deputy prime minister and justice secretary, Dominic Raab, saying he does not recognise claims from multiple civil servants that he bullied staff. Speaking to journalists on his flight to Bali following my colleague Pippa Crerar’s revelation on Friday night that staff in Raab’s office at the MoJ were offered the chance to move because some were still traumatised by the experience of working for him when he was last there, Sunak said he did not recognise that description of Raab. He said:
I don’t recognise that characterisation of Dominic and I’m not aware of any formal complaints about him.
Of course, there are established procedures for civil servants if they want to bring to light any issues. I’m not aware of any formal complaint about Dominic.
My colleague Jessica Elgot has the full story here.
The SNP has also criticised the UK-France small boats deal, saying there should be “many more” safe and legal routes for people seeking asylum in the UK. This is from Anne McLauglin MP, the SNP’s immigration spokesperson.
While co-operation with the French is welcome, no deal will fix the Tories disastrous asylum system. With independence, Scotland can rid ourselves of callous Tory policies and create a humane migration system that works for us.
We have seen deals like this before and they have failed to significantly improve the situation. The UK government must instead focus on creating more safe and legal routes, which we know work, and address the backlog of asylum decisions.
The whole UK asylum system needs root and branch reform to make it humane and fit for purpose, including giving asylum seekers the right to work, creating many more safe and legal routes, and providing decent accommodation and support systems for those seeking safety upon arrival.
But more immediately, the 10,000 asylum seekers who have been waiting for a decision for three years or more deserve an answer. These people should have already had their decision by now and could be working, paying tax and contributing to our society. The money the UK government is using to pay the French for border control would be better spent on hiring and training more Home Office staff to get through the backlog.
Labour dismisses UK-France deal to curb Channel migration as too little, too late
Labour is dismissing the UK-France small boats deal as too little, too late. This is what Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, posted about it on Twitter last night.
We’ve long called for stronger agreement w France to prevent dangerous boat crossings.
But measures described here on intelligence sharing & patrols shd have been happening long ago. And still far too little joint action to investigate & crack down on criminal gangs. https://t.co/SlvpXZCZrm
— Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) November 13, 2022
UPDATE: Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, delivered the same critique in an interview with Sky News this morning.
The deal signed by Home Sec in Paris is simply too little too late.
We need more ambition, and immediate action on asylum backlog.
We would scrap the Rwanda scheme, and invest in the NCA, so that they can proactively tackle people smugglers in the Channel. pic.twitter.com/VkG5ZGDeDS
— Stephen Kinnock (@SKinnock) November 14, 2022
As my colleagues Aletha Adu, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot report, senior Labour figures have said that Jeremy Corbyn will never be permitted to stand again as a candidate for the party at a general election.
Momentum, the Labour group set up when Corbyn was leader to promote him and his agenda, has described this stance as “disgraceful”.
This is disgraceful.
Jeremy has won Islington North *ten times* for Labour. He is a Labour member and elected MP.
But instead of uniting the Party and following due process, Keir Starmer is treating the whip as his personal plaything. It must end.https://t.co/o1pKhTFkmd
— Momentum 🌹 (@PeoplesMomentum) November 14, 2022
As our report explains, if Corbyn ends up running for parliament as a non-Labour candidate at the next election, Momentum will not be able to support him without becoming a banned organisation within the party. Adu, Crerar and Elgot report:
Should Corbyn decide to run at the next election as an independent, it would pose a potentially existential dilemma for Momentum, the grassroots leftwing group that emerged out of Corbyn’s leadership campaign, which has become a pressure group for the Labour left and the loudest critic of Starmer’s leadership.
Senior Labour sources have made it clear that should Momentum campaign for Corbyn, it would be proscribed as an organisation by Labour – similar to the way Militant or other leftwing groups that challenged Labour MPs have been treated.
Rishi Sunak has touched down on the tropical island of Bali ahead of the G20 summit, PA Media reports. PA says:
As the prime minister stepped out of the plane and into the evening humidity, he was met by a guard of honour and a troupe of dancers on the tarmac.
Sunak looked on and smiled as the group performed a spectacular traditional Balinese dance called “pendet”, carrying bowls of flower petals as their gold headdresses gleamed in the airport floodlights.
The prime minister arrived in Bali after a long-haul flight evening, ahead of the two-day summit’s kick off the next morning.
