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Tag: Home Secretary

  • Albania’s Prime Minister accuses the UK of ‘discrimination’ following migrant remarks

    The criticism comes after a senior British official singles out Albanians for their role in facilitating illegal migration to the UK.

    Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has accused the British government of “discriminating” against Albanians after a top UK official singled out the nationality for its role in illegal migration to the country.

     

    Small-boat crossings of the English Channel from mainland Europe have become a political headache for UK ministers, who promised that Brexit would lead to tighter immigration controls.

    Official statistics in the UK have said that Albanians are now the largest single group making small-boat crossings of the Channel.

    ‘Targeting Albanians’

    In a series of messages posted on his personal Twitter account on Wednesday, Rama said UK officials have been actively “discriminating” against Albanians.

    “Targeting Albanians (as some shamefully did when fighting for Brexit) as the cause of Britain’s crime and border problems makes for easy rhetoric but ignores hard fact,” Rama tweeted.

    “Albanians in the UK work hard and pay tax. UK should fight the crime gangs of all nationalities and stop discriminating … to excuse policy failures,” he added.

    Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman was recently criticised for her choice of language during a heated Commons debate, when she alleged that there is an “invasion” of England by migrants.

    Braverman has also pointed the finger at Albanian asylum seekers, saying that many Albanian adult males who seek asylum in the UK have posed as children, a practice she intended to “clamp down” on.

    Albanian arrivals

    British MPs were told recently that 12,000 Albanians had arrived in the country after crossing the Channel so far this year, compared with only 50 in 2020.

    The number of migrant arrivals have reached record levels, causing delays in asylum applications and increasing costs in terms of housing and other social services.

    Albanian organised crime gang groups are believed to be among the main players in smuggling migrants across the Channel to Britain from northern Europe.

    Earlier this week, British and Belgian law enforcement officers said they had arrested three people suspected of being part of an Albanian people-smuggling ring.

     

  • Labour MP says Braverman is “totally unfit for the job”

    Labour’s Andy McDonald reiterates the home secretary’s claim that she ignored legal advice on asylum seekers, citing her own admission that she violated security protocols six times by sending government documents to personal accounts.

    “How on earth can she stand at that dispatch box with a straight face and defend cruelty to the most desperate of people?” he asks.

    “Doesn’t she need to take a look in the mirror to see who is a threat to national security and accept she is totally unfit for the job?”

    Ms Braverman refers to her letter again, saying it gives “very fulsome” detail of what happened, and repeated her apologies.

    But she continues to deny she ignored legal advice.

     

  • Braverman admits to mailing government information to personal email six times

    Suella Braverman has written to the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee to explain how she sent government information to a backbench MP.

    This action prompted Ms Braverman to resign as home secretary, only to be reappointed six days later (last week, upon Rishi Sunak, becoming PM).

    Ms Braverman also admitted to sending work emails to her personal address on six occasions, in violation of the ministerial code.

    In the letter, Ms Braverman says the information related to a written ministerial statement outlining immigration policy.

    She says the information would “outline the government’s position” – and allow the OBR to incorporate the position into their forecasts.

    The information was sent to Tory MP Sir John Hayes, with Ms Braverman saying she “intended to copy his secretary’s parliamentary email address” but she put the wrong email in. The information instead went to the secretary of a different MP.

    According to Ms Braverman,

    Suella Braverman has written to the House of Commons’ Home Affairs Select Committee to explain how she sent government information to a backbench MP.

    This action prompted Ms Braverman to resign as home secretary, only to be reappointed six days later (last week, upon Rishi Sunak becoming PM).

    Ms Braverman also admitted to sending work emails to her personal address on six occasions, in violation of the ministerial code.

    had “specifically requested” that the policy be discussed with “parliamentary colleagues”.

    The home secretary also gave her a timeline of events as she saw them on the day in question.

    She said it started with getting up at 4 am to go on a police raid, before travelling two hours by car to the Home Office.

    It was during this journey that Ms Braverman sent the email in question from her personal phone as she did not have her work phone with her.

    Following a morning of meetings, Ms Braverman says when she realised she had sent the email to a staffer of MP Andrew Percy by accident, she “decided to inform my officials as soon as practicable”.

    But before informing the civil service, Ms Braverman bumped into the chief whip and Mr Percy – a meeting during which Mr Percy raised his concerns.

    After this meeting, Ms Braverman asked a special adviser to tell the private secretary what happened.

     

  • Questions are stacking up for Suella Braverman – when will she answer them?

    There are two potential political scandals to address today, and both are on the home secretary’s desk.

    First is the deteriorating situation at Manston processing centre in Kent, described by the chief inspector of prisons as “dangerous” and inhumane.

    It’s expected a minister will have to answer questions about it in Parliament this afternoon. Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, who visited the site for three hours yesterday, may be asked to step in for Suellla Braverman to explain why the processing facility is almost three times over capacity and families were reportedly left sleeping in tents for weeks.

    If the Home Office does not offer up a statement from him, then they are likely to be forced to answer an urgent question.

    A government minister, Mark Spencer, appeared to confirm on Sky News this morning that failure to procure other accommodation was deliberate policy, saying that Ms Braverman had prevented people from being moved out of the site so they could be processed more quickly.

    But answers have been demanded by Labour, campaigners, and by Conservative MP Roger Gale, whose constituency in North Thanet includes the facility. He gave the home secretary and her predecessor both barrels on Sky News this morning.

    He said it was “clearly Home Office policy” not to book hotel accommodation for those held there for the past few years. He said this was a mistake, which has led to significant overcrowding, and that Mr Jenrick was in the process of moving people out.

    “I do believe that whoever is responsible, that is either the previous home secretary or this one, has to be held to account because a bad decision was taken and it has led to what I would regard as a breach of humane conditions,” he said. He added that the migrant issue should be addressed “in a grown-up fashion, not by dog whistle politics.”

    The home secretary – who the weekend papers reported has been nicknamed “Cruella” by officials – has been tasked with tackling the issue of migrants crossing the Channel in flimsy boats, with the numbers reaching a record 38,000 this year.

    MPs were told last week that just 4% of those who arrived last year have had their claims processed. Senior Conservatives are privately concerned that the home secretary – returned to her post by Rishi Sunak six days after she resigned over a security breach – is not the right person to sort out this complex issue.

    She may also need to answer questions today, or the next time she appears publicly, about the circumstances surrounding her resignation. She admitted a security breach and said she had reported it “rapidly” as soon as she realised.

    But Labour’s Yvette Cooper predicted that Ms Braverman would dodge questions on Manston today after revelations over the weekend that after sending the email from her personal account and realising it was to the wrong recipient, she told them – in an email seen by the BBC – to “delete the message and ignore.”

    Having been forced to resign once already, there are already questions about how long she can survive in the post.

    DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of Independent Ghana

    Source: Skynews.com 

     

     

  • Scabies and overcrowding at immigration center: 100 charities call on home secretary to act

    More than 100 charities have signed an open letter to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, urging her to create a “kind and effective system” for asylum seekers in the UK.

    It comes amid growing concern about the Manston immigration detention centre in Kent, which was discovered to be housing more than twice the number of people it was supposed to.

    This problem has been exacerbated by this weekend’s petrol bomb attack on the Dover Tug Haven asylum site, which has resulted in the transfer of hundreds of people to the Manston processing centre.

    The facility was overwhelmed on Sunday night, with a reported 4,000 being housed there – it was initially intended to house 1,600 to be moved on and processed within 24 hours.

    Home Office minister Robert Jenrick visited Manston yesterday and admitted the situation there was “intolerable“.

    Mrs Braverman has been accused of failing to help solve Manston’s overcrowding problem. It was reported by The Times this weekend that she refused to approve new hotels where asylum seekers could be sent. It was said she ignored legal advice people should be moved.

    On conditions at the site, the Refugee Council said one boy had contracted scabies having stayed at the Manston facility for 19 days in “inhumane” conditions.

    The Home Office confirmed a small outbreak of diphtheria, a contagious bacterial infection that can prove fatal if it goes untreated, at the Kent site earlier in October.

    The letter from charities reads: “Home secretary when you talk of ‘safe and legal routes’, you must be aware that it is impossible to ask refugees to come exclusively through such a path when even Afghan interpreters who are eligible for one of our few existing schemes remain in hiding from the Taliban.

    “When you talk of ‘illegal migrants’, you must be aware that the top nationalities of people making dangerous journeys include Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Syria, and that at least 97% of asylum claims made by people from these countries are successful.

    “When you question the existence of ‘modern slavery’, you must be aware that you are dismantling your own party’s proud and internationally-recognized achievement in protecting the survivors of trafficking.

    “And when you complain about the cost of housing asylum seekers, you must be aware that, while people seeking safety did not choose to leave their homelands, they are willing to work and keen to contribute, if only the law permitted them.

    “You have referred to this country’s proud history of offering sanctuary, so we ask you to make this happen with a fair, kind, and effective system for refugees.

    “Deal with the backlog in asylum cases, create safe routes, respect international law, and the UN convention on refugees, and give refugees a fair hearing, however they get here. Then you would have really done something worth dreaming about.”

    The letter, co-ordinated by charity IMIX and coalition campaign Together With Refugees, was signed by groups such as Choose Love, Christian Aid, City of Sanctuary UK, Doctors of the World, English National Opera, Freedom from Torture, Good Chance Theatre, JCORE, Jesuit Refugee Service, Rainbow Migration, Refugee Action, Refugee Council, Scottish Refugee Council, Safe Passage and Save the Children.

     

     

     

  • Home Secretary barred migrants from being placed in hotels ‘to speed up the process’

    The government says Home Secretary Suella Braverman prevented migrants from being transferred from short-term holding centres to hotel rooms in order to “speed up” their applications.

    According to Environment Minister Mark Spencer, the government is facing “huge challenges” in managing the migrant situation.

    Over the weekend, petrol bombs were thrown at a migrant centre in Dover, while MRSA and diphtheria were reported at another one (Manston, see the previous post) amid overcrowding.

    Asked about reports Ms Braverman blocked migrants being moved from short-term holding centres to hotels, Mr Spencer said this was done because the home secretary “wants to process them quickly” and make sure only “genuine” asylum seekers are admitted to the UK.

    He added that the way to cut down on migrants crossing the channel is to “break the model” of people traffickers.

    Meanwhile, Mr Spencer said that Rishi Sunak would go to COP27 “if he’s got time” and that the prime minister has “an inbox which is full to the brim“.