Markus Andrews

Britain felt like a safer place to be trans in the nineties than it does now, the UK’s first transgender judge has said, raising the alarm over what she sees as a backslide in attitudes towards trans people.Giving her first interview since lawyers acting on her behalf began the process of taking the government to the European Court of Human Rights over April’s bombshell Supreme Court ruling on biological sex, Dr Victoria McCloud expressed concern that the ruling could impact young trans people who are considering coming out. “When I came out, things were bizarrely rather better. That was the nineties – we didn’t really have any rights, but there was less of a climate of fear”, Dr McCloud tells The Independent.Dr Victoria McCloud is taking the government to the European Court of Human Rights over the Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex More

TikTok’s Chinese owners have been accused of “bare-faced union busting” by announcing hundreds of layoffs just a week before staff were due to vote on unionisation. The social media platform’s Beijing-based owner ByteDance announced on Friday that hundreds of staff in its London office would be made redundant, with their roles being reallocated to offices across Europe and outsourced to third-party providers.It came just a week before a vote on a bid by employees in the firm’s content moderation arm to establish a branch of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) for its 2,500 staff.TikTok is putting hundreds of jobs at risk in the UK as part of a restructure of its trust and safety operations (James Manning/PA) More

Dan Jarvis says government to appeal against Epping asylum hotel rulingAnti-immigration demonstrators have been met with anti-racism campaigners in Portsmouth as a weekend of planned protests begins.Police enforced a gap between the two groups as the anti-immigrant group chanted “Send them home” while the counter group chanted: “Refugees are welcome here” on Friday afternoon.There has been a surge in protests against the use of such hotels since demonstration at The Bell Hotel in Epping earlier this summer.Following the release of new migration figures on Thursday, more have been planned over the weekend.Stand Up to Racism has co-ordinated counter-protests at almost every site, including seven on Friday. It comes as a security minister confirmed the government will take steps to challenge the High Court’s decision to prevent people seeking asylum from being housed in a hotel in Epping.Dan Jarvis said that the Home Office will appeal against the High Court’s refusal to allow it to intervene in the case of The Bell Hotel.If granted permission to intervene, it will open the way for a wider appeal against a temporary injunction handed down in the case.Asylum seekers feel ‘hunted’ amid scenes of hate on UK streetsAsylum seekers in hotels feel “hunted” by protests, campaigners said as one Afghan man told of being seen as “an enemy” by the British public after fleeing to the UK for a safer life.Demonstrations in recent weeks have left some of those seeking asylum feeling “afraid to go outside”, according to Asylum Matters, which works with asylum seekers and refugees.Many feel “hunted” amid scenes of “hate and intimidation on Britain’s streets”, the Freedom from Torture charity said.A 26-year-old Afghan man who has been living in a hotel in Yorkshire for almost two years, said he is scared of what might happen to him here.“I feel like nobody likes me, the people of this city don’t want us, but I don’t have any other option. It’s really hit my confidence,” he said.“Before I used to talk very socially with everyone. Now I’m scared, what if they abuse you, what if they record you? It’s hard. I can’t explain – but this year it has totally changed. People see us as an enemy.”( More

Jeremy Corbyn has hit back at Zarah Sultana after she accused him of “capitulating” over antisemitism when he was Labour leader as tensions at the top of their new left-wing party grow.The Islington MP said it was “not really necessary” for Ms Sultana, with whom he is currently co-leading the as-yet-unnamed party, to “bring all that up”. It came after Ms Sultana used an interview with the New Left Review to say Mr Corbyn as Labour leader “capitulated to the IHRA definition of antisemitism”.The Coventry MP also said Mr Corbyn alienated voters by “triangulating” on Brexit and that Labour under his leadership was “frightened and far too conciliatory”.Zarah Sultana hit out at Jeremy Corbyn’s time as Labour leader More

Labour has failed to tell a “coherent story” about the change it has delivered since last year’s general election, Wes Streeting has admitted. The health secretary said Sir Keir Starmer’s party has had “a whole number of achievements” since coming to power last July, but has not done enough to convince voters it is changing the country for the better. With Nigel Farage’s Reform UK surging, and Sir Keir’s approval ratings hitting record lows, Mr Streeting said positives such as falling NHS waiting lists have not yet cut through with voters. Wes Streeting said Labour has not told a ‘coherent enough story’ about its achievements so far More

A crackdown on child benefit claimants who have moved abroad will save taxpayers £350m in the next five years, the government has said. A Cabinet Office team will track the travel data of benefit claimants and target those who have left the country and are no longer entitled to payments. It comes after a pilot of the scheme saw 15 investigators strip payments from 2,600 claimants who had left Britain but were still receiving child benefit. Georgia Gould warned those wrongly claiming benefits ‘your time is up’ More

The dilemma of how to house asylum seekers in Britain got more challenging for the government after a landmark court ruling this week motivated opponents to fight hotels used as accommodation.Politicians on the right capitalized on a temporary injunction that blocked housing asylum seekers in a hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London, to encourage other communities to also go to court. The issue is at the heart of a heated public debate over how to control unauthorized immigration that has bedeviled countries across the West as an influx of migrants seeking a better life as they flee war-torn countries, poverty, regions wracked by climate change or political persecution.In the U.K., the debate has focused on the arrival of migrants crossing the English Channel in overloaded boats run by smugglers and escalating tensions over housing thousands of asylum seekers at government expense around the country. Here’s a look at the issue: The hotels The government is legally obligated to house asylum seekers. Using hotels to do so had been a marginal issue until 2020, when the number of asylum seekers increased sharply and the then-Conservative government had to find new ways to house them.There have been more than 27,000 unauthorized arrivals so far this year, nearly 50% higher than at the same point last year and ahead of the number at this time of year in 2022, when a record 45,755 came ashore. The number of asylum seekers housed in hotels stood at just over 32,000 at the end of June, according to Home Office figures released Thursday. That figure was up 8% from about 29,500 a year earlier but far below the peak of more than 56,000 in September 2023.A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001. In May, the National Audit Office said those temporarily living in hotels accounted for 35% of all people in asylum accommodation. The Epping case Anti-migrant protesters and counter-protesters gathered for weeks outside the Bell Hotel in Epping after news that a hotel resident tried to kiss a 14-year-old girl and was charged with sexual assault. The man has denied the accusation and is due to stand trial later this month.Epping Forest District Council sought a temporary injunction to shut down the hotel because of “unprecedented levels of protest and disruption,” which had led to several arrests. The High Court decision in favor of the council has the potential to spread elsewhere and government ministers are scrambling to work out what they can do if other councils manage to win similar rulings.However, the Epping decision was based on planning laws, which may not apply elsewhere. The politics Many politicians, such as Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage, have sought to link many of the problems the country faces, such as health and housing, with migrant arrivals.Others, including the government, argue that the likes of Farage are whipping up the issue for political gain and that there are no easy answers to an issue affecting many European countries.The leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, urged Tory councils all over the country to launch legal challenges similar to that of Epping if their legal advice allowed. The ruling Labour Party dismissed her appeal as “desperate and hypocritical nonsense,” but several Labour-led councils have also suggested they, too, could mount legal action against asylum hotels in their areas.The worry is that the tensions could explode into the sort of violence that ravaged many towns and cities in England last summer in the wake of a stabbing rampage at a dance class that left three girls dead and several wounded. Government options The government’s first priority is to sharply decrease the number of dangerous channel crossings. Having ditched the Conservative administration’s plan to send migrants who arrived by unauthorized means to Rwanda, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his government would disrupt the gangs profiting off migrant trafficking.The government is also looking to speed up processing asylum claims and hoping a deal with France to send migrants who cross the channel back back to France will succeed as a deterrent for others.Whether those plans succeed or not, however, the issue of what to do with the tens of thousands of asylum seekers in the country remains.Home Office minister Dan Jarvis said the government is looking for contingency options.The government scrapped the use of a barge to house migrants off the south coast earlier this year and plans to end housing at military barracks in Kent next month. But a former air base in Essex is expected to add more beds for men seeking asylum. The easiest option would most likely house asylum seekers in the private sector, but that risks compounding problems in the rental market in a country where housebuilding has been low for years.___Associated Press writer Danica Kirka contributed to this story. More

Rachel Reeves has been warned that cutting the tax-free amount people can withdraw from their pension pots would be self-defeating and “hit responsible savers who have diligently put money aside”.The chancellor will look at proposals by civil servants that could raise around £2bn by lowering the limit on how much people are allowed to take out of their pension without paying tax.Currently, pensioners can take out a quarter of their pension pot tax-free, with a cap of £268,000. Lowering the level could bring in billions of pounds of additional tax revenue each year as the Treasury grapples with a black hole of as much as £50bn.Rachel Reeves could consider cutting the tax-free pension lump sum allowance More