Markus Andrews

Albania’s foreign minister has furiously denied reports that migrants arriving the UK on small boats will be flown 1,500 miles to Albania to have their asylum claims processed, labelling the plans “fake news”.Olta Xhacka said that any suggestion that her country would participate in such a scheme was “embarrassing” after a report in The Sun claimed that the Home Office was in talks with Albanian officials over building a new offshore processing centre.A government source told the newspaper that negotiations between the UK and Albania over building a new centre in the Balkans were at a “technical stage”. The policy was said to be driven by the home secretary Priti Patel as well as Boris Johnson’s chief of staff Dan Rosenfield. Responding to the report on Sunday morning, Ms Xhacka wrote: “So embarrassing the fake news spreading in the British media about an ‘offshore hub in the Balkans’ namely in Albania to ‘detain migrants crossing Channel from France’.“Albania will proudly host 4000 Afghan refugees based on its good will, but will never be a hub of anti-immigration policies of bigger and richer countries.”Ms Xhacka added that she had instructed that the Albanian embassy in the UK to demand a retraction of the story. Endri Fuga, the Director of Communications for the Albanian government, labelled the story “completely untrue”. In a tweet, he added: “Albania opened its doors to 4,000 Afghans and we are proud of that.”The plans are reportedly included in the Nationality and Borders Bill, which is currently moving through the House of Commons. Ms Patel is said to believe that the policy will deter migrants making the perilous journey across the Channel.It follows reports in June that the home secretary is in talks with the Danish government over establishing a shared processing centre in Rwanda, a landlocked country in Central Africa.The policy would bring the UK’s approach in line with Australia, which sends migrants seeking asylum to detention camps in Naura and Papa New Guineau. Andrew Wilkie, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, last year claimed Canberra’s offshore detention policy was “cruel, inhuman and degrading”.The number of people crossing the English Channel in small boats this year has doubled the total for all of 2020. At least 669 migrants succeeded in reaching the UK on Monday, bringing the total for the year to over 17,000, according to available official data compiled by the PA news agency.Despite the sharp rise in arrivals on the south coast, asylum applications in the UK fell in 2020 to 29,456. This was significantly lower than the 93,475 asylum applications made in France and the 121,955 made in Germany.The home secretary has also faced criticism for plans contained within the Bill to allow Border Force officials to turn migrant boats away from the UK and back towards France when crossing the Channel. Officials would need the agreement of other states, such as France, to drive them back into foreign waters.According to the papers setting out the proposals of the Bill, immigration or enforcement officers could be given the power to “stop, board, divert and detain”, including requiring the ship to “leave United Kingdom waters”.Ms Patel on Sunday defended the Nationality and Borders Bill ahead of the Conservative party conference. Asked if the Home Office is still considering a plan to push back migrant boats towards France, Ms Patel said: “Everything we do is legal and within the law.“I rule nothing out in terms of stopping the boats and saving lives, because by the time people are in the water, their lives are at risk.”A government spokesperson said: “We are determined to tackle the unacceptable rise in dangerous Channel crossings. The New Plan for Immigration is the only long term solution to fix the broken system, and includes changes to the law to tackle criminal gangs and prevent further loss of life. “This is a shared, international challenge and we continue to work with other countries to meet it.” More

Boris Johnson has admitted he was warned of the HGV driver shortages currently causing disruption to businesses across the country a “long, long, long” time ago.And he did not deny chancellor Rishi Sunak’s warning that problems could last until Christmas, saying: “Rishi is invariably right in everything he says.”But the prime minister pointed the finger of blame for the crisis firmly at employers, who he said had failed over a number of years to invest in drivers’ wages and conditions, opting instead to rely on cheap migrant labour from abroad.Despite evidence that Britain’s queues at petrol stations and empty supermarkets shelves are not being seen in its EU neighbours, the PM insisted that the driver shortage was a global problem.Speaking on BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show, he blamed the chaos on the forecourts on excessive demand from motorists and said queues were now “abating”.And he made light of warnings that 120,000 healthy pigs will soon have to be destroyed because of the shortage of workers able to process them for human consumption.Asked about desperate farmers’ concern that they will have to cull animals due to post-Brexit labour shortages in the meat-processing industry, Mr Johnson told Marr: “I hate to break it to you, Andrew, but I’m afraid that our food processing industry does involve the killing of a lot of animals.“The great hecatomb of pigs that you describe has not yet actually taken place. Let’s see what happens.”Mr Johnson said that a shift to higher wages was a key benefit of Brexit, but admitted that the country will have to go through “a period of adjustment” before gaps in the workforce are filled.The prime minister was also pressed over a warning from the Road Haulage Association which wrote to him in June saying a major crisis was building in their industry due to the shortage of HGV drivers.He responded: “We have known about shortages in road haulage long, long, long before then. They have been a chronic feature of the way the road haulage industry has worked.”“What we had for decades was a system whereby basically the road haulage industry … was not investing in the truck stops, not improving conditions, not improving pay,” he said.“And we relied on very hard-working people who were willing to come in, largely from European accession countries, to do that work under those conditions.“When people voted for change in 2016 and when people voted for change again in 2019 – as they did –  they voted for the end of a broken model of the UK economy that relied on low wages and low skills and chronic low productivity. We’re moving away from that.” More

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he was ready to take “bold decisions” to rebuild the economy after the coronavirus pandemic as his Conservative Party meets Sunday for its first annual conference since 2019.The Tory conference opens Sunday in the northwestern city of Manchester as a shortage of truck drivers to delivery fuel across Britain continues to cause empty pumps and long lines at many gas stations. Concerns about wider labor shortages, higher taxes, rising energy bills and a cut in welfare payouts beginning this week are among other challenges facing Johnson.Despite the economic worries, opinion surveys suggest that Johnson and his Conservatives were polling ahead of the opposition Labour Party Before the conference, Johnson said he was ready to take the “big, bold decisions on the priorities people care about — like on social care, on supporting jobs, on climate change, tackling crime and leveling up.”Asked about the truck driver shortage crisis, Johnson said it was a “chronic problem” associated with an overreliance on migrant workers willing to work for low wages and poor conditions. He said he wouldn’t repeat that mistake.“The way forward for our country is not to just pull the big lever marked uncontrolled immigration, and allow in huge numbers of people to do work,” he told the BBC. Referring to the 2016 referendum that led to Britain’s exit from the European Union, Johnson said: “When people voted for change in 2016 … they voted for the end of a broken model of the U.K. economy that relied on low wages and low skills and chronic low productivity, and we’re moving away from that.” Johnson said Britain’s economy is going through a “period of adjustment” post-Brexit, and acknowledged that supply chain problems and shortages in food and fuel could continue until Christmas. He also maintained that the situation at gas stations is improving after more than a week of disruptions — although retailers say drivers still can’t get gas at many pumps in the London area and southeast England.Britain has long suffered from a shortage of truck drivers, but the problem has come to a head with the combination of Brexit, which ended the freedom of movement of workers from the EU to Britain, and the pandemic, which severely limited travel and halted training for domestic drivers supposed to replace those who left for their home countries. Around 200 military personnel, including 100 drivers, will take to the roads starting Monday to help ease fuel supply shortages.The Petrol Retailers Association has welcomed the move, but warned it would have a limited impact given the relatively small numbers involved.The government also said Friday that it was extending an emergency visa program for thousands of foreign truck drivers. More

Anyone fearing the UK’s worsening supply crisis would scupper their Christmas dinner should rest assured that turkeys will be available this festive season, the Tory chairman has said. Oliver Dowden said ensuring the country had enough poultry to see it through to the new year was a priority for the government, as the number of sectors affected by labour shortages continued to grow. The government hopes that the army of workers brought in from overseas on temporary visas will “save Christmas” but food and haulage industry leaders have been quick to pour cold water on the plans.Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday, Mr Dowden insisted there were supply chain problems across the world due to lorry driver shortages, but said issues with turkey production were being addressed.“We will make sure that people have their turkeys for Christmas,” he said.“I know that for the Environment Secretary George Eustice, this is absolutely top of his list.”He added: “We are not unique in the UK in this. If you look across Poland, the US, other countries, there are shortages of drivers – that’s to do with a range of factors.”The government’s central response to critics’ complaints of a worsening supply crisis is to insist that the country cannot expect to rely on cheap immigrant labour in future.But at the same time, ministers have announced 5,000 temporary visas to foreign lorry drivers amid warnings of shortages on the shelves in the run-up to Christmas – apparently acknowledging that allowing workers from overseas to come to the UK is a solution to the crisis.Experts have encouraged shoppers to buy Christmas dinner in advance and put it in the freezer if they want to avoid disappointment.“Ultimately, now I think we have just run out of time,” said James Withers, of Scotland Food & Drink. “I don’t think there is anything that can be done now to get the Christmas trade where it should be.“That’s despite warnings being sounded since the summer of the scale of the potential labour shortage we might face.”Mr Withers recommended that people should “plan ahead” and think early about food that could be frozen to avoid disappointment later on. More

A former senior Metropolitan Police official has called for the urgent re-vetting of all serving police officers across the country in order to rebuild public trust and confidence in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.The remarks come after serving police officer Wayne Couzens — described as a “monster” by the home secretary Priti Patel — was handed a whole life sentence earlier this week for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Ms Everard.Ex-chief superintendent at the Met, Parm Sandhu, said she had “real, serious concerns” about the vetting procedures and suggested there were other individuals with “questionable backgrounds” who should be looked at.The former official at the Met said “everybody” who now works in policing should be re-vetted. “Those people who got through the vetting procedure 20 years ago, 30 years ago, all of them,” she told Sky News.“Every single person needs to be reviewed and if nothing comes up in their past — it doesn’t have to be a conviction, it just needs to come to notice, because this man did not come to notice.”She added: “So every person should be re-vetted and reassessed as to whether or not they are safe to be working with members of the community and members of the public.“It needs to be done now as an urgent measure to reassure the public and rebuild trust and confidence that policing has lost, but it needs to be done on a regular basis so that we don’t have anybody that even comes close to the actions of Wayne Couzens.”Ms Sandhu also agreed that there should be an independent inquiry into the vetting procedures — just moments before Boris Johnson dodged questions on the issue in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr.Asked whether he would deliver the public inquiry demanded by Labour and by women’s rights campaigners, he pointed to the investigations already being carried out by the Met and the Independent Office for Police Conduct into issues around the case, including allegations that officers known to Couzens had shared offensive images.He added: “We do need to look systemically, not just at the Wayne Couzens case, but at the whole handling of rape, domestic violence, sexual violence and female complaints about harassment all together. It is a phenomenon.”Meanwhile, Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle has asked the Met for an urgent meeting after it emerged that Couzens worked on the Parliamentary Estate in 2020.The Met Police had previously said Couzens moved to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command in February 2020 where his primary role was to patrol diplomatic premises, mainly embassies.On Saturday, a Met spokesman said: “Couzens was deployed to armed static protection duties on the Parliamentary Estate on five occasions from February to July 2020.”Sir Lindsay said: “Like everyone, I have been sickened by the depravity of Wayne Couzens – and heartbroken for the family of Sarah Everard.“The news that Couzens was deployed as an armed officer on the Parliamentary Estate is extremely concerning and raises a number of questions about police vetting procedures.He added: “To that end, I have asked the Met Police to meet me urgently to discuss how this person could have been deemed suitable for deployment here. The security of members and staff has always been my number one priority, so I want to know how this man could ever have crossed the parliamentary threshold.” More

Boris Johnson has insisted he will not reverse his plans for a £20-a-week cut in welfare for the poorest families, saying he will not “raise taxes to subsidise low pay”.But the prime minister did not rule out tax rises altogether, telling BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show only that “if I can possibly avoid it, I won’t raise taxes again”.There is unease among Conservative MPs arriving in Manchester for the party’s annual conference that Mr Johnson is now presiding over the highest-taxing administration since the Second World War, with the planned cut to Universal Credit and 1.25 per cent hike in National Insurance due to disproportionately impact on poorer households.A poll for The Independent today found that fewer than one-fifth of voters (19 per cent) support the plan to slash UC, which takes effect on Wednesday, with 59 per cent saying the level of the benefit should be maintained or increased.Even among Conservative voters, just 34 per cent think it is right to remove the uplift altogether, against 43 per cent who said it should be maintained or increased and 13 per cent who said it should be kept at a reduced rate.Charities have warned that as many as 300,000 children will be forced below the poverty line by the £1,040-a-year cut affecting 6m unemployed people and low-paid workers. Many of those taking a hit to their incomes will be key workers who were previously applauded for their contribution to the fight against Covid-19.But Mr Johnson said it would not be “appropriate”, now that the Covid pandemic is waning, to keep the £20 uplift offered by chancellor Rishi Sunak to help poorer households cope with the outbreak.He told Marr: “There was a whole package of measures, from furlough to bounce back loans to the Covid uplift, that are no longer appropriate.”Mr Johnson said that wages were now rising faster for the low-paid than the wealthy following the lifting of lockdown restrictions.“What we would rather do is help people into better-paid, better-skilled jobs – which is what is happening,” he said. “I’d rather see that than raising taxes to subsidise low pay.”Mr Johnson denied he was taking the Conservatives away from the low-tax tradition of Margaret Thatcher, pointing out that she did not have to deal with the “fiscal meteorite” of a global pandemic which added £407bn to government spending.But he said that his predecessor as Tory PM would also not be ready to borrow more now in order to soften the blow of the removal of subsidies for employment like furlough and the UC uplift.“Prime minister Thatcher would not have borrowed more money now, I’ll tell you that much for free,” said Johnson.Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds today said it was not too late for the PM to U-turn on Universal Credit.“The public, charities and the government’s own assessment all agree this cut will be catastrophic,” Mr Reynolds told The Independent.“Working families are facing a Tory cost-of-living crisis this winter because of this government’s tax hikes, energy crisis and cuts to Universal Credit. It’s not too late for the government to change course and cancel their cut to Universal Credit.”And the heads of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland administrations wrote to Mr Johnson, warning there was no justification for making the cut at a time when the country is facing a “significant cost-of-living crisis” due to soaring prices for energy and food.“There is no rationale for cutting such crucial support at a point when people across the UK are facing an unprecedented squeeze on their household budgets,” said the letter from Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford and the first and deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, Paul Givan and Michelle O’Neill. More

Prime minister Boris Johnson has dodged calls for a public inquiry into the policing of violence against women in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard.Mr Johnson said he would “stop at nothing” to drive up the rate of successful prosecutions for rape.But he refused to promise to restore the 25 per cent cut from Ministry of Justice budgets under Conservative-led governments.Instead, he blamed the Crown Prosecution Service and police for failing to work well enough together on preparing cases for court.Speaking on the BBC1 Andrew Marr Show on the opening day of the Conservative annual conference in Manchester, Mr Johnson said that women should be confident that they can trust the police, despite the rape and murder of Ms Everard by off-duty officer Wayne Couzens, who used his warrant card to carry out a false arrest.He agreed that, if women were “suspicious” of the behaviour of should follow the Metropolitan Police’s advice and run away or hail down a bus.But he added: “I want women to trust the police. They are overwhelmingly trustworthy.”Asked whether he would deliver the public inquiry demanded by Labour and by women’s rights campaigners, he pointed to the investigations already being carried out by the Met and the Independent Office for Police Conduct into issues around the case, including allegations that officers known to Couzens had shared offensive images.He added: “We do need to look systemically, not just at the Wayne Couzens case, but at the whole handling of rape, domestic violence, sexual violence and female complaints about harassment all together. It is a phenomenon.”Mr Johnson refused a challenge to restore the deep cuts in funding for the legal system.But he said: “We will stop at nothing to make sure we get more rapists behind bars and we have more successful prosecutions for rape and sexual violence.” More

Boris Johnson was “outraged” with a Conservative police commissioner who said women “need to be streetwise” in the wake of the Sarah Everard murder case, Oliver Dowden has said.Hinting that Philip Allott could be dropped as the party’s candidate for police, fire and crime commissioner in North Yorkshire at the next election for the position in North Yorkshire, the Tory Party chair added the remarks were “stupid” and “completely unacceptable”.The commissioner, who later apologised, said women should become more aware of which offences they can charge for it, after it emerged that serving officer Wayne Couzens — given a whole life sentence for Ms Everard’s murder — had falsely arrested her for a breach of coronavirus guidelines.“So women, after all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can’t be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that,” Mr Allott told the BBC on Friday — provoking outrage.In response to his comments, Mr Dowden told Sky News: “The prime minister and I were outraged by what he said. It was completely acceptable.“I’ve been very clear in condemning it. I know the prime minister shares that view. He [Mr Allott] did immediately apologise and that’s appropriate for him to do so.”Asked whether the Mr Allott would be offered as a Tory candidate at the next election for crime commissioner in North Yorkshire, Mr Dowden said he didn’t want to “pre-empt the selection process”.“Be in no doubt the prime minister and I profoundly disagree with what was said. It was a stupid thing to have said and he has rightly apologised for it,” he added. “Let’s wait for the selection process for the new PCC”.Earlier this week, Lucy Arnold, from the campaign group Reclaim the Streets, who helped organise a vigil following Ms Everard’s death, shared her anger over the comments. “I think frankly that was a horrifically offensive thing to say,” she said.“Does anyone really feel like they can stand up to a police officer? I am very confident I know my rights, I know the law, but no I wouldn’t feel confident at all,” she said.Mr Allott later apologised for his remarks, saying: “I would like to wholeheartedly apologise for my comments on BBC Radio York earlier today, which I realise have been insensitive and wish to retract them in full.”Mr Dowden — the chair of the Conservative Party — also did not rule out an independent inquiry into the vetting procedures of the Metropolitan Police after the murder Ms Everard by a serving officer.“Of course we don’t rule anything out, but I think it’s important first to understand what happened,” Mr Dowden stressed.“The first step is to get to the bottom of it, that’s what Cressida Dick has been tasked with — I think it’s important we allow her to do that. If it is the case then subsequently we need to look at it then of course we don’t rule that out.”Quizzed on whether Cressida Dick was the right person in the role, he added: “The home secretary has made it clear… she will allow the Met commissioner to do the job of trying to sort this out and find out exactly how this happened.“There are very serious questions to be answered about the kind of oversight described. I think the best approach is the one outlined by the Home Secretary that we allow the commissioner to do that.” More