UK Politics

The UK has reportedly scaled back its plans to put troops in Ukraine, now offering a smaller “reassurance force” to support peace efforts in the region.While a 30,000-strong group from countries that make up the coalition of the willing – a group of countries which have pledged support for Ukraine against Russia’s aggression – had initially been floated, military chiefs are now said to have dropped the idea, instead favouring a smaller, “more realistic” operation.It comes as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to No 10 on Thursday morning, as Europe rallies behind Ukraine. Allied national security advisers discussed the war in Ukraine at the weekend ahead of a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin (Yevhen Titov/PA) More

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he had a large knife pulled on him and was “pelted with bottles” during a visit to a migrant camp in northern France. During a trip with Daily Express journalist Zak Garner-Purkis, the Conservative MP attempted to speak to asylum seekers living in tents near Dunkirk, as they waited to cross the English Channel in small boats. After attempting to speak to a group of Eritreans and a man carrying lifejackets, he is approached by Mr Garner-Purkis, who informs him that a man with a “rather large knife” has walked behind them. In the clip, Mr Philp says: “I found it pretty shocking – you said behind me somebody had pulled out some sort of machete and we left pretty quickly.”Mr Garner-Purkis says the man was “swinging it around in the air”, adding: “It was clear he was doing it to send a message to the other people there – whether it was a case of ‘don’t speak’.”Shortly afterwards while walking along the road recounting the incident to the camera, objects can be seen being thrown at them. Mr Garner-Purkis says “they are throwing bottles at us” and Philp responds: “Right, we’ve got to go.In a post on social media, the Croydon South MP said: “We were attacked today at the migrant camp dubbed “The Jungle 2” just outside Dunkirk. “We were threatened with a machete, pelted with bottles & our car hit as we sped off. “Those responsible are likely to be in the UK soon in a taxpayer funded hotel. This border madness must end.” In another video, he filmed a group of migrants boarding a bus while French police appear to be standing by showing “complete inactivity”.Migrants climbing onto a small boats near Gravelines in France to cross the Channel More

Rachel Reeves has been accused of “coming for your family’s future” with a possible inheritance tax raid – but a former Treasury adviser has warned the changes still won’t be enough to fill the £50bn black hole. Officials are thought to be looking at scrapping the ‘seven-year rule’ – which means that no tax is due on any gifts you give if you live for seven years after giving them – to help address the UK’s multi-billion-pound shortfall left by Labour U-turns, higher borrowing and sluggish economic growth.It comes just days after the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) piled pressure on the chancellor to come up with solutions ahead of her budget in the autumn.But Jonathan Portes, a former Treasury adviser and professor of economics and public policy at King’s College London who supports the idea of inheritance tax reform, told The Independent such changes would “certainly not raise tens of billions of pounds, or anything like it”. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is reportedly looking at altering inheritance tax laws (Oliver McVeigh/PA) More

The Home Secretary has defended the Government’s expansion of live facial recognition technology as a “targeted” crackdown on high-harm offenders, amid concerns over privacy.Yvette Cooper denied the technology was being used to catch lower-level crimes such as ticket-touting, as it has been previously in Wales, and said “safeguards and protections” will govern its deployment.Critics including Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti have attacked new plans to roll out 10 vans equipped with facial recognition technology across seven police forces in England as part of a Government overhaul of neighbourhood policing.The former shadow attorney general said the expansion was a step towards a “total surveillance society” in the UK.Asked whether the rollout would infringe on people’s privacy, Ms Cooper said: “Well, the way this technology is being used is to identify people who are wanted by the court, who maybe should be returned to prison, or who have failed to appear before the court, or who have breached things like sexual harm prevention orders, so serious criminals.“And I think being able to identify them, alongside having proper legal safeguards and a legal framework in place because there do have to be safeguards and protections, but we also need to be able to use the technology to catch dangerous criminals and to keep communities safe.”In 2017, South Wales Police said facial recognition was being used to track suspects including ticket touts as the force prepared for the Champions League final in Cardiff.Pressed on whether she was happy for the technology to be deployed in this way, she said: “No, that’s not how they’ve (police in South Wales) used it.“They used it for targeting where there’s serious organised crime, where there are criminal gangs, but in every case that they do use it, they need to obviously have safeguards in place and we need to make sure that we’ve got a new legal framework for it to be operating under, and also that it can be used to tackle serious crimes and keep communities safe.”Ministers have said a new legal framework will be drawn up to support use of the technology following a consultation launching this autumn.Checks would only be done against police watchlists of wanted criminals, suspects and those subject to bail or court order conditions such as sex offenders, the Home Office said.The vans would be deployed across seven forces – Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire – in the coming weeks.They would be manned by trained officers operating within College of Policing guidance.But Lady Chakrabarti said the technology was “incredibly intrusive” and had been “developed pretty much completely outside the law”.“Some would say this is yet another move towards a total surveillance society – challenges to privacy, challenges to freedom of assembly and association, and problems with race and sex discrimination because of the higher likelihood of false matches in the context of certain groups,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.“It’s particularly odd that this has all been developed pretty much completely outside the law.”She welcomed plans to consult ahead of possible new legislation, but warned that to date, “it’s been a bit of a Wild West”.Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson dismissed the claims, telling BBC Breakfast: “With the greatest of respect, that’s not what this is about.“This is about giving the tools to our police officers to enable them to keep us safe.”Forces already deploying live facial recognition had used it to arrest rape, domestic abuse, knife crime and robbery suspects as well as sex offenders breaching their conditions.Meanwhile, the Home Office said every community across England and Wales had now been assigned a “named, contactable” officer to handle reports of crimes such as anti-social behaviour.Their details would be made available for residents on their local force’s website, it is understood.The pledge was made as part of the Government’s previously announced Neighbourhood Policing Guarantee, under which forces have signed up to a commitment to respond to neighbourhood queries within 72 hours.The Government said the move would help ensure “the public will have consistent direct links to their local force, with dedicated anti-social behaviour leads and new visible patrols in town centres”. More

Shopkeepers should not place “high value” items close to store entrances because “obviously people will nick”, a Labour minister has told shopkeepers.It comes after new figures showed that shoplifting is at a record high, with retailers accusing police of not doing enough to tackle the problem. Asked about the issue, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said expensive items such as alcohol should not be displayed at the front of stores and said shopkeepers needed to do more to deter shoplifters.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Dame Diana said: “I think stores need to play their part in making sure that items that are high value are not at the front of the store because that is an issue in some stores, that they put bottles of alcohol at the front of the store, which obviously people will nick.“If they are going to steal to resell, they will nick items like that. So I think it is not just one thing here, it has to be an approach with the retailers, with the government and with the police to work together.”Home Office minister Dame Diana Johnson More

US Vice President JD Vance is causing a stir as he holidays in the Cotswolds, as his huge security team and protests against his visit disrupt the quiet life of villagers. Not only did his high-profile visit cause chaos at high-end Cotswolds farm-shop, Daylesford – owned by Tory donor Lady Bamford – the US vice president has also sparked rumours of tensions in the Tory party after choosing to meet with shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick instead of party leader Kemi Badenoch. Days earlier, Mr Vance and his family started their UK getaway with David Lammy at Chevening, the foreign secretary’s grace-and-favour country estate in Kent.But Mr Jenrick isn’t the only right-wing figure to be wined and dined by the Republican during his stay, with Mr Vance also having reportedly met with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage for breakfast. Here, The Independent takes a look at all the right-wing figures Mr Vance has met with during his break. JD Vance, Trump’s vice president, is holidaying in the Cotswolds More

A Labour peer has warned that the government’s ban on Palestine Action is at risk of becoming an “I am Spartacus” moment, suggesting the decision to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation was disproportionate.Shami Chakrabarti, a former shadow attorney general and civil liberties campaigner, urged the government to “think again”, warning that the group’s ban may lead to more people, not fewer, taking to the streets to support it. She said her concerns are “greater now even than they were before” after more than 500 people were arrested over the weekend, demonstrating in support of the group. Baroness Shami Chakrabarti has said banning Palestine Action may be an escalation too far More

Rolling out more facial recognition vans is not intended to create a “total surveillance society”, the policing minister has said.Dame Diana Johnson said she believes the public would back the police’s use of live facial recognition cameras, if they are used “in a very measured, proportionate way to go after” suspects who officers are looking for.But Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti alleged that the technology had been “developed pretty much completely outside the law”, and voiced fears that the Government’s plan is “yet another move towards a total surveillance society”.Dame Diana denied Lady Chakrabarti’s claim.Asked whether the rollout was the “thin end of the wedge”, the Home Office minister told BBC Breakfast: “With the greatest of respect, that’s not what this is about.“This is about giving the tools to our police officers to enable them to keep us safe.“And the live facial recognition results in London, where it’s been used, in the past 12 months, over 580 arrests were made, and these included people who were wanted for rape, for GBH (grievous bodily harm), for robbery, for domestic abuse, and also for sex offenders who were breaching their conditions of being out in the community.“So I think this is a really powerful tool for policing.“And it’s actually a tool, it’s not an automated decision maker.“So, the police officer has to look at what’s being put up on the screen and decide what to do next, so there’s that human involvement, but it is a really powerful tool, which I think the public would actually be supportive of being used in a very measured, proportionate way to go after those individuals that the police are looking for for these serious offences.”Dame Diana said she had seen the technology in action in Croydon, London, where the Metropolitan Police had put together a watchlist of wanted individuals, and the list was deleted after the exercise.“So it was very tailored,” Dame Diana said.She added: “There are laws about how this has to be done in terms of human rights, equalities law, data protection laws.“I think one of the concerns people, perhaps rightly, have is the need to consolidate that into one piece of legislation or one law, and that’s something we’re going to consult on later in the year, about how live facial recognition technology should be used and the oversight of it to make it as transparent as possible for the public to really feel this is something that the police are using properly.”Dame Diana had earlier told Times Radio: “There is quite a lot of misinformation out there about what this actually does and how it’s used.”She said: “And I know in the past, there’ve been concerns about bias, particularly around certain ethnic groups or genders or age.“And the way that this is now structured, the algorithms that are being used have been independently tested, so I’m confident that the live facial recognition that we’re rolling out today actually is within the law and does not have the bias that has happened previously.”According to the Home Office, the technology will be used to track down high-harm offenders.Seven English forces will have access to 10 vans equipped with cameras, across Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Thames Valley and Hampshire, following on from recent deployments by London’s Met Police and South Wales Police.Chief Superintendent Tim Morgan of South Wales Police said the technology had “never resulted in a wrongful arrest in South Wales, and there have been no false alerts for several years as the technology and our understanding has evolved”.But human rights campaigners have “concerns” about “this incredibly intrusive technology”, Lady Chakrabarti, a former director of the civil liberties advocacy group Liberty, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.The former shadow attorney general said: “Some would say this is yet another move towards a total surveillance society – challenges to privacy, challenges to freedom of assembly and association, and problems with race and sex discrimination because of the higher likelihood of false matches in the context of certain groups.”She said that “the public generally understand that police powers are governed by statute, so there’s a public conversation, there are parliamentary debates and votes”, but warned there was no law specifically covering live facial recognition to gather evidence.“It’s particularly odd that this has all been developed pretty much completely outside the law,” she said.Lady Chakrabarti said she “welcomed” plans to consult ahead of possible new legislation, but warned that to date, “it’s been a bit of a Wild West – the police procuring technology from whichever companies they see fit, the police drawing up watchlists of who they’re looking for and what level, what severity of crime should be sufficient for deployment, and pretty much marking their own homework”. More