Robert Jenrick rejects Suella Braverman’s ‘invasion’ claim and says ‘I would never demonise people’
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has rejected language used by the home secretary describing the increase of asylum seekers to the UK as an “invasion”.
Suella Braverman told MPs yesterday that the public needs to know which party is serious about “stopping the invasion” of migrants on the southern coast of the UK.
Mr Jenrick, when asked if he would characterise the situation in the same way, told Sky News: “In a job like mine, you have to choose your words very carefully. And I would never demonise people coming to this country in pursuit of a better life.”
Politics latest: ‘People sleeping on camping mats’ in migrant centre
However, he said describing people crossing the Channel as an “invasion” was a way to show the scale of the challenge “and that’s what Suella Braverman was trying to express”.
He said the number of people making the small boat crossings could reach higher than fifty thousand by the end of the year.
He also claimed that Ms Braverman was speaking for people who live on the south coast “who day in, day out are seeing migrant boats landing on their beaches”.
“There was a report just yesterday from a lady who found a young migrant from Albania in her kitchen seeking support, asking for money,” he said.
“I know that that’s not acceptable in this country.”
However, Labour said that Ms Braverman’s language has put communities, the police and security services at risk – pointing to the weekend’s petrol bomb attack on the Border Force immigration centre in Dover.
Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell told Sky News: “For the home secretary to put our security services at a greater strain through incendiary language is deeply irresponsible.”
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MPs and campaigners have criticised home secretary Suella Braverman over the conditions at the centre.
Ms Braverman made the comments as she gave a statement to the House of Commons about overcrowding at the Manston immigration processing centre in Kent, where outbreaks of MRSA and diphtheria have been reported.
The home secretary has denied claims that she ignored legal advice and rejected calls by officials to procure more hotel accommodation for migrants amid mounting concern about the situation, which has been described as a “breach of humane conditions”.
There are thought to be around 4,000 migrants at the processing facility, which is designed to hold a maximum of 1,600, with some said to have been there for up to a month, even though they are supposed to be moved on after 24 hours.
‘More hotels being procured at pace’
Mr Jenrick revealed the government is procuring more hotels to accommodate asylum seekers waiting for their applications to be processed.
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He accepted “conditions are poor” at Manston, with people sleeping on mats and staying longer than the 24 hours intended.
“This is not a satisfactory situation. I’m not here to defend that,” he said.
However, he insisted the root cause is not the government, adding: “The problem is that thousands of people are crossing the Channel illegally every day.”
Mr Jenrick insisted Manston is fit for purpose and said the problem is there are too many people there.
“More hotels have been coming online almost every month throughout the whole of this year. So Suella Braverman and her predecessor, Priti Patel, were procuring more hotels. What I have done in my short tenure is wrap that up and procure even more.”
Home office ‘needs to get a grip’
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HM Chief Inspector of Prisons Charlie Taylor tells Sky News the situation at Manston migrant centre
The government is coming under further scrutiny over the situation at Manston after a new report – published on Tuesday and based on an inspection in July – revealed detainees were not allowed to close toilet doors fully and had to sleep on the floor.
Some migrants have not been allowed access to mobile phones to inform their families if they were safe, while other “exhausted detainees” have waited more than 30 hours to be processed, the report from HM Inspectorate of Prisons found.
Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, told Sky News the Home Office needs to “get a grip” on the situation.
“It is extremely concerning that children are being asked to sleep on the floor in accommodation that’s wholly unsuitable,” he said.
“Bear in mind that some of these people have had incredibly long journeys. Some of them are potentially victims of torture, victims of all sorts of abuse and also potentially victims of trafficking as well.”
He said he would be “horrified” if he saw the situation at Manston echoed at UK prisons.
“As I said before, the Home Office needs to get a grip.”
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
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Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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