Minister confirms two groups from Manston migrant centre in Kent were left stranded at London coach station
A government minister has confirmed two groups of people who had crossed the Channel in small boats were left stranded in London after a “misunderstanding” with Home Office officials.
Sky News spoke to an asylum seeker on Thursday who said he was among one group of 45 migrants removed from Manston migration centre in Kent and taken to Victoria coach station, but not told where to go next by officials.
But Chris Philp has now confirmed two groups had been left in the capital, saying they had told immigration officials “they had addresses to go to, so friends and family, and that turned out subsequently not to be the case”.
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The policing minister told Sky News there had been a “misunderstanding”, adding: “How that misunderstanding arose? Maybe it was lost in translation, I don’t know. But clearly, they have now all been looked after.”
Mr Philp also insisted Manston was now legally compliant after court action was launched against the Home Office over conditions at the site.
Reports surfaced earlier this week of severe overcrowding, with estimates Manston was housing 4,000 people compared to the 1,600 it is designed for.
Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, told Sky News on Wednesday that a judicial review was being brought forward as a result.
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An asylum seeker from Manston processing centre has told Sky News he was left in central London despite having nowhere to go.
But Mr Philp said significant improvements have been made recently at the centre, adding: “I don’t accept the premise that it’s not legally compliant today. A lot of changes have been made even in the last few days.”
However, he warned there was a “huge challenge” and “radical action” was needed, saying: “About 40,000 people have illegally entered the UK so far this year on small boats and that is a huge operational challenge, it’s very, very hard to deal with that.
“These journeys are totally unnecessary because France obviously is a safe country with a well-functioning asylum system.
“These journeys don’t need to be made. No one is fleeing war in France. These journeys should not be getting made in the first place.”
After telling Sky News the UK had been “very generous to people who are in genuine need”, Mr Philp later told Times Radio it was “a bit of a cheek” for people entering the country illegally to complain about conditions.
Chris Philp said there had been a “misunderstanding” over groups left at Victoria station.
Shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the entire approach from government towards the issue “lacks any sense of a basic competence or compassion”.
He told Sky News they needed to drop the “expensive gimmicks” like sending people to Rwanda and focus on the root causes, as well as tackling the backlog of asylum cases.
Meanwhile, a Tory MP has attacked the Home Office for its failure to work with councils when finding accommodation for those coming over on small boats.
Council chiefs in Kent have already warned the county is at “breaking point” as a result of the migrant situation, and have written to the home secretary, urging her to stop using the county as an “easy fix”.
But North Devon MP Selaine Saxby told Sky News her own council had been “completely cut out of the decision making process” over housing people at a hotel in Ilfracombe.
She added: “I think where the whole process seems to be going wrong is that councils aren’t being involved in these decisions and the local councils are well placed to know where we can accommodate people safely and securely, and work with their local communities.
“That doesn’t seem to be happening at all.”
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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