Home Secretary Suella Braverman says new small boats legislation ‘not breaking’ international law
The home secretary has told Sky News the government’s new plan to stop small boat migrants arriving in the UK is “not breaking the law”.
Suella Braverman said she is “very confident” the measures announced on Tuesday “are in compliance with our international law obligations”.
The government revealed its new plan to stop migrants entering the UK on small boats, after more than 45,000 crossed the Channel last year.
Home secretary defends new law after UN criticism – latest politics updates
Under the plans, arrivals will be detained within the first 28 days without bail or judicial review and the majority would be unable to make claims to stop deportation until they have been returned to the country they came from or a “safe third country such as Rwanda”.
They will also be banned from claiming UK settlement, citizenship or re-entering the UK if they are removed.
The bill has come under severe criticism from opposition MPs and refugee charities, with Amnesty International and the UN Refugee Agency saying the plans would “amount to an asylum ban”.
Labour described the bill as a “con” that was no more likely to be successful than prior Tory efforts to tackle small boat migration across the Channel.
Ms Braverman admitted on Tuesday the government does not know if the plans are entirely within the conventions of international law.
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‘Government will act now to stop boats’
But she told Sky News’ Kay Burley at Breakfast on Wednesday: “We’re not breaking the law and no government representative has said we’re breaking the law.
“In fact, we’ve made it very clear that we believe we are in compliance with all of our international obligations, for example, the Refugee Convention, the European Convention on Human Rights, other conventions to which we are subject.
“But what’s important is that we do need to take compassionate but necessary and fair measures.
“Now, because there are people who are dying to try and get here. They are breaking our laws. They are abusing the generosity of the British people.”
Ms Braverman’s insistence comes despite a statement by her on the first page of the published bill, which says: “I am unable to make a statement that, in my view, the provisions of the Illegal Migration Bill are compatible with the Convention rights, but the government nevertheless wishes the House to proceed with the bill.”
And in a letter to Conservative MPs and peers urging them to back the bill, Ms Braverman insisted it “does not mean the provisions in the bill are incompatible” with the Human Rights Act.
“Only that there is a more 50% chance that they may not be,” the letter said.
“We are testing the limits but remain confident that this bill is compatible with international law.”
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What is new small boats bill?
Labour: ‘Govt not tackling problem’
The home secretary told Sky News the new plan is the only way to “break the model of the people smuggling gangs” who charge thousands of pounds to transport people across the Channel in small and often overpacked boats.
But Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the new bill does not tackle the cause of the problem, as she accused the government of failing to tackle the smuggling gangs.
She said there need to be return agreements with other European countries from which the gangs operate.
“They’re not actually tackling the problem,” she told Sky News.
“We think you should get return agreements in place with Europe as part of a wider agreement, particularly with France and Belgium.
“ I think if you did that then you wouldn’t need many of the things that the government has talked because that actually would be at the heart of it.”
Migrants are brought into Dover on 6 March
No dates for first removals and more detention centres
Ms Braverman said people will be able to claim asylum in the UK but “they should choose to come here through safe and legal routes” so they are not breaking the law.
“We have a very generous regime of supporting people coming here lawfully for humanitarian protection,” Ms Braverman added.
“What we can’t go on accepting is people breaking our laws.”
Under the new plan, the government has said new detention centres will be opened, including on military bases, however, Ms Braverman said she could not provide dates of when and where they will open as there are “logistical challenges” – but it will be “very soon”.
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Small boats crackdown ‘necessary and fair’
She also said she could not give a date for when the first failed asylum seekers will be deported to Rwanda and said the government is doubling the number of asylum caseworkers by more than 2,000 to get through the large backlog of cases.
Ms Braverman said it is costing £6 million a day to house asylum claimants in hotels but could not provide details of how much the new plans will save the taxpayer.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will face Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions later on Wednesday, where he is certain to challenge him on the new plans.
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.
UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose” and should only be hosted by countries who are trying to give up fossil fuels, veterans of the process have said.
An open letter to the United Nations, signed by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, made a dramatic intervention in the 29th COP climate summit, under way in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Frustration over petrostate hosts – following last year’s summit in UAE – as well as the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists, prohibitive costs, and slow progress have been mounting in recent years.
The letter acknowledges the strides COPs have made on ramping up climate policies.
“But it is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” the authors said.
“Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”
The letter’s 22 signatories also include former Ireland President Mary Robinson and Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN climate body (UNFCCC) that runs the annual COP summits.
It called for the process to be streamlined and for countries to be held accountable for their promises.
Sky News analysis has found only “marginal” progress has been made since the “historic” pledge from COP28 last year to transition away from fossil fuels.
Pic: AP Photo/Peter Dejong
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The letter also called for “strict eligibility criteria” for host countries to exclude those “who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy”.
This year’s host country, petrostate Azerbaijan, has been engulfed in controversy.
Its authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev used his opening address to criticise western hypocrisy and praise oil and gas as a “gift” from God. His criticism of France, with whom relations have long been tense, drove the French minister to cancel a trip to the summit.
While the government and its COP team run separate operations, host countries are supposed to smooth over disagreements and find consensus between the almost 200 countries gathered.
COP presidencies are also nominating themselves to be climate leaders and throwing their own countries under the spotlight.
Azerbaijan is a small developing country that relies significantly on oil and gas revenues. But it has made slow progress on building out clean power – getting just 1.5% of its energy from clean sources – and led a harsh crackdown on critics in the run up to the COP.
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Azerbaijan team ‘optimistic’ about talks
In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, its lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev was unable to say whether Azerbaijan preferred to extract all its oil and gas or seek another, cleaner economic pathway – hard though that would be.
In a news conference yesterday, Mr Rafiyev said the president had been “quite clear” and he would not comment further.
“We have opened our doors to everybody,” he added.
Some diplomats here have hinted that Azerbaijan’s presidency team mean well but might be a little out of their depth. They have never been out in front at previous COPs, but they also only had a year to prepare for their turn hosting the mighty summit.
“My sense of this is that they’re a little underprepared, a little overwhelmed and a little bit short,” said one, speaking anonymously, as is customary for diplomats trying to maintain good relations.
“But I’m not sure that that’s politics. It might just be bandwidth and preparation and things like that.”
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Different regions in the world take turns to host a COP. This year it was up to Eastern Europe, but the selection process took longer than usual due to tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and between Azerbaijan and rival Armenia.
Achim Steiner of the UN Development Programme, called it “troubling” that some countries face questions over their host roles.
“Are there countries that are by definition good hosts and others are bad hosts?” he asked.
“In the United Nations, we maintain the principle of every nation, first of all, should have a right to be heard.
“Labels are not always the fairest way of describing a nation. Some of the largest oil producers have hosted this COP in the past, and seemingly this seemed to be a perfectly acceptable phenomenon.”
COP stands for “conference of the parties” and refers to countries (“parties”) who have signed the underlying climate treaty.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 team and the UN’s climate body have been contacted with a request to comment.
World
Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to ‘smoke out’ thousands of illegal miners
A body has been recovered from a South African mine after police cut off basic supplies in an effort to force around 4,000 illegal miners to resurface.
The body has emerged from the closed gold mine in the northwest town of Stilfontein a day after South Africa’s government said it would not help the illegal miners.
Around 20 people have surfaced from the mineshaft this week as police wait nearby to arrest all those appearing from underground.
It comes a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to “smoke them [the miners] out”.
The move is part of the police’s “Close the Hole” operation, whereby officers cut off supplies of food, water and other basic necessities to get those who have entered illegally to come out.
Local reports suggest the supply routes were cut off at the mine around two months ago, with relatives of the miners seen in the area as the stand-off continues.
Relatives of miners and community members wait at the mine shaft. Pic: AP
A decomposed body was brought up on Thursday, with pathologists on the scene, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.
It comes after South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners, known in the country as zama zamas, because they are involved in a criminal act.
“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ms Ntshavheni said.
An aerial view of a mineshaft. Pic: AP
Senior police and defence officials are expected to visit the area on Friday to “reinforce the government’s commitment to bringing this operation to a safe and lawful conclusion”, according to a media advisory from the police.
In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in South Africa’s North West province, where police have cut off supplies.
Many of the miners were reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.
Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.
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Relatives of miners and community members wait near the mine shaft. Pic: AP
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The illegal miners are often from neighbouring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.
Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.
Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.
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