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Facebook, TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, will team up with UK law enforcement to crack down on posts by people smugglers encouraging migrants to cross the English Channel, the government says.

Rishi Sunak, who has made cutting the number of small boats arriving on UK shores one of his “five pledges”, said the new partnerships with various social media companies will tackle attempts to “lure” people into paying to make the perilous journey.

Group discounts, free spaces for children and offers of false documents are among the posts the prime minister wants removed to help achieve his promise to “stop the boats”.

In a thread on X, Downing Street posted a series of examples of the material it wanted to stop.

In one, an account on TikTok offers illegal journeys for Albanian families with “max 30 other people”.

In another, people are offered two nights in a hotel in addition to the Channel crossing, at a price of £4,000.

It comes as Home Secretary Suella Braverman accused the Labour Party of trying to “sabotage” its plan to stop Channel crossings with its links to charities and lawyers who oppose the scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – a policy that is currently held up in the courts.

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She told the Sunday Express that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was “secretly delighted at his web of cronies’ schemes to block our plans to stop the boats”.

“He’s in this for political point scoring and doesn’t care about what’s good for the country or the British people,” she said.

Writing in The Sun On Sunday, immigration minister Robert Jenrick also accused Labour of using “every trick and tactic to delay and prevent us from removing people with no right to remain in the UK”.

“And as they do so, they put two fingers up to the law-abiding majority who suffer from illegal migration,” he said.

In response, Labour claimed the Conservatives have been unable to remove failed asylum seekers from the UK and that it would take until 2036 just to clear the existing backlog.

Nearly 15,000 people have made the dangerous trip across the Dover Strait in small boats so far this year, according to official data compiled and analysed by Sky News.

This is about 15% less than the same time last year, the data suggests.

The voluntary partnership between social media firms and the National Crime Agency will seek to redirect people away from such content in the same way as is used to tackle content promoting extremism or eating disorders.

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Plans to house asylum seekers in tents

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as TikTok and X, have all signed up to the plans, Downing Street said.

It comes as controversy over plans to house asylum seekers on the Bibby Stockholm barge continues.

Mr Sunak said: “To stop the boats, we have to tackle the business model of vile people smugglers at source.

“That means clamping down on their attempts to lure people into making these illegal crossings and profit from putting lives at risk.

“This new commitment from tech firms will see us redouble our efforts to fight back against these criminals, working together to shut down their vile trade.”

Read more:
Lords back down over government plans to stop small boats
Nearly 300 children have died or disappeared in Mediterranean crossings

Labour said the action was “too little, too late” and the Liberal Democrats said it amounted to “tinkering around the edges”.

Beginning a “small boats week” of linked announcements, Number 10 said the “legacy” backlog of asylum applications made before the end of June 2022 has been reduced by a third since December.

But Labour claimed nearly 40,000 people are still awaiting removal in the latest figures.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said it was “just deluded” for the Conservatives to “boast about progress on tackling the Tories’ asylum chaos”.

“The Conservatives have totally lost any grip on the asylum system,” she said. “Suella Braverman is disastrously failing to even get the basics right.

“All she ever does is ramp up the rhetoric and make more and more empty promises, while failing to deliver. The Tories have completely broken the asylum system – failing to take decisions and failing to return people who have no right to be here.”

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Just 25% of public think Sir Keir Starmer will win next election – with welfare row partly to blame

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Just 25% of public think Sir Keir Starmer will win next election - with welfare row partly to blame

Only a quarter of British adults think Sir Keir Starmer will win the next general election, as the party’s climbdown over welfare cuts affects its standing with the public.

A fresh poll by Ipsos, shared with Sky News, also found 63% do not feel confident the government is running the country competently, similar to levels scored by previous Conservative administrations under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak in July 2022 and February 2023, respectively.

Politics latest: ‘A moment of intense peril’ for PM

The survey of 1,080 adults aged 18-75 across Great Britain was conducted online between 27 and 30 June 2025, when Labour began making the first of its concessions, suggesting the party’s turmoil over its own benefits overhaul is partly to blame.

The prime minister was forced into an embarrassing climbdown on Tuesday night over his plans to slash welfare spending, after it became apparent he was in danger of losing the vote owing to a rebellion among his own MPs.

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Govt makes last-minute concession on welfare bill

The bill that was put to MPs for a vote was so watered down that the most controversial element – to tighten the eligibility criteria for personal independence payments (PIP) – was put on hold, pending a review into the assessment process by minister Stephen Timms that is due to report back in the autumn.

The government was forced into a U-turn after Labour MPs signalled publicly and privately that the previous concession made at the weekend to protect existing claimants from the new rules would not be enough.

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While the bill passed its first parliamentary hurdle last night, with a majority of 75, 49 Labour MPs still voted against it – the largest rebellion in a prime minister’s first year in office since 47 MPs voted against Tony Blair’s Lone Parent benefit in 1997, according to Professor Phil Cowley from Queen Mary University.

It left MPs to vote on only one element of the original plan – the cut to Universal Credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

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Govt makes last-minute concession on welfare bill

An amendment brought by Labour MP Rachael Maskell, which aimed to prevent the bill progressing to the next stage, was defeated but 44 Labour MPs voted for it.

The incident has raised questions about Sir Keir’s authority just a year after the general election delivered him the first Labour landslide victory in decades.

Read more:
How did your MP vote on Labour’s welfare bill?
The PM faced down his party on welfare and lost

And on Wednesday, Downing Street insisted Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, was “not going anywhere” after her tearful appearance in the House of Commons during prime minister’s questions sparked speculation about her political future.

The Ipsos poll also found that two-thirds of British adults are not confident Labour has the right plans to change the way the benefits system works in the UK, including nearly half of 2024 Labour voters.

Keiran Pedley, director of UK Politics at Ipsos, said: “Labour rows over welfare reform haven’t just harmed the public’s view on whether they can make the right changes in that policy area, they are raising wider questions about their ability to govern too.

“The public is starting to doubt Labour’s ability to govern competently and seriously at the same levels they did with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s governments. Labour will hope that this government doesn’t end up going the same way.”

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Emotional Reeves a painful watch – and a reminder of tough decisions ahead

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Emotional Reeves a painful watch - and a reminder of tough decisions ahead

It is hard to think of a PMQs like it – it was a painful watch.

The prime minister battled on, his tone assured, even if his actual words were not always convincing.

But it was the chancellor next to him that attracted the most attention.

Rachel Reeves looked visibly upset.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (right) crying as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks. Pic: Commons/UK Parliament/PA
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Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves (right) crying as Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer speaks. Pic: Commons/UK Parliament/PA

It is hard to know for sure right now what was going on behind the scenes, the reasons – predictable or otherwise – why she appeared to be emotional, but it was noticeable and it was difficult to watch.

Reeves looks visibly upset as Starmer defends welfare U-turn – politics latest

Her spokesperson says it was a personal matter that they will not be getting into.

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Even Kemi Badenoch, not usually the most nimble PMQs performer, singled her out. “She looks absolutely miserable,” she said.

Anyone wondering if Kemi Badenoch can kick a dog when it’s down has their answer today.

The Tory leader asked the PM if he could guarantee his chancellor’s future: he could not. “She has delivered, and we are grateful for it,” Sir Keir said, almost sounding like he was speaking in the past tense.

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Rachel Reeves looked visibly upset behind Keir Starmer at PMQs. Pic PA

It is important to say: Rachel Reeves’s face during one PMQs session is not enough to tell us everything, or even anything, we need to know.

But given the government has just faced its most bruising week yet, it was hard not to speculate. The prime minister’s spokesperson has said since PMQs that the chancellor has not offered her resignation and is not going anywhere.

But Rachel Reeves has surely seen an omen of the impossible decisions ahead.

How will she plug the estimated £5.5bn hole left by the welfare climbdown in the nation’s finances? Will she need to tweak her iron clad fiscal rules? Will she come back for more tax rises? What message does all of this send to the markets?

If a picture tells us a thousand words, Rachel Reeves’s face will surely be blazoned on the front pages tomorrow as a warning that no U-turn goes unpunished.

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Trump’s crypto ventures have added $620M to his net worth — Report

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Trump’s crypto ventures have added 0M to his net worth — Report

Trump’s crypto ventures have added 0M to his net worth — Report

With the US president’s ties to his family-backed business, World Liberty Financial, and a memecoin launch, Donald Trump has seen his personal wealth increase by millions in 2025.

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