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The government has defended its immigration strategy after deaths in the English Channel prompted renewed criticism of the “stop the boats” pledge – including from Tory MPs.

At least six people died after a small boat crossing from France to the UK capsized and sank, in what has been described as an “appalling and preventable” tragedy.

Campaigners are now urging the government to create more safe and legal routes to the UK while MPs from across the political spectrum are calling for a clampdown on the criminal gangs profiting from these dangerous journeys.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made “stopping the boats” one of his five priorities in government.

Asked if the Channel tragedy was a “damning indictment” of his failure to make good on that promise, Welsh Secretary David TC Davies said: “No, it’s not. The government has been stopping boats.”

Mr Davies said funding for patrols on the French border had reduced the number of crossings, while a returns deal with Albania had resulted in a 90% reduction of people coming from the south European country.

He admitted it is a “really difficult problem to completely solve” but said the Rwandan deportation policy – currently held up by legal challenges – would act as a deterrent.

“I believe those people who are genuinely fleeing from war and oppression will be happy to be housed in any safe third country,” he said.

“But it is going to take away the incentive for people to jump into a rickety boat and risk their lives coming here, sometimes in the hands of people smugglers who are making a fortune out of it. We need to stop these tragedies, not to encourage more people to come in.”

The Channel tragedy came at the end of Rishi Sunak’s “small boats week”, which was meant to reinvigorate his plan to tackle illegal immigration but quickly unravelled amid the discovery of bacteria in the water supply of the Bibby Stockholm barge.

It meant all 39 migrants who had boarded the vessel in Dorset just days earlier had to be removed – a significant set back to a plan that has been beset with delay and controversy from the very start.

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Asylum seekers ‘not valued’ as humans

However, ministers intend to push on with plans to hire more barges to house asylum seekers, as well as student halls and former office blocks, The Telegraph reported.

The government has argued using basic accommodation will act as a deterrent to Channel crossings while bringing down the £6m a day it is spending on hotels.

But in a further blow to Rishi Sunak, this week saw the highest daily number of people cross the Channel, with 755 migrants making the journey on Thursday.

It brought the cumulative total since records began in 2018 to over 100,000.

Further crossings this week – including the arrival of 509 people on Saturday – mean more than 1,600 people crossed the Channel in the past three days, bringing the total for the year so far to 16,679, according to Home Office figures.

Read More:
Asylum seekers on board Bibby Stockholm ‘re-traumatised’
Fiasco shows how far Sunak has to go to deliver on boats promise

Immigration plans ‘total failure’

Labour accused the government of a “total failure on immigration”.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Philipson said ministers should come up with a plan to target people smuggling gangs and bring down the asylum backlog rather than “ridiculous, ludicrous and increasingly unworkable schemes”.

She told Sky News: “We need a serious government that is focussed on this as a real issue that we’re facing as a country. What we get increasingly from the Conservatives is gimmicks and headlines.

Calls for action also came from within the Conservative party.

Writing in the Sunday Express, Tory backbencher and former party chairman Sir Jake Berry said: “We must put a stop to the vile people smugglers who trade in human misery and whose actions result in the loss of life.”

He called for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, saying “only radical changes can truly turn the tide”.

Meanwhile Conservative MP Tim Loughton said it was not a good idea to have a “small boats week” as it was “hostage to fortune”.

“Clearly it depends on how many people are risking their lives coming across the Channel, which is dependent on the weather and how people smugglers are operating,” he told Times Radio.

Mr Loughton, a member of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, added that there was a “dysfunctionality” about the Home Office dating back years beyond the current government and called for “an absolutely systemic analysis” of where it is going wrong.

The government department was also derided by senior Conservative backbencher David Davis, who said their “startling incompetence” was laid bare by the Bibby Stockholm saga.

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Thailand’s 5-year crypto tax break: What they’re not telling you

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Thailand’s 5-year crypto tax break: What they’re not telling you

Thailand’s 5-year crypto tax break: What they’re not telling you

Thailand’s five-year tax break on crypto capital gains looks like a dream for investors, but the fine print reveals a strategic push for surveillance, platform control and regulatory dominance.

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TON’s UAE ‘golden visa’ mishap shows why legal reviews matter

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TON’s UAE ‘golden visa’ mishap shows why legal reviews matter

TON’s UAE ‘golden visa’ mishap shows why legal reviews matter

The TON Foundation could have avoided its golden visa controversy in the UAE with a brief legal review, a local lawyer told Cointelegraph.

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Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government dies aged 94

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Norman Tebbit: Former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher's government dies aged 94

Norman Tebbit, the former Tory minister who served in Margaret Thatcher’s government, has died at the age of 94.

Lord Tebbit died “peacefully at home” late on Monday night, his son William confirmed.

One of Mrs Thatcher’s most loyal cabinet ministers, he was a leading political voice throughout the turbulent 1980s.

He held the posts of employment secretary, trade secretary, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Conservative party chairman before resigning as an MP in 1992 after his wife was left disabled by the Provisional IRA’s bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton.

He considered standing for the Conservative leadership after Mrs Thatcher’s resignation in 1990, but was committed to taking care of his wife.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and party chairman Norman Tebbit.
Pic: PA
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Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit in 1987 after her election victory. Pic: PA

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called him an “icon” in British politics and was “one of the leading exponents of the philosophy we now know as Thatcherism”.

“But to many of us it was the stoicism and courage he showed in the face of terrorism, which inspired us as he rebuilt his political career after suffering terrible injuries in the Brighton bomb, and cared selflessly for his wife Margaret, who was gravely disabled in the bombing,” she wrote on X.

“He never buckled under pressure and he never compromised. Our nation has lost one of its very best today and I speak for all the Conservative family and beyond in recognising Lord Tebbit’s enormous intellect and profound sense of duty to his country.

“May he rest in peace.”

Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton.
Pic: PA
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Lord Tebbit and his wife Margaret stand outside the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Pic: PA

Tory grandee David Davis told Sky News Lord Tebbit was a “great working class Tory, always ready to challenge establishment conventional wisdom for the bogus nonsense it often was”.

“He was one of Thatcher’s bravest and strongest lieutenants, and a great friend,” Sir David said.

“He had to deal with the agony that the IRA visited on him and his wife, and he did so with characteristic unflinching courage. He was a great man.”

Reform leader Nigel Farage said Lord Tebbit “gave me a lot of help in my early days as an MEP”.

He was “a great man. RIP,” he added.

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit.
Pic: PA
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Lord Tebbit as employment secretary in 1983 with Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA

Born to working-class parents in north London, he was made a life peer in 1992, where he sat until he retired in 2022.

Lord Tebbit was trade secretary when he was injured in the Provisional IRA’s bombing in Brighton during the Conservative Party conference in 1984.

Five people died in the attack and Lord Tebbit’s wife, Margaret, was left paralysed from the neck down. She died in 2020 at the age of 86.

Before entering politics, his first job, aged 16, was at the Financial Times where he had his first experience of trade unions and vowed to “break the power of the closed shop”.

He then trained as a pilot with the RAF – at one point narrowly escaping from the burning cockpit of a Meteor 8 jet – before becoming the MP for Epping in 1970 then for Chingford in 1974.

Norman Tebbit during the debate on the second reading of the European Communities (Amendment) Bill, in the House of Lords.
Pic: PA
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Lord Tebbit during an EU debate in the House of Lords in 1997. Pic: PA

As a cabinet minister, he was responsible for legislation that weakened the powers of the trade unions and the closed shop, making him the political embodiment of the Thatcherite ideology that was in full swing.

His tough approach was put to the test when riots erupted in Brixton, south London, against the backdrop of high rates of unemployment and mistrust between the black community and the police.

He was frequently misquoted as having told the unemployed to “get on your bike”, and was often referred to as “Onyerbike” for some time afterwards.

What he actually said was he grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father who did not riot, “he got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”.

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