Key events
Jessica Elgot
Our deputy political editor Jessica Elgot has this piece today suggesting there will be a diminished presence from the left of the Labour party at this year’s conference:
Senior leftwing Labour figures have said the left will have a greatly diminished presence at this year’s party conference.
The conference in Liverpool is likely to be dominated by delegates from the party’s centrist wing, though there will be moves to force votes on issues such as the two-child benefit cap and the winter fuel allowance.
Momentum and other leftwing grassroots groups are also fighting to save their last remaining seats on the party’s governing body, which now has a significant majority for the centrist faction, organised by Labour to Win.
One Corbyn-era shadow cabinet minister said members who were dissatisfied with Keir Starmer’s leadership – especially his policies towards parliamentary selections and party discipline – would probably steer clear this year. “I think future years to come there will be more space to put pressure on from the left,” they said.
Seven prominent leftwing MPs, including the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell and the former shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon, are suspended from the Labour whip for rebelling on an amendment to abolish the two-child benefit limit.
A Momentum spokesperson said there were still areas where leftwing members would be active:
While the balance of delegates at conference is likely to be favourable to Starmer, the Labour party is beset with major internal disagreements between the majority of members and trade unionists – who support commonsense progressive policies such as the scrapping of the two-child benefit cap and want to see an end to austerity policies after 14 years of Tory misrule – and a small grouping around the leadership, who remain obsessively focused on control freakery and are happy to have economic policy dictated by the Treasury.
The World Transformed, the leftwing political festival that has acted as a fringe event to the conference for the past eight years, will not return to the conference in Liverpool this year.
Read more from Jessica Elgot here: Left’s presence at Labour conference will be diminished, say leftwing figures
Former immigration minister Jenrick accuses Labour of having ‘surrendered to smuggling gangs’
Robert Jenrick, the Conservative former immigration minister and candidate for the party’s leadership, has accused the new Labour government of having “surrendered to the smuggling gangs”.
Jenrick, whose party while in government oversaw record numbers of people crossing the English Channel in order to seek asylum, told Sky News “We have seen thousands of people crossing the Channel illegally since Labour came to power. They got rid of the one credible deterrent, which was the Rwanda policy.”
Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation policy never reached the statute books, and not a single asylum seeker was forcibly deported there.
Speaking about home secretary Yvette Cooper’s planned meeting today on small boat Channel crossings, Jenrick said:
Yvette Cooper will meet the National Crime Agency and police chiefs today, and they’ll tell her what they told me when I was the minister, which is that although it’s important that we do that work, it is not sufficient. You have to have a deterrent. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have surrendered to the smuggling gangs.
Jenrick claimed that scrapping the failed Rwanda scheme had made it “open season” for people smugglers to attempt to move asylum seekers across the English Channel.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, prime minister Keir Starmer told MPs:
Unlike the Conservative party, we will not waste money on gimmicks. That is why, within days, we ended the Rwanda scheme and announced the launch of the border security force, and we have been preparing legislation to introduce counter-terrorism powers to tackle gangs. In the first two months, we have removed on planes more than 400 people who had no right to be here. Compare that with the four volunteers sent to Rwanda, which cost £700m. This is a government of service, not a government of gimmicks.
The former head of the British Border Force, Tony Smith, has said that tackling people-smuggles using the English Channel as a route was like playing “Whac-A-Mole”.
He said that a concerted effort was needed in Europe and in the countries organising the trade, telling listeners of the BBC Today programme:
This is a very lucrative business for the smugglers. Putting a smuggling gang out of business, there’s usually another one waiting in the wings because the money is there. It’s a bit like Whac-A-Mole, really. So you do need a very concerted international attempt, both in Europe and beyond.
Smith left the British Border Force role in 2013.
Minister: government will announce head of new border security command ‘shortly’
Angela Eagle has said that the government will announce the appointment of the head of its new border security command “very shortly”.
The much-touted policy aiming to cut people crossing the English Channel to seek asylum in the UK has been at the centre of the new Labour government’s promise to smash people-smuggling gangs.
Speaking on Sky News, Eagle said:
We are very close to making that appointment. You have to go through certain processes to make sure you get the right person, give people time to apply. You can’t wave a magic wand. There’ll be announcements about that very shortly.
The border security minister would not be drawn on whether it would be as soon as next week.
Minister: ‘difficult’ and ‘complex’ to tackle cross-border smuggling gangs
Border security minister Angela Eagle has said that tackling criminal people smuggling gangs will be “difficult” and “complex” to do, but that should not stop the government attempting to tackle it.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme she said “I think that any state has got to ensure that criminal gangs who are profiting off human misery are tackled, disrupted, dealt with, put out of business – and if you have to put one out of business and another springs up, you have to spend your time having a go at that one as well.”
She continued “Just because something is very, very difficult to do, complex to do – something that you have to do by cooperation across borders, by a lot of communication along these supply chains of misery and exploitation – that isn’t to say that you shouldn’t be doing it, and that is what today’s summit is about, really.”
Rajeev Syal
Here is a snippet from Rajeev Syal’s report on today’s forthcoming summit on English Channel crossings:
Yvette Cooper will chair a summit aimed at apprehending criminal gangs involved in smuggling people across the Channel in small boats, as the Home Office disclosed that MI5 officers had been given a key role in operations.
Intelligence officers, Border Force staff and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) representatives will be present at the meeting on Friday at the National Crime Agency’s headquarters.
Cooper, the home secretary, will be joined by David Lammy, the foreign secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, and Richard Hermer, the attorney general.
On Tuesday 12 people died attempting the perilous journey across one of the world’s busiest shipping routes. Another 257 people crossed the Channel in small boats on Wednesday.
Cooper said: “Women and children were packed into an unsafe boat which literally collapsed in the water this week. At least 12 people were killed as part of this evil trade.”
Read more here: Yvette Cooper to chair summit on tackling Channel smuggling gangs
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics for Friday. Recently appointed home secretary Yvette Cooper will chair a summit of senior ministers and members of the intelligence services and the National Crime Agency aimed at tackling criminal gangs involved in smuggling people over the English Channel in small boats. More of that in a moment, but here are your headlines …
What else is in the diary for today? Not much. The Lords are sitting, but the Commons isn’t, and there is nothing scheduled in Holyrood, Stormont or the Senedd. It is Martin Belam with you here. You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com. I find it helpful if you gently point out typos, errors or omissions you spot.