
Almost 900 migrants cross the Channel in one day alone
Home Office figures indicate that 898 people arrived in 13 boats on Wednesday, bringing the total for 2025 to 25,436.
This year marks the earliest point since data collection began in 2018 that the 25,000 milestone has been reached.
The current total is 51 per cent higher than at the same point in 2024 and 73 per cent higher than in 2023.
The latest figures present a setback for Sir Keir Starmer, who has vowed to tackle small boat crossings by "smashing the gangs".
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The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
Reform's 19-year-old council leader risks contempt of court over rape case comments
A Reform UK council leader risks being found in contempt of court after making a number of statements about the alleged rape of a 12-year-old girl during a press conference in London. It comes after Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, was charged with the rape of a girl in Nuneaton last week. Meanwhile, Mohammad Kabir, also 23, was charged with kidnap and strangulation. Warwickshire Police has not released the immigration status of the two suspects. George Finch - the 19-year-old Warwickshire county council leader - risks having broken the law with a comment he made about the case. Contempt of court refers to behaviour that interferes with the administration of justice or undermines the authority of the court. The Independent is not able to repeat a number of claims Mr Finch makes in the press conference without the newspaper risking contempt of court. At one point during the press conference, Mr Finch acknowledged the risks attached to talking about a live legal case, saying: 'I was told if I released this, I'd be in contempt of court.' The youngest council leader in the country claimed there has been a 'cover-up' of details about the case. It came as Nigel Farage suggested police forces should release information including immigration status about people who are charged with crimes. The Reform UK leader said that he 'absolutely' believes that information should be made available by police forces. In a statement, Warwickshire Police said that once someone is charged with an offence, they follow national guidance, which 'does not include sharing ethnicity or immigration status'. Mr Finch told Monday's press conference that he was 'begging' for information about the two to be released in the wake of the charges. He said he had emailed the council's chief executive to say that he wished to speak to the police force and urge them to release information about the men's immigration status. Mr Finch also said he had later written a letter to home secretary Yvette Cooper and the chief constable of Warwickshire Police calling for the immediate release of the immigration status of the two. Mr Finch also claimed that Reform UK needs to 'change things' and is 'the last line of defence against the blob, the cover-ups'.


The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
Why has Kemi Badenoch fallen out with Liz Truss?
Dearie me, they're at it again. Former Tory leader Liz Truss and current Tory leader Kemi Badenoch are involved in another nasty spat, mainly about the infamous mini-Budget introduced by then Prime Minister Truss in September 2022. Badenoch has invoked that calamitous – and deeply Conservative – fiscal event in an otherwise routine attack on the government. Truss, ever ready to defend her record, because no one else will, has hit back and told Badenoch she's wrong and needs to do some more thinking, a particularly hurtful jibe when Badenoch thinks herself one of the brainier kids in the Westminster playground. Amusing and mildly diverting as it may be, this minor row also tells us some much bigger things about the Tory dilemma. What did Badenoch say? That Labour is even more incompetent than Truss was: 'For all their mocking of Liz Truss, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have not learnt the lessons of the mini-Budget and are making even bigger mistakes. They continue to borrow more and more, unable and unwilling to make the spending cuts needed to balance the books.' Is that new? Not really. Only a few weeks ago, the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, evicted from ministerial office by Liz Truss when she formed her short-lived government, laid into the mini-Budget and apologised for it. Badenoch, meanwhile, has said she doesn't know whether Truss is still in the Conservative Party, and implied she doesn't really care either way. She's long let it be known she'd prefer Truss to just go quiet for a while. Badenoch has also been disobliging about the Sunak administration 'talking right but acting left'. But Sunak, like Johnson, May and Cameron, has, so far, preferred to ignore the present controversies and policy shifts, such as Badenoch's 'net-zero sceptic' stance. What's the Truss defence? The usual – her supposedly brilliant plan to turbocharge the British economy was thwarted by a terrible econo-bureaucratic blob and those, to the visionary Truss, idiots at the Bank of England. But increasingly she is having to adapt her line because of attacks from her own party (if she is indeed still in it), which means slagging off the administrations that came before her – Cameron, May, Johnson – and after, Sunak and now Badenoch's performance as leader of the opposition: 'It is disappointing that instead of serious thinking like this, Kemi Badenoch is instead repeating spurious narratives. I suspect she is doing this to divert from the real failures of 14 years of Conservative government in which her supporters are particularly implicated.' Er... weren't they both members of these dreadful governments? Yes. Truss continuously from 2012 to her ousting in 2022, and Badenoch from 2019 to 2024. Indeed, it was Truss who promoted Badenoch to the cabinet as international trade secretary. Neither showed much dissent, publicly or privately. Why are they scrapping? Neither wants to take responsibility for their own failures as a party leader, and that can inevitably lead to blame throwing for their disastrous showing at the election, and subsequently. But all politicians in all parties who find themselves thrashed by the voters are faced with this excruciating dilemma as they enter the wilderness of life in opposition: Do they denounce the record and policies of the government they were apparently happy to be a part of? Or do they defend their record instead? Do they agree with the voters' verdict or not? And if they want to, or have to, admit 'mistakes', are they going to be big or smaller ones? How to play it? By ear – there are no hard rules. Back in the 1970s, Margaret Thatcher, as leader of the opposition, did well out of renouncing most of what the Heath government had done because it ended in such chaos, and Thatcher was (like Badenoch today) a relatively junior cabinet member who could claim some innocence. In due course, because public opinion had shifted during the Blair years, David Cameron found that he'd have to criticise Thatcher herself, so he declared that 'there is such a thing as society' and told his fractious party to 'stop banging on about Europe'. Ed Miliband, after Labour's defeat in 2010, never seemed able to make up his mind about whether the Brown administration (in which he served) had failed, and, if so, how and why. Try as he might, Nick Clegg could never grovel sufficiently for what he did on tuition fees in the coalition government, and the Lib Dems were so punished at the 2015 general election that they were left with eight MPs compared to the 56 elected in 2010. At the moment, the Conservative-led government of 2010 to 2024 has few friends and many critics, the most vociferous being some of its leading lights. In this respect, the party is behaving more like Labour traditionally does after a defeat. Thus, after the 1974-79 Labour government fell from power, it was attacked by the Bennites on the Labour left for being too right-wing, and by the social democrats on the right for being too left-wing. Eventually, the long passage of time made arguments about pay policy, union power and unilateralism irrelevant. One day, when people have forgotten who Truss and Badenoch were, they may be ready to give the Tories a hearing. But, with Farage on their right flank, with no qualms about slagging off the last government, the Conservatives may not have the luxury of time to settle their differences and focus their attacks on him.


The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
David Tennant discusses ‘very intense' role in new ITV real-life drama
ITV 's forthcoming seven-part drama, The Hack, will explore the phone hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World. David Tennant stars as investigative journalist Nick Davies, who uncovered the unethical practices of the newspaper. The series will cover events between 2002 and 2012, detailing how journalists illegally accessed voicemails of celebrities, murder victims, and the Royal Family. Written by Jack Thorne, the drama also features Robert Carlyle as former Met Police detective Dave Cook and Toby Jones as former Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger; the series is set to air on ITV and STV later this year. Tennant said that shooting the series had been 'very intense' due to the complex nature of the phone hacking scandal, but was proud to be part of the new drama.