Plan to end asylum hotels will fail, watchdog warns
However, Mr Bolt said: 'I think there's a more fundamental issue about accommodation, or at least housing stock, there simply isn't sufficient housing stock to be able to deal with the sorts of numbers in the system. I think it's really, really challenging.'
A Downing Street spokesman said he did not agree that there would be a lack of housing stock. 'I don't accept that. As I say, the Government is committed to restoring grip to the asylum system, allowing us to end the use of hotels,' he said.
Mr Bolt, who previously served as borders chief between 2015 and 2021, and returned as interim chief inspector in June last year, also told peers he wrote to ministers to say he 'wasn't convinced smashing the gangs was the right way of thinking about things' in tackling Channel crossings.
He said: 'It did seem to me the challenge was to change the risk reward ratio for those people involved in organised immigration crime, that's really a difficult thing to achieve, because it's relatively low cost, relatively low risk for the perpetrators and highly profitable.
'I'm not sure I feel very optimistic about the ability to smash the gangs and, in any event, it seems to me with organised crime, the best thing you can do is deflect it to something else you're less concerned about rather than expect to eradicate it.'
He added that he believed the establishment of the Border Security Command has brought energy and focus to the issue, and it has been agreed with its chief, Martin Hewitt, for the unit to be inspected later this year.
But he also agreed more needed to be done to tackle the issue in the UK and look at what is attracting people to come to the country.
Mr Bolt said: 'The availability of illegal working, that I think is one of the issues the Home Office has tried to focus on and tried to close down as best it can and will continue to have to work very hard on that.'
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Times
35 minutes ago
- Times
Nigel Farage: If I can't give young men a voice, wait till what comes after me
When Nigel Farage became an MP on his eighth attempt, he said it would kickstart a 'revolt against the establishment'. Almost 12 months on, with Reform UK riding high in the polls, he is planning his next coup: tearing down the whole parliamentary system. 'I love the [House of Commons] building. I love the history. I respect the Speaker as a human being but I find that the way the place does business just ridiculous,' he said. 'I do think that there's a better way of doing things. I've always believed that you can combine tradition with modernity.' Sitting in his unofficial office of Boisdale of Belgravia over a 'proper f***ing lunch' of lamb and kidney pudding and claret, Farage, 61, spoke for the first time about his plans for power. The political earthquake he had long been promising has hit. YouGov's first seat by seat poll since Labour's election victory was published last week, suggesting Reform is on track to gain 266 seats — up from five last July — making it the largest party in a hung parliament with 271 MPs. Farage's first cabinet would consist of people who had never been an MP, let alone had any experience of government. • The Nigel Farage backers chasing Maga millions and a Jenrick pact So how would he form a government capable of delivering? 'How could we do worse?' he asked. 'I mean, we currently appoint cabinet ministers with zero experience of the areas. We swap them out after 18 months for somebody else with zero experience of the areas. None of it bloody works.' He agrees with assertions by Simon Case, the former cabinet secretary, that politicians have 'less and less direct levers of power than they used to' and this is 'not sustainable'. 'Most of the authority is being transferred to regulatory authorities and quangos who make the real decisions, it seems, that affect people's lives,' he says. 'I think we're stuck with a completely outdated mentality. The government has to be in the House of Commons. Why? I'll tell you why. Accountability.' Farage is a close friend of President Trump and believes he deserves to win the Nobel peace prize for his recent work in the Middle East. He is attracted to the way politics is done in America, where the president is able to appoint his own cabinet, rather than having to choose from a pool of elected politicians. Appointments are subject to Senate confirmation. 'The point about America is that you can have a senior cabinet position and you are held to account by a committee system that takes place on Capitol Hill and that is the equivalent of being in a court of law,' he said. 'That's accountability. Standing up in the House of Commons and telling a pack of lies, frankly, is not accountability. 'It's almost impossible for cabinet ministers to be good MPs anyway, because how could they be? What was interesting was Gordon Brown. Digby Jones is a character that I like very much and Brown made Digby business minister and chucked him in the House of Lords.' This is not the only thing Farage appears to agree with the former Labour prime minister on. Like Brown, who has advocated the creation of a second democratic chamber called the Assembly of Nations and Regions, he is in favour of reforming the House of Lords, which he thinks will 'have to have an elected element based on the regions'. 'The make-up of the Lords is a bloody disgrace,' he said. 'I mean they're all from three postcodes. At least the hereditaries came in from around the country … but I do think a revising chamber is important … All of this needs to be thought through and debated more clearly.' As Farage sketches out his blueprint for power, it is easy to forget his decision to stand as an MP last year was far from a given. Despite his huge surge in popularity after his stint in ITV's I'm a Celebrity, he had still not decided whether to return to politics and admits Rishi Sunak's decision to hold an early general election nearly 'wrong-footed' him. 'I thought at that point, well this is hopeless,' he said. 'Because there's no way in this space of time I can do what needs to be done. And be honest with you, I was very despondent because I thought I'm just turning 60. Another five years and it will be too late.' In the days after the election was called, Farage, who has more TikTok followers than the other 649 MPs added together, hit the campaign trail in Dover, before joining Lee Anderson in Ashfield and Richard Tice in Boston & Skegness. 'As I'm walking through Skegness, people are stopping me in the street saying, 'Why aren't you standing? Like you're letting me down. I believe in you,' ' he said. 'We had a curry that night somewhere in Gainsborough. That's when I started thinking this is terrible. All the people that love me think I'm betraying them. On the Saturday we got back to London and there were a lot of football supporters in the pub wanting selfies. And that's when I just thought, 'You know what, even if I've only got four weeks and three days to do it, let's give it a go.'' Shortly after 4am on July 5, Farage promised to 'change politics for ever' as his party won more than four million votes, propelling him into parliament as the MP for Clacton. 'I was delighted, of course I was,' he said. 'But I realised within a week that actually the real challenge was May 1, 2025 [the local elections]. How the hell were we going to get this organisation ready to fight on such a big scale?' Reform UK were the biggest winners of that night, snatching more than 40 per cent of the 16,000 council seats contested, taking control of eight local authorities from the Tories and defeating Labour in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election to make Sarah Pochin its fifth MP. Farage is prouder of his achievements on May 1 than July 4. He is hoping to build on that at next year's elections, which will include the Welsh senedd and Scottish parliament. • Nigel Farage has blown apart two-party politics. Here's what's next He puts some of his party's meteoric rise in the polls down to societal breakdown and the 'complete unrecognisability of people's communities' and also blames the Covid lockdowns fuelling anti-establishment anger. 'I think what the [Conservative] government did was the biggest peacetime mistake in history,' he said. 'The economic damage, the societal damage, the damage to children in particular. It's changed our behaviour. It's also bred a mentality of work from home, which is utterly catastrophic for productivity. And frankly, I thought the third lockdown was on the verge of criminal. I left the country. I got out. I went through the West Indies and into America for two months. I couldn't bear it. Police kept knocking on my door because I kept ignoring it. 'I think governments have taken away more liberties than we took away during the Second World War. I mean that's completely abhorrent. The frustration that nobody's ever held accountable. I didn't want Matt Hancock telling me telling me: 'Stay at home, that's an order.' I wanted to break the television. 'You sort of always think, well, this country could never fall for totalitarianism. Well, it did. I actually think it did. It worries the life out of me.' • Farage: Royal Marines should take migrants back to France He is amused at how much his party, with five MPs, is able to make waves. 'We're shifting the agenda on everything. We go very public that Palestine Action has to be a proscribed organisation — within 24 hours they do it. I've been very big on industrial policy. Guess what? I mean, they're literally following everything we do.' However much Labour and the Tories seek to ape his party's policies, Farage claims there is still much which sets them apart. Last week Reform announced it would give non-doms the chance to avoid some UK taxes by paying a £250,000 fee, with the proceeds going to people on the lowest income. This week his party is likely to oppose Labour's welfare reform cuts, which the Conservatives have said they will support with conditions. He is keen to exploit the 'big tensions' within the Labour Party because he claims it no longer knows what the working class is. 'It's become the party of the bourgeoisie, very middle class,' he said. 'Middle class with those on benefits are your Labour vote. And the struggling working people are turning to us increasingly and we recognise that, we know that, we understand that. That tremor only gets stronger in my view.' He is also keen to capitalise on the failure of successive governments to stop the migrant boats crossing the Channel. 'This hasn't even started,' he said. 'When the population makes the connection between these young men and increased sexual crime, when that connection is made, you wait.' Farage claims the only answer to the problem is 'nobody that ever comes to this country via that route will ever be given asylum status, will ever be able to walk the streets free and will ever be allowed to stay'. He sees huge merit in Operation Sovereign Borders — the policy adopted by Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister, in his 2013 election campaign. Migrant boats were intercepted and either returned to where they travelled from or passengers taken to overseas island detention centres. 'The ultimate threat is you literally tow the boats back to France,' said Farage, who would engage the navy 'if it came to it'. 'Do you think the Royal Marines would worry about doing that? They'd bloody love it.' This would have to be underpinned by a massive deportation operation that Farage admits is not without its challenges and would mean leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He said: 'I think the whole judicial system is rotten to the core and not working … I think you would firstly take away the tools that they're given through the ECHR and then see how they behave.' He is also keen to shake up the NHS — often seen as the sacred cow that evades reform. He is meeting with some 'very high-up NHS people' to discuss what needs to change, having previously suggested he is open to re-examining the funding model. 'The British population are ready for a change of conversation on this,' he said. 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Farage has been careful to distance himself from Tommy Robinson, the right-wing criminal, at the expense of Elon Musk's support. However, he has previously praised the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate and expressed wider concerns that diversity and inclusion policies are discriminating against men. 'I'm not in Andrew Tate's camp, but I see why he's doing well,' he said. He hopes young men will turn to him to give them a voice 'because if I don't, you wait till what comes after me'. He added: 'Those who try to demonise me could be in for a terrible shock once I'm gone. That's why we say we believe that we are the last chance to restore confidence in the democratic system, to change things.' Farage — relatively young compared with the current crop of world leaders — says he is pushing an 'old-fashioned agenda'. 'I think the values thing is underestimated,' he said. 'That sense of safety and security; the sense of knowing where you are. As I came into London in June last year to announce my comeback into this malarkey, I think about the sort of phraseology that came out of that press conference, which we've maintained: family, community, country. I think that resonates quite a lot. 'I think these values are vital and I think if those values break down then we'll risk being in big trouble and there is such a thing as society, there really is.' Farage is a lucky general. He has had four brushes with death, including walking away from a plane crash almost unscathed. 'The biggest single factor in all of our lives is luck,' he said. 'Right now, I feel pretty lucky and that I might just be in the right place at the right time.'
Telegraph
43 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Thousands defy Orban to march in Budapest Pride
Tens of thousands of people attended Budapest's Pride march on Saturday, defying a government ban that marked an unprecedented regression of LGBTQ+ rights in the European Union. Earlier this year, Viktor Orban's ruling coalition amended laws and the constitution to prohibit the annual celebration, justifying his years-long clampdown on LGBTQ+ rights on 'child protection' grounds. Hungarian police formally announced the Pride march ban last week but supporters from Hungary and dozens of other countries resisted and turned up in their thousands. Akos Horvath, an 18-year-old student from a city in southern Hungary, told AFP it was 'of symbolic importance to come', saying: 'It's not just about representing gay people, but about standing up for the rights of the Hungarian people.' Pictures from Budapest showed police officers looking on as rainbow-clad marchers passed by. Mr Orban said Friday that while police would not 'break up' the Pride march, those who took part should be aware of 'legal consequences'. His government warned that anyone attending the march faced fines of about £426 and a criminal record, while organisers were threatened with up to a year in prison. In the run-up to the event, cameras were installed on lamp posts along the planned route. The law permits the use of facial recognition cameras to identify people who attend. Gergely Karacsony, Budapest's liberal mayor, insisted that no attendee could face any reprisals because the march, co-organised by the city hall, was a municipal event and did not require police approval. In an interview, Mr Karacsony said the capital city would stand united, adding: 'The strength and greatness of Budapest lie in its diversity. As Pope Francis once said about the city, unity in Budapest does not mean uniformity, but uniqueness. 'This is the essence of being a Budapester, this is the city's DNA – unity in diversity.' Ministers from several EU countries, and dozens of European lawmakers, also said they would attend in defiance of the ban, reminiscent of those imposed in Moscow in 2006 and Istanbul in 2015. Thirty-three countries also spoke up in support. 'We're not just standing up for ourselves... If this law isn't overturned, eastern Europe could face a wave of similar measures,' Viktoria Radvanyi, a Pride organiser, said. Right-wing groups also said they would be present, organising multiple counter-protests along the planned route of the procession. A woman who gave only her first name, Katalin, told AFP she agreed with the ban though she hoped there would be no clashes. 'Disgusting... it's become a fad to show off ourselves,' she said. The Hungarian prime minister's crackdown on rights has also seen LGBTQ+ people banned from featuring in school educational materials or TV shows for the under-18s. Legal changes have also effectively barred same-sex couples from adopting children and prevented transgender people from changing their name or gender in official documents. Opponents see the restrictions as part of a wider crackdown on democratic freedoms ahead of a general election next year when Mr Orban will face a strong opposition challenger.
Telegraph
43 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Starmer will fail to keep women safe, says murder victim's aunt
Women are not safe in Britain and the Government is unlikely to achieve its goal of halving violence against females, the aunt of Zara Aleena has warned. Speaking on the third anniversary of the murder of the law graduate, Farah Naz said she feared more young women would lose their lives in tragic circumstances because public services, including probation, were broken. Ms Aleena, 35, was sexually assaulted and killed by career criminal Jordan McSweeney as she walked home in Ilford, east London, in June 2022. McSweeney, who had 28 convictions for 69 separate offences, had only been released from jail nine days earlier and was wanted for recall to prison having breached probation following his release. An inquest concluded that failures across multiple agencies had contributed to the death of Ms Aleena, with a coroner telling the Metropolitan Police and the Probation Service to improve their services or risk future deaths. But Ms Naz said while some progress had been made, the statistics on violence against women and girls had barely improved. She said: 'I think we have to tell women that they are not safe. I think we should be making blunt, clear messages to women saying we do have this undercurrent of misogyny. 'We do have a huge amount of women who are stalked, followed, assaulted, murdered in their own homes. 'Between two and three women a week are murdered in the UK. A recent survey found that 40 per cent of women reported being harassed or stalked and a third of women feel unsafe on the streets. 'The reality is you are not safe, we are working on it but I think we have to be honest and if we have a Probation Service that requires the precision of an aeronautical engineer and it is on its knees and everyone knows that it is on its knees then we need to admit that there are going to be people who are falling through holes.' Ms Faz said the Probation Service had been 'absolutely broken' over the last 20 years and now struggled to recruit and retain high-quality staff. She said the recent settlements in the spending review raised questions about whether the Government's manifesto pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade would be achievable. Ms Faz explained: 'I think everyone raised their eyebrows when we heard the commitment. It is the right thing to want but is it a promise you can keep? 'We do need our politicians to be visionaries and inspire us. But there is a danger they have got caught up in their own rhetoric by making such a bold claim and being held to that. And the Treasury is not making the funds available. 'Probation is not a service that operates in isolation, it is dependent on good social housing, it is dependent on an effective mental health system, it is dependent on youth services, an effective education system, it's dependent on a rehabilitation of offenders programme working effectively and it's dependent on prisons working. 'We know that all of those services are stretched. We have such short-term focus.' She added: 'I think the spirit is there, the intention is there but [I don't know] whether there is any money there.' But Ms Faz said as well as requiring investment, tackling violence against women and girls required a cultural shift in society because misogyny was still rife. She said: 'Last week we had the Government announce it was going to ban strangulation in pornography. 'It just beggars belief that it happens in the first place; it says everything really that the Government needs to take action to prevent this sort of thing. It speaks to the levels of misogyny in society. 'Just look at the number of young men who follow Andrew Tate. There are so many alarm signals. How do we shift a culture? These are really big questions.' She said members of the public also had to show more courage to call out misogyny in society, describing how it would be a fitting tribute to her niece. 'Zara was courageous, not just in ambition, but in action. She stood up when others stayed silent. And she was just on the cusp of everything she'd worked for when her life was stolen by preventable systemic failure. 'We as the public need to do more. Justice must be a civic duty, not just a political promise. 'One of the areas I am most interested in is how we move from being bystanders to upstanders. 'I know with the increase in knife crime in Britain people are afraid to step in but there are ways we can step in safely. Just asking if someone is okay. 'Zara was an upstander; she comes from humble beginnings but she was always interested in putting things right and trying to make things fair. 'She would point out what wasn't fair and she would want to fix it. She had a tiny frame but she was courageous enough to stand up to whatever she thought was wrong and unfair and unjust.' A vigil to remember Zara Aleena will be held on Sunday June 29 at 1.30pm at Valentines Park, Ilford.
