Corrupt police sanctioned over Channel migrant smuggling
The suspected criminals behind people smuggling into the UK and Europe will be sanctioned on Wednesday, enabling UK investigators to freeze any assets they have in Britain and those of any individual who supplies them with equipment or helps them financially.
Like Russian oligarchs, they will also be banned from travelling to the UK under the new powers, which will be introduced in Parliament on Tuesday, 24 hours before the two dozen 'linchpins' in the illegal trafficking trade are named.
At least two corrupt police officers are among those to be 'named and shamed' alongside the gangsters heading the people-smuggling networks, suppliers of dinghies, equipment and fake passports and middlemen who facilitate payments through the Hawala network.
The Hawala system enables transfers of funds agreed between operators, or hawaladars, in different countries so no cash crosses borders.
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The Independent
3 minutes ago
- The Independent
Labour must speed up plans to shut all asylum hotels, says party's red wall chief
Labour must shut down all asylum hotels 'a lot quicker' than its current plan to put a stop to them by the end of the current parliament in 2029, the chairman of the party's red wall group of MPs has said. Jo White, the MP for Bassetlaw, who leads a caucus of around 40 MPs in the party's traditional heartlands, said Chancellor Rachel Reeves ' plan to axe the use of asylum hotels by 2029 needed to be sped up. There are currently around 32,000 asylum seekers in hotels around the UK. Anti-migrant demonstrations last week outside one of those hotels, in Epping, led to more than a dozen arrests. The hotel was thrust into the spotlight after a man living there was charged with sexual assault, harassment and inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity. The man, from Ethiopia, has denied the offences and remains on remand in custody. Ms White told The Telegraph: 'There's a commitment to close down the hotels by the end of the parliamentary term. I think we all want it to be a lot, lot quicker than that.' 'There is a huge sense of unfairness because people work hard here in this country and commit to supporting the country and then there's the sense that what asylum hotels cost is a huge drag on what should be invested into our NHS, our schools and our infrastructure. 'So they have to close, we have to get those asylum hotels cleared out.' She added that she believes Labour ministers share her frustrations and went on to urge Sir Keir Starmer to 'stop the incentives' for those seeking to reach the UK illegally. A record 24,000 migrants have crossed the Channel so far this year, the highest tally for the first half of the year since records began in 2018. It represents a 48 per cent rise compared to the first six months of last year. Ms White welcomed home secretary Yvette Cooper 's plan to share asylum‑hotel locations with food‑delivery firms, calling it a sensible measure to crack down on illegal working. She also urged Sir Keir Starmer and Ms Cooper to revisit the idea of national identity cards, a proposal repeatedly ruled out by Downing Street. Reflecting on last week's demonstrations in Epping, however, she described the scenes as 'really frightening and quite scary', adding that while anger is understandable, violence against asylum seekers could not be condoned. It was revealed last week that plans to reduce the number of asylum hotels could see migrants rehoused in vacant residential properties and council‑owned homes. Public concern over the scheme has intensified as Sir Keir has vowed to significantly reduce both legal and illegal migration. At the same time, more than 40,000 failed asylum seekers remain in limbo, having appealed against their decisions and still requiring housing. A government spokesman said that since taking office, ministers had acted immediately to fix the asylum system, closing hotels and removing over 35,000 people with no right to be here.
Times
4 minutes ago
- Times
16-year-olds will soon have the vote. How will they use it?
Sir Keir Starmer may have been named after the founder of the Labour Party but among his predecessors it is Harold Wilson he admires most. Like Starmer, Wilson was both a pragmatist and a progressive, famously declaring that 'he who rejects change is the architect of decay'. It is this shared ethos that explains best why Starmer intends to hand the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds; he is the first prime minister to extend the franchise since Wilson lowered the threshold from 21 to 18 in 1969. Starmer believes it is essential to restoring the 'social contract' with younger generations, whose needs and desires have been ignored by successive governments, and whose faith in democracy is lower than other age groups. He also sees it, fundamentally, as an issue of fairness. 'He's long believed that if you can serve [in the military], pay tax and reach adulthood in that parliament you should have a say,' a No 10 source said. 'Every time the franchise has been widened it has been bitterly opposed. Opponents are on the wrong side of history again this time around.' Similar arguments shaped the thinking of Wilson's administration decades ago, as the Swinging Sixties and the Mod subculture personified by rock bands like the Who gave rise to new ideas about the meaning of adulthood. Starmer's opponents see it differently, noting the trend in recent years has shifted towards raising legal age thresholds, be it getting a tattoo, remaining in full-time education or buying tobacco. Starmer, following in the footsteps of Rishi Sunak, is pushing through a generational ban on cigarettes for anyone born after 2009. Those nicotine-free teenagers are the same people he wants to empower at the next election. The UK is to join a handful of countries that have moved to voting at 16 for national elections, including Austria, Argentina and Brazil. As the veteran Labour commentator John Rentoul recently observed, the challenge for Starmer is 'to explain why voting is different from most other things, not why it is the same'. The fiercest attacks on Starmer come from the right: Nigel Farage has accused Labour of attempting to 'rig the system' and secure re-election on the back of a 'youthquake'. But to focus on this alone is to ignore a movement that first emerged 40 years ago, and which stretches far beyond the confines of Labour politics. In 1985, at a time of surging youth unemployment, drug use and crime, a fresh-faced Liberal Democrat MP sought to seize on the growing clamour for change. Aged 30, Jim Wallace, the member for Orkney & Shetland, put forward a youth charter bill to improve educational and work opportunities and to lower the voting age from 18. He argued young people could bring forward 'fresh ideas' and had put environmental issues on the agenda 'long before they gained political respectability'. Unlike the environmental movement, his bill failed to catch on. Wallace, who went on to lead the Scottish Lib Dems and served as both deputy and acting first minister of Scotland, now says that 'the lot fell on me' because he was the youngest Lib Dem in parliament. Nevertheless, the principle stuck with him and he remains, aged 70, a staunch supporter. While another three private member's bills failed in 1991, 1992 and 1999, the cause continued to rise up the political agenda and became a core policy for the Liberal Democrats. It has been in their manifesto since 1992. The SNP followed suit in 1997. The idea gained popular momentum in the early 2000s as dozens of youth and democracy organisations formed the Votes at 16 Coalition. It was around this time that a young Angela Rayner, a teenage mother who left school at 16, also began advocating to lower the voting age in her role as a Stockport branch secretary at Unison, the trade union. While the Electoral Commission advised against the move, by 2007 Gordon Brown was calling for it as prime minister. The Youth Citizenship Commission was established to try to reconnect Britain's disengaged youth with the political system. Among the new commissioners was Wes Streeting, who was president of the National Union of Students and is now health secretary. As the 2010 election neared, Labour's internal National Policy Forum had given its backing and Streeting, determined the policy should make the manifesto, directly appealed to the man Brown had tasked with writing it. 'The inclusion of votes at 16 in the next manifesto is a litmus test as to how seriously the leadership take the youth movement of the party,' he wrote in a blog post for the LabourList website. 'Ed Miliband: we're watching you.' Miliband delivered: Labour's manifesto promised MPs a free vote on the issue. Brown, however, did not, and the election of David Cameron's Conservatives doused the hopes of a generation of young activists. However, the election did prove Brown right in at least one respect: less than half of the 18 to 24-year-olds registered to vote actually did so. While the Tories had killed off the prospect of UK-wide change, in Scotland the genie was already out of the bottle. At the instigation of Alex Salmond as first minister, 16-year-olds were allowed to vote on Scottish independence at the 2014 referendum. More than 100,000 of them voted and at least half chose independence. Sixteen and 17-year-olds gained the right to vote in Scottish parliamentary and local government elections in 2016, and Wales followed suit in 2020. While low turnout among young voters is frequently raised as a reason not to extend the franchise, Wallace believes Scotland has shown the opposite to be true. 'The turnout of 16 to 17-year-olds was better than the next tranche of 18 to 24-year-olds in 2014,' he noted, citing an analysis by the Electoral Commission, which put the figures at 75 per cent versus 54 per cent. The habit stuck. In 2023 research at the University of Edinburgh found these young Scots had 'continued to turn out [at subsequent elections] in higher numbers, even into their twenties, than young people who attained the right to vote later, at age 18'. Wallace believes this is partly explained by the flurry of educational activity around the Scottish referendum, with 'almost every second school holding a hustings'. He added: 'It confirms something that I have felt for a long time, which is that the reason why people don't vote is they don't know what it's about. I think just the act of going into a polling station is alien to some people. You have to strip away some of the mystique around it.' Similar trends have been found in Austria, where turnout among 16 and 17-year-olds roughly matches other age groups. By the time of the Brexit referendum in 2016, the principle of votes at 16 had become widely accepted in Labour. Miliband and later Jeremy Corbyn were firmly committed to it during their leaderships. After the vote to leave the EU, the argument deployed by Remainers, that 1.5 million ineligible teenagers had been robbed of their future, merely entrenched the belief among senior Europhiles that it was time for change. Many, like Rayner and Streeting, would go on to take seats around Starmer's cabinet table. With the policy now set, the question is whether this new cohort of voters will alter the course of the next election. They number 1.5 million, increasing the size of the franchise by 3 per cent, but large enough to prove decisive in a tight contest. According to an analysis by The Sunday Times, there are 114 constituencies where the size of the incumbent MP's majority is smaller than the number of 16 and 17-year-olds living there: Increasingly, age, rather than class or gender, is proving the key social divide in Britain — and it is certainly true that under Corbyn, these younger voters flocked to Labour in 2017. But those assumptions can no longer be made. Labour's majority is increasingly under threat from progressive parties such as the Greens, Lib Dems and Corbyn's new, as yet unnamed alternative. It is no longer a given that the youth votes left, if recent European elections are anything to go by. When Germany gave 16-year-olds the vote before last year's European parliament elections, the populist left and right increased their vote. Sixteen per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds voted for the hard-right AfD. There was a similar pattern in France, where 31 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds backed the left-wing France Unbowed at last year's European election and 26 per cent backed Marine Le Pen's hard-right National Rally. President Macron's Renaissance party got 8 per cent. Here in Britain, Reform has made a concerted effort to win over millennials and Gen Z. Farage's presence on TikTok, where these voters increasingly get their news, far surpasses his Labour and Tory rivals. In Warwickshire, where Reform won the largest number of seats in May's local elections, George Finch, a 19-year-old politics student at Leicester University, is now the leader of the county council. Reform holds a commanding lead in all-age opinion polls, but surveys by the think tank More in Common consistently show younger voters are still more drawn to Labour and the Greens. This is true even among young men, although they are voting for the populist right in unprecedented numbers. There are also signs that, despite Scotland's success, apathy among the young remains high. In a recent poll by Merlin Strategy, 49 per cent of 16 and 17-year-olds said they did not want the vote before 18. Only 18 per cent were sure they would vote if there were an election tomorrow. • Daniel Finkelstein: Opposing votes at 16 would cost Tories dear With so many variables, the change seems likely to have a negligible impact. According to Wendy Chamberlain, a Lib Dem MP who previously co-chaired the Votes at 16 all-party parliamentary group, the only certainty in politics now is 'the volatility of the electorate, regardless of their age or other social demographics'. The bigger problem for Starmer is the perception of other voters. More in Common's polling found 70 per cent shared Farage's view that Labour was seeking electoral advantage, and votes at 16 were opposed by 48 per cent to 27 per cent. Luke Tryl, the think tank's director, says the issue ranks well below the public's top priorities. For Wallace, these are challenges not to resile from but to confront head-on. 'It's a reason to get your argument across to young people, to try and win their vote,' he said. 'Whether it's higher education, better training and apprenticeships, the environment, young people are right to be demanding more.' Additional reporting by Dominic Hauschild
Telegraph
4 minutes ago
- Telegraph
European leaders are disrupting Trump's golfing holiday at their peril
When president Donald Trump stepped off Air Force One on to Scottish soil, he had one thing on his mind. 'There's no place like Turnberry,' he told his travelling press pool beneath the wing of his presidential jet. His Ayrshire golf course, he continued, was 'the best … probably the best course in the world'. Minutes later, he climbed into the Beast – his armoured limousine - to travel 35 minutes along country lanes and through Scottish villages, lined with supporters, protesters, and the merely curious, to Turnberry. Mr Trump may be determined to have a break, but European leaders have other ideas. Willingly or otherwise, Mr Trump faces a string of meetings in the coming days as the Continent's power brokers sit down with the unpredictable president. For now, though, he is secure inside a ring of steel. The historic course, home to some of the most exciting Opens in history, has been locked down. It now sits inside an eight-foot fence, its fairways dotted with burly men in dark suits and earpieces. Snipers watch over the course from a watch tower. Police officers – some on quad bikes – patrol the famous course and the dunes that flank it. Mr Trump arrived with his golf clubs for four days at his two Scottish courses but without some of the trappings of a travelling American president. He travelled with a stripped-down retinue of aides. There was no chief of staff, director of communications, secretary of state or other cabinet ministers, who might be expected on an important foreign trip. His public weekend schedule showed no planned events. Instead, it was a chance to spend time at his golf course with his sons Eric, who manages the family businesses, and Don Jr. Officials insisted that this was a 'working trip' including a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday, although they were vague on agenda items. Yet all that changed shortly before Mr Trump flew out of Washington, when Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, announced on X that she would be meeting Mr Trump on Sunday as she closes in on a trade deal: Following a good call with @POTUS, we have agreed to meet in Scotland on Sunday to discuss transatlantic trade relations, and how we can keep them strong. — Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 25, 2025 EU members have drawn up a retaliatory hit list. The plan is to impose 30pc tariffs on bourbon whisky, yachts, soybeans and other American products if a deal cannot be reached by August 1 to lift US levies. Mrs von der Leyen had better tread carefully. A diplomat who has prepared ministers for meetings with Mr Trump said she was playing a high-risk game. 'Very dangerous,' they said. Mr Trump's chat with reporters at Glasgow Prestwick Airport showed a president relaxed and looking forward to four days of golf, but one who was quick to bristle when it came to policy and politics. Mr Trump left Washington bugged by the drip, drip, drip of headlines about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, the billionaire paedophile who took his own life in a jail cell six years ago. He flashed irritation and lobbed sharp words at reporters who asked him how much he knew about the case on Friday, but relaxed as soon as he could talk about the love of his life: golf and the course at Turnberry. 'Sean Connery helped get me the permits,' he claimed after landing. 'If it weren't for Sean Connery, we wouldn't have those great courses.' There is a lesson for European leaders looking to muscle in on his tee times with their trade demands or for John Swinney, the Scottish First Minister, who is likely to tell Mr Trump that his tariffs are hurting the Scotch whisky industry. When the chat with reporters turned from golf to more substantial matters, he said he had a simple message for Europe. 'On immigration, you better get your act together,' he said in another flash of passion. 'You're not going to have Europe anymore... This immigration is killing Europe.' Anyone meeting with Mr Trump will remember the lessons of Volodymyr Zelensky's Oval Office row. The Ukrainian president was roundly chastised by Mr Trump and his vice president for daring to push back on the US position. And by hosting leaders at his Turnberry and Aberdeenshire courses, Mr Trump retains home advantage even while on foreign soil. Sir Keir may have got the memo. Mr Trump billed their meeting as little more than a chance to celebrate their recent trade deal. Although the Prime Minister does run the risk of upsetting Mr Trump over plans to raise the plight of civilians in Gaza, British officials played down the chances of any major diplomatic announcements. 'It's not like other meetings where we would go in with deliverables we planned to announce,' he said. On Saturday, all that was far from Mr Trump's mind. He spent the day golfing with son Eric, and his ambassador to London. The sound of Billy Joel's 'Uptown Girl' and 'Memories' from the musical Cats drifted out from the dunes on Saturday morning as Mr Trump's motorcade of golf buggies arrived at the fourth hole. Photographers huddled on a mound in the dunes, hoping to get a shot of the president on the course. Mr Trump, wearing a white USA cap and dressed in black, waved at the mound before teeing off in the direction of Turnberry lighthouse. Cheers from his baseball-cap-wearing entourage could be heard above the din of the speakers as the group wasted little time in rattling off their drives. A photographer camped in the dunes with a long lens later claimed to have witnessed the president cheat on the third fairway. He said Mr Trump had been handed a ball by a caddy, which he then dropped to the floor and pushed forward a little with an iron before taking a swing. The golf course has been surrounded by an eight-foot-high metal fence, while dozens of officers patrolled the entrances to the beach from Turnberry all the way down to Maidens, the next town along the coast. A temporary watchtower had been erected to monitor the Turnberry perimeter with a sniper rifle trained on the course below. A drone scanned from above, and police boats patrolled the coastal waters. Asked whether there would be a repeat of protesters taking to the beach in front of the golf club, an officer said the incident in 2018 had likely convinced the authorities to close off the entire beach to the public. Fears that the visit would be a magnet for protesters appeared unfounded. Matt Halliday, from Stranraer, said he had been driving around for two hours trying and failing to find protests to join. He said Mr Trump had 'stamped all over Scotland' with his grand golf resort plans, strong-arming local farmers and 'bullying' the council over wind farm plans. One of his signs bore a picture of the president with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. 'I think it is going to bring him down,' he said. However, supporters were easier to find than protesters. Two wearing red 'Make England Great Again' hats arrived shortly after the president had disappeared over the crest of a dune. 'We love Trump,' said Kay English, 37, wearing a face mask sporting the president's face. Tom English, a 38-year-old driver, said the pair had driven up from Liverpool last night to catch a glimpse of the president. 'We support Maga, Trump and what he is doing,' he told reporters, adding: 'I like the way he is, the way he speaks. It is comedy gold. 'He is putting the people first. He is trying to help the whole world to make peace - he is the president of peace.' Mr English said he would return on Sunday and hopefully get within 'shouting distance' to offer words of encouragement to the president and cheer on his cost-cutting Doge unit. He added: 'We love Doge, we are trying to get that here through Reform. There is so much being wasted.' Mr Trump has long blurred the line between family, business and public life. But any world leader intruding on his golfing getaway had better be ready for a possible sharp response.
