Home Office figures show number of asylum seekers waiting for initial decision up in June despite clampdown

The UK’s asylum backlog has crept upwards in 2024, statistics show, despite pledges by the last government to drive numbers down.

Home Office figures show 118,882 people were waiting for an initial decision on asylum applications in the UK at the end of June, up slightly from the 118,329 waiting at the end of March.

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Labour has a rare opportunity to engage the public with a more honest account of the trade-offs involved in a balanced migration policy

There is always more continuity in regime change than incoming ministers or their ousted predecessors admit. Much of any government’s agenda is dictated by the need to keep the state functioning from one day to the next, and that is less ideological than election campaigns make it seem. This is true even with an issue as fissile as immigration. On Wednesday, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, confirmed that the government would press ahead with Conservative plans, first announced in 2022, to reopen two defunct immigration detention centres.

Ms Cooper said new capacity was required as part of a plan to accelerate the forced removal of thousands of migrants without entitlement to be in the UK. In addition, she announced the recruitment of 100 new intelligence officers to target people-smuggling gangs. This is intended to disrupt the traffic of small boats in the Channel that was the focus of the last government’s expensive, vindictive and ineffective Rwanda deportation scheme. That has rightly been scrapped.

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July figures come amid row between Labour and Conservatives over true state of public finances

Strong spending on public services and welfare pushed government borrowing to £3.1bn last month, more than double its level in the same month a year earlier and worse than experts had expected.

Fuelling the row between Labour and the Conservatives over the health of the public finances, the deficit was the highest for a July in three years and £3bn higher than expected by the government’s spending watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility.

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Lord Timpson says government ‘forced into making difficult but necessary decisions’ to ease overcrowding

Suella Braverman is the latest senior Tory to be cashing in on the international speaking circuit, as it was revealed she was paid nearly £60,000 for making speeches around the world, the highest of any current MP.

The former home secretary received £25,000 to speak in South Korea in May, according to the first register of MPs’ financial interests of this parliament, and she received £20,000 for another speaking engagement in India in March.

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Register of MPs’ financial interests show former home secretary is highest earner for speeches this parliament

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Suella Braverman is the latest senior Tory to be cashing in on the international speaking circuit, as it was revealed she was paid nearly £60,000 for making speeches around the world, the highest of any current MP.

The former home secretary received £25,000 to speak in South Korea in May, according to the first register of MPs’ financial interests of this parliament, and she received £20,000 for another speaking engagement in India in March.

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The violence exposed racist, anti-immigration narratives based on lies. Yet there has been a gaping hole where the counter-argument should be

Far-right thuggery. Marauding mobs. The prime minister’s descriptions of those who brought one of the worst episodes of violence on to the country’s streets captured their actions, but not their motivations or origins. Where did the rioters come from? Why now? Why are they attacking those they are attacking? If many people in this country are now, in Keir Starmer’s words feeling “targeted because of the colour of your skin, or your faith”, how does such a colossal violation come about, and how will it be addressed? The only answers we have been given treat the problem as one of security, of a troublesome minority who “do not represent” the country, and which will be stamped out by a heavy security response and prison sentences. A freak event triggered by the Southport stabbings . And that’s that.

But it will not be that. Because that minority reflects, and draws on, decades of racism, Islamophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric and policy broadcast by parts of the rightwing media, the Conservative party and the Labour party itself. Those years will not be swept aside by a policing crackdown. And their legacy will not, more importantly, be dismantled without its narratives being taken on and confronted.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

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Former minister said Conservatives had ‘deserved’ to lose power and that he had not been shocked to lose his seat

Jacob Rees-Mogg has said he is “very strongly” considering standing at the next general election after losing his seat to Labour.

The former Tory cabinet minister told an audience at the Edinburgh fringe festival that the Conservatives had “deserved” to lose the recent election, and that he was not shocked after losing his North East Somerset and Hanham seat to the former mayor of the West of England Dan Norris by more than 5,000 votes. Rees-Mogg had won it from Norris in 2010.

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The economist behind the Covid furlough scheme has called for ‘unfair’ council tax and stamp duty to be axed

Council tax and stamp duty are “unfair and unpopular” taxes that should be abolished, says the economist who devised the Covid furlough scheme.

Tim Leunig, who has advised a series of cabinet ministers, including Rishi Sunak during his prime ministership, said it was time for a new and radical approach that would axe the two taxes and replace them with proportional levies.

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Meghan Gallacher says allegations about Ross’s actions in leadership contest pose risk to party’s reputation

One of the candidates standing to replace Douglas Ross as leader of the Scottish Conservatives has resigned as the party’s deputy because of “deeply troubling” allegations about Ross’s conduct over the leadership contest.

The Telegraph on Thursday reported that senior party figures alleged Ross had planned to quit as leader a year ago and install as his successor the current favourite to replace him, Russell Findlay.

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