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In a very practical sense this Labour Government has gone further in terms of its anti-immigration policies and rhetoric than almost any other government in decades.

Of course this is not to ignore the performative cruelty of the previous Conservative Government's policies, such as removing people to Rwanda or placing people seeking asylum on the Bibby Stockholm.

Indeed, one of the first actions of this Government was to cancel the Rwanda plan, and that is indeed to be lauded, but since then they have pushed for, and built on, a far harsher immigration system, both for those here via regular routes and those who have entered via irregular means.

This week's immigration White Paper is emblematic of a Government which sees migrants as disposable. That is setting aside any debate about the language used in the Prime Minister's speech to announce it. Even the Conservatives never proposed such radical, and draconian measures on the lives of people living in this country.

Keir Starmer's Reform-Lite Strategy Has Left Him Marooned on an Island of Strangers

New polling finds a collapse in support for the Prime Minister among Labour voters, as he pursues a strategy that is also failing to win over supporters of Reform, reports Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov

The shift from five years to ten years to receive indefinite leave to remain alone is guaranteed to force more people into destitution. People who have built lives and families here are now being told that they must wait a further five years than expected, with costs which can spiral into the tens of thousands of pounds.

Labour's proposed Border, Security and Asylum Bill builds on, and expands, the criminalisation of those seeking asylum. While it does remove some previous policy items, including the Rwanda Safety Act, it does not make mention of ensuring that those who have been trafficked into the UK can receive protection, a right effectively removed for many in the Illegal Migration Act.

Through its proposals, which go further in areas than previous pieces of legislation, the bill could realistically open the door for almost anyone arriving via small boat to be convicted of a criminal offence and imprisoned.

Changing the "good character" clause for obtaining citizenship to any refugee, having had their application for asylum and waiting five years, risks undermining, and violating, key principles of international refugee law. It would act as a penalty based on manner of entry, violating Article 31 of the Refugee Convention, and Article 34, which confirms that States should "as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees." These will be matters decided in the courts, as many Conservative policies were, but the principle of denying citizenship still remains a step further than has previously been made.

Plans for "return hubs" in third countries would not mimic the Rwanda plan, as the individuals sent there would have already had a claim for asylum refused, but they would, nonetheless, leave people stranded in a strange country, at vast expense to the taxpayer, with no realistic hope of ever being able to put down routes and settle. A similar, albeit not exactly the same policy between Italy and Albania was found to be unlawful, yet, knowing this, the Government still pushes onwards with it.

In filming deportations this government also echoes the actions of Donald Trump's administration in the United States, turning people's misery and pain into a spectator sport to appease a minority of people.

This Government did not set the foundations for all of the anti-immigration attitudes and policies we...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

Maria Eagle has been criticised for delivering a speech supporting Israel as other world leaders this week spoke out vehemently against the country and as court proceeding began against the UK Government for exporting fighter jet parts to the state.

Labour's Minister of State for Defence Procurement and Industry spoke at a private event hosted at the British Museum on Wednesday for Israel Independence Day and was filmed saying the UK "stood with Israel, with the RAF conducting surveillance flights over the Eastern Mediterranean".

The RAF's flights over Palestinian territory have faced significant scrutiny. The charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) published a report in March that found that 518 RAF surveillance flights over the occupied Palestinian territories took place between 3 December 2023 and 27 March 2025.

David Lammy Accused of Misleading Parliament as New Report Reveals Huge Scale of Continued UK Arms Shipments to Israel

Thousands of items categorised as "munitions of war" continued to be sent to Israel after Keir Starmer's Government suspended a series of arms licenses to the country

Olly Haynes

The flights took place from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus using Shadow R1 aircraft which has "target acquisition" capacities according to the RAF. The RAF ran 24 flights in the two weeks before Israel's attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp which killed 274 Palestinians and injured 700.

The UK Government has refused to disclose details about the flights, including whether intelligence has been passed to Israel for targeting purposes.

Energy Embargo for Palestine, who protested outside the Independence Day event, said Eagle's "acceptance of an invitation and speech at an Israeli embassy event reflects a horrifying link between a UK Government Minister responsible for exporting arms to a state committing genocide".

The group added: "British RAF surveillance flights over Gaza have provided crucial intelligence for Israel to enact its brutal genocide on Palestinians. Maria Eagle's proud celebration of these flights demonstrates her allegiance to a jingoistic nationalism premised upon strengthening Britain's military industrial complex and collusion with a state enacting genocide. Maria Eagle is the minister of Defence Procurement and Industry - effectively, she is the buyer and seller of arms for the British state. Her speech comes on the same day the UK Government was brought to court by GLAN and Al-Haq for its export of F-35 jet parts to Israel."

Proceedings against the UK Government began in the High Court this week over the export of parts of the F-35 fighter jet to Israel. The Guardian reported that the position of the UK Government's lawyers is to argue that the exports are more important than stopping genocide.

Eagle's statement raises further questions - posed by the AOAV report - as to whether or not information gathered on those RAF surveillance flights was shared with Israel, and whether it contributed to war crimes and civilian casualties.

Ten Britons Accused of Committing War Crimes In Gaza While Serving in the IDF

The British nationals are accused of murder, extermination, attacking civilians, and the forcible transfer of people

Olly Haynes

Eagle's statement of support for Israel, in which she also stated that "we want to see the humanitarian situation improve, what we hope for and are working for is a deal which brings a stop to the fighting, enables the release of all hostages, gets the aid flowing and establishes a credible and irreversible path to peace" comes as several other Western states took aim at Israel.

Yesterday, Pedro Sanchez, Spain's centre-left ...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

While France marked Victory Day on 8 May, Europe Day on 9 May, and the National Memorial Day for Slavery and Its Abolitions on 10 May, two types of activists were getting ready to march: one made up of neo-Nazis, the other of anti-fascists.

The former are members of C9M, or Comité du 9 Mai, who regularly demonstrate with racist slogans in Paris and other French cities. Established in 1994, it commemorates Sébastien Deyzieu, a militant from the now-dissolved ultra-nationalist group L'Œuvre française, who died during a police pursuit.

The latter wants to denounce the growing action from these fascists, like the collective Marche sur les Fachos. "The C9M has become a barometer of the resurgence of the ultra-right," they wrote in their call to march last week. "Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of participants in the march has only increased."

Repression

Last minute, on the evening of 9 May, French authorities decided to ban the anti-fascist march, while the C9M march went ahead.

Volunteers had worked for weeks to prepare and advertise the anti-fascist march, only to be forced to change location and downsize it to a static meeting at Montparnasse.

"With other activists, we produced platforms on social media," one volunteer told Byline Times, remaining anonymous as the movement has no hierarchy. "We held meetings, called for a march, wrote a press release…" Some clashed with members of C9M or with the police.

Members of anti-fascist groups are convinced that inaction or silence in the face of fascist groups is the worst response, but they face increasing repression.

Jeune Garde (young antifascist guard) and Urgence Palestine are, for instance, under attack by the Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, who wants to dissolve them.

Founded by the elected MP Raphaël Arnault, it has managed to get far-right and neo-Nazi groups to disband in cities like Lyon and Lille. The collective named Action Antifasciste Paris Vanlieue also saw many of its marches banned, notably in 2024.

For Eric Fassin, a sociologist teaching at University Paris 8-Saint-Denis, who published two books on the matter in 2024 - State Anti-Intellectualism and the Politics of Gender & Race and Misère de l'anti-intellectualisme - it is a worrying trend that fuels the far right.

"We've seen more generally the demonisation of the left, which is the counterpoint to the de-demonisation of the far right," he told Byline Times.

It is something that has been the strategy of the US for a long time, but it has also become the strategy of Macron's government, of Macron himself and of his party. They argue that the left is the real danger to democracy

Eric Fassin, sociologist

Colonial Undertone

For the anti-fascist groups, it is not acceptable that fascists demonstrate so close to Victory day, or to celebrate the victory against nazism without recognising the role of the colonial soldiers and the crimes committed by French authorities at the time.

May 8 marks the 80th anniversary of Victory Day in Europe, but in Algeria it commemorates the massacres in Setif, Guelma and Kherrata - on the same day in 1945 - where the French army fired on indigenous Muslim soldiers, demonstrating to demand their war pension as a retribution of their effort in the fight with the French Liberation Army led by Charles de Gaulle from central Africa then London. Evidence-based assessments estimate that up to 45,000 might have been killed and wounded on that day in French Algeria, including children and mothers bombed in their homes.

How a 'Populist' Media Has Mainstreamed the Far Right

Right-wing daily papers in the UK do not represent 'pu...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

You can tell who Keir Starmer's current strategy on immigration is supposed to please by the news organisations his team have hand-picked to talk to about it.

On his visit to Albania this week, which was set up to announce his new policy of deporting failed asylum seekers to offshore "returns hubs", Starmer's team invited just one broadcast outlet - the vehemently anti-migrant GB News.

In his interview with the channel, which a recent study found to have an "obsession" with broadcasting "overwhelmingly negative" stories about Muslims, Starmer repeated his claim that Britain risks being turned into an "island of strangers" by immigration.

Other outlets given preferential access by the PM this week included The Sun, whose political editor went on to laud Starmer's latest plans as being "all good stuff - if Labour can get it through the legion of woke types and hand-wringers on their own backbenches."

Nigel Farage Is Killing the Conservative Party and Starmer Must Change Course to Avoid the Same Fate

Telling voters that the Reform leader is right, but they shouldn't vote for him anyway, is no more likely to work for Labour than it has for the Conservatives, argues Adam Bienkov

Adam Bienkov

So how is Starmer's 'Blue Labour' plan to win back right-leaning voters by talking "tough" on immigration going? Well not very well according to new polling by YouGov published today, which finds that Starmer's ratings are continuing to fall dramatically.

According to the poll, Starmer's net favourability is down among voters of almost all parties, including current Reform voters, who the Government's current strategy is apparently designed to win over.

However, while Starmer's ratings are down just five points from last month among Reform voters, they are down a whopping 34 points among those still clinging onto their vote for Labour.

So not only is Starmer's current strategy failing to win over the very voters we are told he is now most concerned with appealing to, but it also appears to be absolutely haemorrhaging support among those just about staying loyal to the party.

And it's not just the electorate which is failing to respond in the way Starmer's strategists hoped that they would, but the very news organisations they are now giving preferential access to.

GB News, which was also handed an exclusive interview with the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper this week by Government spinners, continues to broadcast almost universally negative coverage about Starmer and his Government.

And while The Sun did offer limited support for Starmer's rightward turn on migration, it has also devoted most of its political coverage this week to an incredibly misleading story falsely suggesting that David Lammy had somehow "dodged" a taxi fare, when in fact his fare had been paid in full to a taxi driver who had tried to scam the Foreign Secretary out of hundreds of pounds, before being charged with theft.

Other right-wing papers have become even more hostile against Starmer, with the Daily Mail running an unbroken series of front page attacks on the Government's new migration policies this week.

Meanwhile those news organisations who might otherwise be inclined to support a centre left Government, like the Guardian, have continued to run stories lambasting the Prime Minister's rightward turn on migration, contributing to growing unease and anger among many Labour MPs, who are becoming increasingly alarmed by the Government's current political direction.

The result is that it has become very hard to find any prominent non-party voices still standing up for this Government. While previous electorally ...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

The UK Government is failing to tackle rising cases of violence against women and girls despite spending £1 billion over the last three years to tackle the problem, a report by an influential committee of MPs warns today.

It says that a lack of co-ordination among Whitehall departments, a failure to understand the nature of the violence and a wrong belief that local councils and charities have the resources to tackle the issue are all contributing to a failure to address the issue. This has been coupled with a huge growth in online harm and misogyny by young men and boys, triggered by hate influencers.

The Public Accounts Committee found that refuges are now having to refuse 65% of requests and community-based services are only able to support half of those who ask for help. The rise in demand is being compounded by the increasing complexity of the cases that services are dealing with, with almost half of those in refuges now presenting with mental health problems.

Anna Dixon, Labour MP for Shipley and a member of the PAC, said: "The levels of violence against women and girls in our country are truly appalling and it is right the Government have set out a mission to halve it. Success will require urgent and coordinated action across departments to ensure victims and survivors can be confident that they will receive the support they need, get swift justice, and preventative action is taken.

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Starmer had pledged to end the "outrageous way government departments refuse freedom of information requests".

Iain Overton

"This is not an issue the Home Office can tackle alone; while arresting perpetrators is vital, it will not solve this problem. It is crucial that we address the underlying cultural issues, particularly the rise in harmful online content shaping misogynistic views in young men and boys. Education and other preventative measures to counter the spread of harmful content are needed.

"Tackling the housing crisis will also be vital if government is to achieve its aim of halving violence against women and girls. During our inquiry, we heard that there are only two wheelchair accessible refuges nationally. This is completely unacceptable. Women should not be forced to remain in unsafe, potentially life-threatening situations because of a lack of suitable accommodation. "

Nearly 80 organisations and academics submitted evidence to MPs calling for action to tackle the issue. While money was available for support, a lot of the cash was short term funding which meant communities could not make long term plans to deal with the issue.

MPs found ignorance at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government who believed that local communities had enough money and resources to tackle the problem. This was confirmed by the Local Government Association.

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Cllr Tom Hunt, Vice-Chair of the LGA Safer and Stronger Communities Board, said: "The sad truth is that financial pressures have impacted councils' ability to provide these services as quickly and effectively as is needed. Local government needs long-term and stable financial approach to be able t...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

There is a rot at the heart of Britain's military mythology. For years, politicians and generals have draped the Special Air Service (SAS) and its kindred regiments in the teflon cloaks of honour, sacrifice and secrecy. But myths have a habit of unravelling and this one is fast doing so. And what has emerged, as revealed by a years-long BBC Panorama investigation and parallel work by my charity Action on Armed Violence (AOAV), is not the heroic professionalism of elite warriors. It's something far darker.

It's the body of a child, handcuffed and shot in the head.

It's the tally kept of kills by men who seem to have relished bloodshed.

It's the planted weapons, the falsified reports, the footage never watched, the servers wiped clean.

It is, bluntly, murder. And done in our names.

'F**k Trump': Kyiv Faces the Darkest Hour

Chris York explores the mood in the capital as Ukrainians try to make sense of the US President's support for the Kremlin

Chris York

For those of us who have spent years documenting the civilian costs of the war on Terror, these most recent allegations - in Panorama's exceptional film 'Special Forces: I saw war crimes' - confirm what many long suspected. That Britain's Special Forces almost certainly conducted a campaign of extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan with impunity. And that a military judicial system built to restrain them catastrophically failed. Worse, it may have even have helped cover their tracks.

This is not the misconduct of a few "bad apples". This is not battlefield confusion. The testimonies aired by Panorama - drawn from interview with more than 30 former soldiers, intelligence officers, and insiders - reveals systematic wrongdoing. Operations where "everyone knew what was going on", attacks where detainees were executed, raid where children were murdered, and missions where those acts were recorded, not for accountability, but seemingly as trophies.

The most shocking revelation may not be the killings themselves. It is just how many people knew. Knew, and stayed silent. Or worse - knew and enabled.

Commanding officers. Legal advisors. Ministers. Even, allegedly, a former Prime Minister.

They were warned. And yet they did nothing.

Instead, what emerges is a choreography of concealment.

Legal manoeuvring to block inquiries, manipulation of official language to stay within the "rules of engagement", refusals to hand over evidence, and the deeply troubling revelation that Special Forces were granted a secret veto over the UK asylum claims of Afghan soldiers - men who had witnessed these killings first-hand.

This veto, in particular, reveals a moral depravity at odds with Britain's self-image as a nation of law and order. As a nation that 'exported' democracy to Afghanistan.

The suggestion that some of the "Triples" - Afghan special forces who fought and bled alongside British troops - were left behind to be tortured or killed by the Taliban, not because they were a security risk, but because they were witnesses, should be a wound in the national psyche. It should haunt every official who signed those rejections. It should haunt the Ministry of Defence.

MoD Blocks National Audit Office Report Amid Calls for Transparency Over Defence Spending

'This is a truly appalling decision from a department which for decades has been notorious for its careless and wasteful attitude towards taxpayers' money'

Edward Lander and Iain Overton

These are not mere allegations of misconduct. These are detailed allegations of war crimes. That phrase has weight and with it carries a legal threshold. The killing of wounded detainees; the execution of unar...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

In warm spring evening sunshine in the centre of Leipzig a group of mostly young activists are trying to garner support for a petition. Large, glossy and clearly professionally printed posters call for an end to "the war against Russia".

The activists are largely ignored by the shoppers and commuters making their way to the entrance of the nearby station. The only interaction I witness involves a young man who stops to say the best way of ending the conflict would be for Vladimir Putin to just withdraw from Ukraine.

Germany's artistic institutions have distanced themselves from Russia in the immediate aftermath of Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Valery Gergiev, for (and as an) example, was sacked as the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra's chief conductor when he refused to condemn the attack. He had held the post for seven years.

But there has nevertheless been an appetite to explore Russian works in the light of the country's current leadership and actions, something that perhaps has reached a peak in Leipzig with the staging of Tchaikovsky's Dame Pique (Queen of Spades), quickly followed by a full-on Shostakovich season across the city's Augustus Square at the Gewandhaus concert hall.

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Peter Jukes

Loosely based on an 1834 story by Pushkin, Tchaikovsky's opera was first performed in 1890, but it has been brought bang up-to-date in a new production that premiered in Leipzig on 10th May 2025.

All the soldier characters are in modern Russian army uniforms, and the set was clearly designed to evoke a Ukrainian battlefield of Beckett-like bleakness sometimes contrasted or combined with grand aristocratic interiors.

The plot involves gambling, an obsessive and destructive love affair, insanity, and revenge. It is safe to say there are no winners. The second act concludes with praises being sung to an autocratic Russian ruler while bodies are thrown into a pit. Here, the ruler was Catherine the Great, but the Putin parallel is clear.

The new production features sex, murder, domestic violence, drug-taking and drunkenness, and it is hard not to see it as an unflinching and brutal criticism of Russian aggression and society.

At the work's conclusion the characters - by this time reduced to zombie-like grotesques - are all absorbed into the mud of the battlefield.

Elsewhere in Leipzig the Gewandhaus' Shostakovich season is also timely, and not just because it marks the 50th anniversary of the composer's death.

Shostakovich's relationship with Russian authoritarianism defined his career. The season includes performances of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, an opera that was disliked by Stalin and condemned by the Soviet newspaper Pravda as "muddle instead of music". Performances were banned for 25 years, until long after Stalin's death.

Shostakovich was also a wartime composer - a native of Leningrad, his seventh symphony was written while that city endured its epic siege during the Second World War, and his eighth explores the deep despair and suffering brought by war and dictatorship. In the current era of state-sponsored murder and repression Shostakovich's humane voice sounds loud and clear.

So, there is more to these events than just a desire to mark an anniversary or revive old works. Germany's political and cultural consensus against Putin and his allies seems to be solidifying.

It is true that on the extremes of...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

The BBC must be "mutualised" in order to end its "pro-establishment bias" a new report has found.

The Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is currently exploring "mutualising" the BBC in order to make it democratically accountable to the public.

Under the plan the corporation would become effectively owned and held accountable by its license fee payers.

A new report, which is published by the thinktank Common Wealth and the Media Reform Coalition, calls for the BBC to be mutualised from 2027 when the government is required to renew the corporation's Royal Charter, in order to end what it describes as its "pro-establishment bias" arguing that "BBC news reporting is driven by the statements and actions of leading politicians, state officials, and sources from business and finance.

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Patrick Howse

As a result, the BBC presents a narrow range of, and exhibits a lack of balance, on important political issues" the report states.

The report states that the BBC's reporting "has reflected the interests of the UK state, rather than assuming an impartial position" on issues like Israel's genocide in Gaza, as well as a general orientation of political coverage towards Westminster rather than the effects of decisions on the country as a whole.

The report suggests that this bias stems partly from the BBC's funding model leaving it unwilling to challenge the Government, on which it ultimately relies for financial security.

They argue "In its current form the BBC has been unable or unwilling to address the often-contradictory claims of its critics and to assess their relative merits. The organisation that emerges under the new Charter must be able to do so, and in a manner that secures the respect of those who fund it".

The authors of the report argue that mutualisation is the necessary remedy for a BBC struggling with accusations of bias, declining public trust, and competition in an international market of streaming services.

The report proposes that citizens become "members" of a mutually owned BBC with democratic input into how the BBC operates.

This, the authors argue, would operate through "members panels", which would be advisory bodies made up of members of the public who would counsel parts of the BBC on what the public wants from their broadcaster.

How a 'Populist' Media Has Mainstreamed the Far Right

Right-wing daily papers in the UK do not represent 'public opinion' - they simply reflect the radical right views of those 'who own and run them', argues Julian Petley

Julian Petley

Under Common Wealth's proposals, every BBC member would have the right to allocate a share of the BBC's budget to support independent public interest content.

While the report does not endorse any particular funding model for the BBC, the authors argue that a mutual BBC must adhere to its founding principles of universality, so that it responds to the concerns of all those who fund it, including by taking into account individual's ability to pay, as well as independence so that the BBC is not responsive to political interference and is instead accountable to the public.

Thomas Chivers, one of the authors of the report told Byline Times "With far-right politicians and Big Tech billionaires threatening to tear up our national institutions, we need genuinely democratic media that's owned, controlled by and accountable to the public.

"Mutualising the BBC will restore the BBC's place as a vital public s...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

What matters most to a politician - is it to win office and stay there, or what you actually do when you get there?

I found myself asking that question as I observed British Prime Minister Keir Starmer apparently abandon his previous views on immigration, in order to try to fend off the perceived political threat from Nigel Farage and Reform.

The man who five years ago argued that "poor housing, poor public services are not the fault of the migrants, they're political failures" is now blaming migrants for pressure on housing and public services.

The man who in June last year decried Reform party campaigners for using racist language about migrants, is now himself using blatantly divisive rhetoric to announce a new clampdown on immigration to the UK, or risk the country turning into "an island of strangers".

The man who upon taking office last summer promised to rebuild trust in British politics, now shows that he is not to be trusted either, as he wilfully misrepresents the previous Conservative Government's policy on immigration as being a "one nation experiment in open borders." There are many reasons to deplore the Conservative party's approach to immigration, including its botched Rwanda scheme, and threats to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights, but the one thing it cannot be accused of is operating a deliberate "open border" policy.

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Neal Lawson

The man who has repeatedly declared that "growth is his number one priority", has now announced a series of restrictive immigration measures which will almost certainly harm Britain's economy, by making it far less attractive and harder for talented students and skilled workers to study and live in the UK, and cutting off access to much needed overseas labour for critical sectors of the economy, such as care homes.

Starmer may claim that these policies are designed to support British workers, by stopping so many jobs going to foreigners, and instead training up British workers to do them, at a higher salary. But in cases such as the social care sector, businesses simply may not be able to survive without a ready source of overseas labour. Or, they will be forced to raise their prices so high that their services become unaffordable for many users.

Moreover, the logic is upside down, since the area where Starmer is proposing to restrict immigration the most is in the low skilled sector, while he is proposing to keep open access to the UK for the highest skilled immigrants. The consequence is British workers being encouraged to take on lower paying jobs, while foreigners are still allowed in to take the highest paying jobs.

This also goes against the tradition of successful immigration in other countries, such as the US, where low skilled immigrants take the menial jobs which locals don't want to do, and gradually work their way up into the middle class, integrating culturally in the process.

Even as a naked political ploy to win votes on the right of the electorate, Starmer's strategy will fail, as the measures announced today do nothing to tackle the real source of public concern about immigration, which is the number of immigrants arriving by boats across the British Channel. It will do nothing to win over unabashedly racist, anti-immigrant voters, who will still prefer the real thing, not Farage-lite.

His announcement has deservedly drawn a storm...

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on 'what the papers don't say' - without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Help us build the better media Britain deserves

The UK has failed to prosecute a single ISIS fighter for genocide despite allowing hundreds of them to return to the UK, after the terrorist organisation was defeated in Iraq and Syria, a new Parliamentary report has revealed.

Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights is demanding a change in the law that would make it easier for the UK to prosecute suspected ISIS fighters. MPs and peers have drafted new clauses to the Crime and Policing Bill, now going through Parliament, to amend the International Criminal Court Act to allow genocide and war crimes prosecutions in the UK regardless of whether the person was a British citizen.

At present the UK Government insists people who commit war crimes should be prosecuted in the countries where they committed their atrocities, but since Syria does not currently have a stable government and the Iraqi Government lacks the resources to pursue prosecutions, nothing is happening.

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David Hencke

The committee highlights the genocide of the Yazidi people in Iraq where 5,000 people were killed and 200,000 displaced and yet nobody has been prosecuted, despite it happening over 10 years ago.

The report also begs the question why 425 of the 850 suspected male fighters have been allowed back in Britain while enormous effort was made over the high profile case of Shamina Begum, who married an Isis fighter in Iraq to prevent her from coming back. She lost her British citizenship and is still languishing in a camp in Syria.

Crossbench Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Lord David Alton said: "This is not something the UK can simply wash its hands of because it happened overseas. We know that British nationals committed the most horrendous crimes in Iraq and Syria under the Daesh [Isis] regime and we have a duty to see them brought to justice. To date, no Daesh fighters have been successfully prosecuted for international crimes in the UK and we find this unacceptable.

"We want to see more action from the Government in identifying the perpetrators, some of whom may have returned to Britain, others likely detained in camps in Syria. This will require better coordination from law enforcement and criminal justice, and also the removal of barriers preventing some prosecutions."

A Government spokesperson said: "The Government's priority remains maintaining the safety and security of the UK and we are committed to achieving accountability for all victims of Daesh's crimes.

"We will consider the findings of this report."

Stripping Citizenship

The report also highlights that the UK is a world leader in depriving citizens of British citizenship. It has stripped 1,080 people of citizenship between 2010 and 2023. Some 858 lost citizenship because of fraudulent claims but 222 were made because it was seen as conducive to the public good. Some 104 were made in 2017 when Amber Rudd was home secretary and Theresa May was PM.

The committee is critical of the lack of transparency and accountability over these cases. Jonathan Hall, KC, the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, told the committee that he was frustrated that he had no power to review what was happening.

"The number of times it was used in 2017 contrasts enormously with… the number of prosecutions relating to Daesh, or to the number of temporary exclusion orders, which I review… more transparency and public understanding can only be a good thing."

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