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
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Palestine Action's future plans are disturbing, Yvette Cooper claims as she urges protesters to stay away
Yvette Cooper has said she has seen some 'disturbing information' relating to the future plans of proscribed terror group Palestine Action, urging people not to protest in support of the organisation. Speaking ahead of a major demonstration to protest the decision to ban the group, the home secretary warned the public that 'this is not a non-violent organisation', adding that more information about the group is likely to be revealed in future court cases. It comes after Downing Street on Monday warned: 'Those who seek to support this group may yet not know the true nature of this organisation'. The move to ban Palestine Action came after two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on June 20, an incident it subsequently claimed, which police said caused about £7 million worth of damage. Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday, Ms Cooper said: 'The proscribing process is based on detailed security assessments and security advice to me as home secretary, and I have to take that immensely seriously. 'It's based on violent action and injuries that this group has taken, including on national security targets, but also injuries to people, and also some disturbing information referring to future planning as well. 'So that's the information that I have to take immensely seriously when making those proscribing decisions.' Speaking ahead of a planned mass protest in support of the group taking place on Saturday, Ms Cooper said: 'I do understand there will be people who do not know, who are wanting to protest, what the nature of this group is. 'Let's be clear: this is not about Palestine or protesting about Palestine. This is about a particular, narrow, specific group that has both a violent record and information and about future planning as well. 'More of that information is likely to be really revealed once court cases come through, and can't be in advance. But I would say to people, this is not a non violent organisation.' The Metropolitan Police and other forces nationwide have warned anyone found to be expressing support for Palestine Action will be arrested, following the government's decision to ban the organisation last month. Defend Our Juries said it planned to bring together at least 500 people for its planned demonstration against the ban on Saturday with organisers 'very confident' they have recruited enough participants, a spokesperson for the campaign group said. But they have denied that its planned mass protest will try to overwhelm the police and justice system. A High Court ruling on Wednesday decided that Palestine Action's co-founder Huda Ammori had several 'reasonably arguable' beliefs in her challenge over the group's ban that would be heard at a three-day hearing in November, but a bid to pause the ban temporarily was refused. The ban means that membership of, or support for, Palestine Action is now a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, under the Terrorism Act 2000. More than 200 people were arrested at a wave of protests across the UK in response to the proscription last month, as part of the campaign co-ordinated by Defend Our Juries. Many of the protesters were detained after writing and holding up the message 'I oppose genocide I support Palestine Action' on placards or pieces of cardboard.
The Guardian
10 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Pushing airport expansion while rail travel languishes – so much for Labour's green agenda
August is peak flying time, and airports are on many minds. The government has signalled its support for colossal expansions, whose extra flights would bust its carbon pledges. The excuse is that supertechnology will magic away the extra CO2 pumped into the atmosphere, though it must know that clean, green flying is still futurology. Here's the pity of it: until now this government has rightly boasted of its green credentials, making massive investments in sustainable energy and retro-insulating cold homes. Expanding air travel is not on any green agenda. Heathrow has just submitted proposals for a £50bn third runway, as approved by Labour in 2009 and the Tories who voted it through parliament in 2018. Covid applied the brakes but now Heathrow is back with gold-plated, 'shovel-ready' plans. Its owners, including Qatar, Singapore and Saudi Arabia, expect the planning bill to prevent newts or judicial reviews blocking the runway. Their pitch to an investment-hungry government is that expanding Europe's busiest airport would create 100,000 new jobs, propelling growth with 750 extra daily flights. Flying gets a green light from the transport secretary, Heidi Alexander: she agreed to double the size of Luton airport, favours Gatwick's second runway for 100,000 more flights and gives Stansted's expansion a fair wind. These allow a 70% increase in flights above 2018 levels, and cancel out all the carbon savings from the government's clean power plan. Rachel Reeves promised to be 'Britain's first green chancellor', but her plans live or die on growth, so billions in private investment is hard to resist. But beyond construction, the growth-potential claims for extra flights look highly dubious. The promised global 'connectivity' imagines business people zipping into Britain with briefcases full of contracts. But that's not who these extra flyers will be. Most will be frequent flyers flying more frequently, not for business but for leisure, according to the New Economics Foundation and Possible, the climate campaign. National Travel and Civil Aviation Authority passenger surveys show only one in 14 UK passengers are business travellers. The pandemic showed that meeting online saves money and time; business travel has already peaked. Would extra flights bring in tourist income? No, 70% of flights are British tourists off abroad to spend vastly more than foreigners spend here. Of extra flights in 20 years, 83% were taken by already frequent flyers, mostly for leisure. Growth will not be from more families taking an annual holiday: half the population doesn't fly in any year, while just 15% consume 70% of flights. Nearly a third are 'ultra-frequent flyers' taking six or more journeys a year. Instead of these heaviest users paying more for their pollution, airlines reward frequent flyers. The Flying Fair report from the New Economics Foundation suggests imposing a high levy on those flying six or more times a year, not added to ticket prices but raised in tax returns. That makes the cost of their excessive air travel highly visible, and could raise £6bn a year, while cutting aviation CO2 by 28%. Newly nationalised trains would gain from disincentivising flight. But UK prices are a bizarre deterrent. I'm planning to go to Edinburgh next week – a train journey I love. Checking prices, I found a £29.99 flight each way, while LNER costs £181.69 return. France has banned domestic flights where trains can do the journey in less than two and a half hours and so should we: start by banning airlines charging less than rail. Switch the 39m domestic journeys being made annually by plane to train. The good news is the extra potential capacity in the Channel tunnel, which could be realised with a little investment. Twelve trains an hour run each way, but the tunnel could run 2.5 times more, and prices would fall. That's where investment should go, instead of to airports, as new European routes open up. Yes, it takes longer. It means adding train time to the concept of a holiday. But if it were cheaper, what luxury it would be compared with the hell of holiday airports and flights that don't land you in city centres. Climate damage is the real cost of avoidable flying. The chancellor says: 'Expansion must be delivered in line with UK's legal, environmental and climate obligations.' But the Climate Change Committee (CCC), the government's statutory adviser, warns that airport expansion would breach UK carbon budgets for net zero emissions by 2050. The aviation industry and government claim that wonder technology will deliver carbon-free flying with electric planes, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) and carbon capture. None is anywhere near available, says the CCC, which expects 17% SAFs by 2040. It advises no extra flying before 2030, and only 2% more by 2035, to allow time for new technology to be developed. Let's hope clean flight arrives soon, but it's not here yet: currently, suppliers must only guarantee that SAFs comprises 2% of the total. Here's the honesty test for those claiming carbon-neutral flight is imminent: agree to no extra flying until it arrives. The government's mood music is all pro-flying, not urging climate-conscious travel. To change habits and attitudes, it should start by banning frequent flyer bonuses. Why allow private jets? Seat for seat they are 30 times more polluting, paying less tax as a proportion of ticket price, as was exposed by Possible's Jetting away with it report. The government's airport policy will reveal its seriousness on the climate crisis. Politically, it shows whether Labour is sufficiently alarmed by serious threats from the left, from Greens, Liberal Democrats and Jeremy Corbyn revivalists pledged to invest in trains, not airports. But refusing airport expansion allows Tories and Faragistes to add those lost foreign billions to their dishonest tally of net zero costs. A YouGov poll found that 61% of people regard airport expansion as the wrong priority, alongside mayors Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan. But the Treasury's dilemma is obvious: climate or cash? Its answer should also be clear: just call a moratorium until green flying arrives. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
Daily Mail
10 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Russia accuses UK of plotting 'false flag' to sink its ships
Russia is feared to be preparing false flag attacks on its shadow fleet of sea vessels in order to deter the West from further sanctioning them. According to reports from the SVR, Moscow's foreign intelligence service, is said to have claimed that the UK was plotting to attack the country's fleet of ships used to subvert sanctions. The SVR said that the attacks would be designed to look like accidents, causing significant environmental damage and allowing Britain and the rest of NATO to justify further actions against them. The Telegraph reported it claimed: 'British intelligence services are planning to use NATO allies to launch a mass raid on the "shadow fleet"; for this purpose, an ecological catastrophe in international waters is being prepared.' But experts said the report's publication raised concerns that Russia is preparing its own false flag operation, a scheme carried out by the Kremlin but designed to look like it has British origins. Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at RUSI, told the newspaper: 'One interpretation might be that the Russians are insuring themselves against something breaking down or sinking, in a way that creates a pretext for restricting [their movement across the ocean].' So far at least six tankers have suffered mysterious explosions since the start of the year. The suspicion has largely fallen on Ukraine, as all of the tankers were docked in Russian ports. Some of them were carrying Russian oil. It comes after the National Crime Agency (NCA) warned UK financial firms that Russian oil trading companies are utilising a complex network of companies with deliberately obscure ownership structures in order to evade sanctions. Britain has banned the maritime transportation of Russian oil as its energy exports are funding the war in Ukraine. In 2024, 30 per cent of Russia's federal budget came from oil and gas sales. But Russian oil trading companies are managing to circumvent sanctions to get Western cash which is continuing to fund the Russian state, investigators believe. One of the companies sanctioned last year used over 100 Shadow Fleet oil tankers, vessels which are usually over 15 years old which secretly carry Russian oil. To avoid detection, flags are regularly changed and the ship's automatic identification system is turned off to avoid its movements being tracked, while the oil is often transferred from one ship to another to obscure its origin before the shipment reaches its destination. Over 400 Shadow Fleet vessels have so far been sanctioned by the UK, EU, US and Canada. An NCA spokesman said: 'Today, the National Crime Agency has issued an alert to financial institutions and other members of the UK regulated sector in relation to the sale of Russian oil and gas through the use of Shadow Fleet vessels and front companies.' 'Sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine have had a significant impact on its ability to sell oil and gas it produces. However, in an effort to circumvent these controls, Russian oil trading companies are utilising a complex network of companies with deliberately obscure ownership structures to evade sanctions whilst accessing Western finance and professional services in order to continue to fund the Russian state.'
