
Reform promises to do ‘everything it can' to close migrant hotels
Reform UK would use every legal lever available to stop asylum seekers from being housed in areas where it now controls councils, the party's chairman has said.
Zia Yusuf said that Reform would use 'judicial reviews, injunctions and planning laws' to try to shut down hotels being used to house migrants and to stop wider dispersal schemes in local authorities they control.
He said that this would involve 'every instrument of power available' but admitted that the party was 'realistic' about the fact the possibilities at a local level 'pale in comparison' to the powers of Westminster.
• Zia Yusuf interview: Young people need a moral re-education
'You know, a lot of these hotels — there has been litigation around this already — a lot
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


The Sun
24 minutes ago
- The Sun
‘Fuming' Angela Rayner locked in ‘tense' row with Rachel Reeves over crucial spending review
ANGELA Rayner and Rachel Reeves are locked in a row over this week's spending review — which fellow ministers have dubbed, 'The War of the Roses'. The Deputy PM was last night still refusing to sign up to her housing department's budget. 8 8 8 Ms Rayner has been demanding billions more for home building. Talks are going down to the wire, leaving Chancellor Ms Reeves with little time to get her numbers to add up before she presents her spending plans to Parliament on Wednesday. If Ms Rayner — dubbed 'Red Rayner' for her leftie views — refuses to agree to her budget then No11 will have to take the highly unusual step of imposing it on her. One senior minister told The Sun on Sunday: 'Things are tense. The two most powerful women in Cabinet can't agree. 'It's like War of the Roses. Angela represents a Lancashire seat and Rachel's is in Yorkshire.' 8 8 The War of the Roses was a series of battles for the throne waged between the House of York and House of Lancaster. The Yorkist symbol was a white rose and Lancaster's was a red rose. The Labour Party's emblem is also famously a red rose. 8 A senior government insider said: 'Angela is definitely not happy. She could blow up at any moment.' Another said: 'Angie used to work for a trade union and has taken those hardline negotiation tactics with her into the Treasury talks.' The Government has vowed to build 1.5 million new homes in England by 2029, but Ms Rayner fears she will miss the target without more cash. Nailbiting negotiations between the pair were still ongoing last night. 8 8 Many departments face having to make deep cuts because of a tight spending squeeze. But Ms Reeves will tell MPs on Wednesday she is spending shedloads of cash on infrastructure investment to turbocharge the economy. This will include £86 billion on Britain's fastest growing sectors, including tech, sciences and defence. Writing in today's Sun on Sunday, Cabinet minister Peter Kyle said 'tough decisions' have been made to knock the economy into shape.


BreakingNews.ie
27 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Trump says Elon Musk could face ‘serious consequences' if he backs Democrats
US President Donald Trump said he has no desire to repair his relationship with Elon Musk, and warned that his former ally and campaign benefactor could face 'serious consequences' if he tries to help Democrats in upcoming elections. Mr Trump told NBC's Kristen Welker in a phone interview that he has no plans to make up with tech entrepreneur Mr Musk. Advertisement Asked specifically if he thought his relationship with the mega-billionaire chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX was over, Mr Trump responded: 'I would assume so, yeah.' 'I'm too busy doing other things,' Mr Trump continued. 'You know, I won an election in a landslide. I gave him (Mr Musk) a lot of breaks, long before this happened, I gave him breaks in my first administration, and saved his life in my first administration, I have no intention of speaking to him.' The US President also issued a warning amid speculation that Mr Musk could back Democratic legislators and candidates in the 2026 mid-term elections. Advertisement 'If he does, he'll have to pay the consequences for that,' Mr Trump told NBC, though he declined to share what those consequences would be. Mr Musk's businesses have many lucrative federal contracts. The US President's latest comments suggest Mr Musk is moving from close ally to a potential new target for Mr Trump, who has aggressively wielded the powers of his office to crack down on critics and punish perceived enemies. As a major government contractor, Mr Musk's businesses could be particularly vulnerable to retribution. Mr Trump has already threatened to cut Mr Musk's contracts, calling it an easy way to save money. The dramatic rupture between the President and the world's richest man began this week with Mr Musk's public criticism of Mr Trump's 'big beautiful bill' pending on Capitol Hill. Advertisement Mr Musk has warned that the bill will increase the federal deficit and called it a 'disgusting abomination'. Mr Trump criticised Mr Musk in the Oval Office, and before long, he and Mr Musk began trading bitterly personal attacks on social media, sending the White House and Republican congressional leaders scrambling to assess the fallout. As the back-and-forth intensified, Mr Musk suggested Mr Trump should be impeached and claimed without evidence that the government was concealing information about the President's association with infamous paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Trump's spending plans appeared to cause the rift initially (AP) Mr Musk appeared by Saturday morning to have deleted his posts about Epstein. Advertisement In an interview, US vice president JD Vance tried to downplay the feud. He said Mr Musk was making a 'huge mistake' going after Mr Trump, but called him an 'emotional guy' who was becoming frustrated. 'I hope that eventually Elon comes back into the fold. Maybe that's not possible now because he's gone so nuclear,' Mr Vance said. Mr Vance called Mr Musk an 'incredible entrepreneur,' and said that Mr Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which sought to cut US government spending and laid off or pushed out thousands of workers, was 'really good'. Mr Vance made the comments in an interview with 'manosphere' comedian Theo Von, who last month joked about snorting drugs off a mixed-race baby and the sexuality of men in the US Navy when he opened for Mr Trump at a military base in Qatar. Advertisement The Vance interview was taped on Thursday as Musk's posts were unfurling on X, the social media network the billionaire owns. During the interview, Mr Von showed the vice president Mr Musk's claim that Mr Trump's administration has not released all the records related to Epstein because Mr Trump is mentioned in them. Mr Vance responded to that, saying: 'Absolutely not. Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with Jeffrey Epstein.' 'This stuff is just not helpful,' Mr Vance said in response to another post shared by Mr Musk calling for Mr Trump to be impeached and replaced with Mr Vance. 'It's totally insane. The President is doing a good job.' Vance also defended the bill that has drawn Mr Musk's ire, and said its central goal was not to cut spending but to extend the 2017 tax cuts approved in Mr Trump's first term. The bill would slash spending and taxes but also leave some 10.9 million more people without health insurance and spike deficits by 2.4 trillion dollars (£1.77 trillion) over the decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. 'It's a good bill,' Mr Vance said. 'It's not a perfect bill.'


The Independent
31 minutes ago
- The Independent
Abbott calls Starmer's immigration comments ‘fundamentally racist' at rally
Backbench Labour MP Diane Abbott has criticised Sir Keir Starmer's comments on immigration as 'fundamentally racist' at a protest rally, suggesting the Government was copying the rhetoric of Reform UK. Thousands of trade unionists, campaigners and activists gathered to 'send a message' to the Government at a demonstration over spending cuts and welfare reform in central London on Saturday. Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and Ms Abbott were among those who gave speeches at the rally outside Downing Street following a march. Organisers The People's Assembly accused the Government of making spending cuts that target the poorest in society. The Prime Minister said the UK risked becoming 'an island of strangers' when he unveiled plans for tighter controls on immigration in a major speech last month, leading to a mixed reaction from different parties. Addressing the protest crowd in Whitehall, Ms Abbott – who was previously suspended by Labour in 2023 before being allowed to run in last year's general election – said there was an international struggle to 'fight the rich and the powerful (and) to fight the racists', including in her own party. The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP said: 'I was very disturbed to hear Keir Starmer on the subject of immigration. 'He talked about closing the book on a squalid chapter for our politics – immigrants represent a squalid chapter. 'He talked about how he thought immigration has done incalculable damage to this green and pleasant land, which, of course, is nonsense – immigrants built this land. 'And, finally, he said we risk becoming an island of strangers. 'I thought that was a fundamentally racist thing to say. It is contrary to Britain's history. 'My parents came to this country in the 50s. They were not strangers. They helped to build this country. 'I think Keir Starmer is quite wrong to say that the way that you beat Reform is to copy Reform.' Reform's leader Nigel Farage previously said his party 'very much enjoyed' Sir Keir's speech, as it showed he was 'learning a great deal' from them. Representatives from the National Education Union, Revolutionary Communist Party, Green Party and the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union could be seen at the demonstration's start point in Portland Place. The large crowd then set off towards Whitehall shortly before 1pm. Many of the protesters were holding placards that read 'Tax the rich, stop the cuts – welfare not warfare'. Other signs being held aloft said 'Nurses not nukes' and 'Cut war, not welfare'. Mr Corbyn, who also criticised Sir Keir's 'island of strangers' comments, told protesters at the rally: 'As the wars rage around the world – the killing fields in Ukraine and Russia, the abominable, deliberate starvation of children in Gaza and the genocide that's inflicted against the Palestinian people continues – surely to goodness we need a world of peace. 'We need a world of peace that will come through the vision of peace, the vision of disarmament and the vision of actually challenging the causes of war, which leads to the desperation and the refugee flows of today.' The Independent MP for Islington North urged protesters to 'go forward as a movement of hope, of what we can achieve together (and) the society we can build together'. The People's Assembly said trade unionists, health, disability, housing and welfare campaigners with community organisations came together for the protest under the slogan 'No to Austerity2.0'. A spokesperson said: 'The adherence to 'fiscal rules' traps us in a public service funding crisis, increasing poverty, worsening mental health and freezing public sector pay. 'Scrapping winter fuel payments, keeping the Tory two-child benefit cap, abandoning Waspi women, cutting £5 billion of welfare by limiting Pip and universal credit eligibility, and slashing UK foreign aid from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP, while increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, are presented as 'tough choices'. 'Real tough choices would be for a Labour government to tax the rich and their hidden wealth, to fund public services, fair pay, investment in communities and the NHS.'