Illegal work arrests double in year as police target 'unscrupulous' employers
Officers had visited more than 9,000 businesses - among them restaurants, nail bars and construction sites - to check paperwork and working conditions.Such businesses had often subjected migrants to "squalid conditions and illegal working hours" as well as below-minimum wages.The Home Office said there were a range of industries exploiting migrant workers.In one case in Surrey, officers arrested nine people at a caravan park who had been working as delivery drivers.At one one major operation in March, officers arrested 36 people at a building site in Belfast's Titanic Quarter. Some had breached visa conditions while others didn't have working rights.Immigration Enforcement director Eddy Montgomery said there were many cases where people travelling to the UK were "sold a lie by smuggling gangs that they will be able to live and work freely in the UK."In reality, they often end up facing squalid living conditions, minimal pay and inhumane working hours," he said.Dame Angela Eagle, the minister for border security and asylum, said the government would "continue to root out unscrupulous employers and disrupt illegal workers who undermine our border security".The government said it had also returned nearly 30,000 people over the past year who did not have the right to be in the UK.It has said it is cracking down on illegal migration, setting out its plans in a White Paper to tighten work visas and those overstaying. It scrapped a special visa for care workers introduced during the pandemic, noting that this had been a pathway exploited by some.There was mixed reaction to the plans, with some business sectors decrying the restrictions on work visas, while some Conservative opponents said the reforms didn't go far enough to stop illegal migration.The most recent data shows that approximately 44,000 people have entered the UK illegally in the year to March 2025, more than 80% through small boat journeys.
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The Independent
25 minutes ago
- The Independent
Family of murdered mother make emotional appeal for ‘justice for Lucy'
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Telegraph
26 minutes ago
- Telegraph
The situation in Gaza is dire – but Starmer should be clear about who is to blame
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BBC News
26 minutes ago
- BBC News
Jeremy Corbyn's new party needs a name and it's trickier than you might think
The first thing anybody wants to know when a new political party is launched is what it's going to be Jeremy Corbyn has decided to do things differently. The former Labour leader claims more than 600,000 people have registered as supporters for the new left-wing party he is setting up with fellow independent and ex-Labour MP Zarah is, so far, a party without a reports that it was going to be called Your Party - because that's what the sign-up website is called - were quickly shot down by has said she thinks The Left or the Left Party would be a good title for the new the pair have said they want supporters to come up with a name, as part of their debate on what the new party will stand for. They will not be able to put forward candidates for election until they have registered a name with the Electoral Commission, which has strict rules about not copying other parties' names or sounding too much like apart from that, supporters have a blank canvas."The name should sum up in one simple phrase the pure essence of what the party is all about," says Sheffield University's Prof Matthew time is also ripe for a political party named for the modern world, he Flinders argues the mainstream parties' brands were forged in different times and "most young people don't really understand what Labour means, or Conservative". "The especially don't know what Liberal Democrat means."Whereas parties were once sustained by local branch or social meetings that has "eroded in a digital age, making the relationships thinner and putting more pressure on name and brand recognition to resonate with voters", Prof Flinders the commercial world, brand names are everything."There's a lot of power in a name and if you can clearly convey your point of view and use those words effectively it does a lot of work," says Laura Rogers, an executive creative director at advertising agency AMV BBDO, which counts retailer Currys and charity the RSPCA among its sweet spot, she argues, is something that works well for sharing online and sells well as "merch". Get the wrong name and you risk ridicule. Just ask the Post Office, which in 2001 wasted £2m to rebrand as Consignia, only to reverse course after the baffling name became a laughing stock. A new political party must also be alive to the risks of social media that loves to turn everything into punchlines."Make sure the first three letters don't spell a bad word," warns journalist Ash Sarkar of the left-wing media site Novara Media. "Like the word assembly can very easily be changed to 'ass'."While this may seem flippant ,"People experience and understand politics through the content they share online", Sarkar the general public to name a party would have been a disaster, leading to "Party McPartyface" says Sarkar - referencing the time Boaty McBoatface won a public poll to name a £200m polar research Bailey, co-founder of branding and design agency Baxter and Bailey, thinks Corbyn's decision to ask supporters for names is a clever stunt that has created buzz and a sense of ownership for those signing up. "It also really fits with his brand to be social and democratic with the choice of name," Bailey says."But being democratic in naming and design doesn't make a whole lot of sense," he warns. Political history is littered with cautionary tales for new parties trying to make a name for themselves. The Electoral Commission website shows a new party is registered almost every week in the UK, and most fade without making an impact at a national when a party launches with 11 MPs and a national profile they can collapse without ever really defining themselves - like The Independent Group (TIG), which launched at the height of the Brexit deadlock in 2019 as an avowedly centrist, pro–European Union political party only lasted ten months but changed its name twice, first to Change UK and then to The Independent Group for Change after petitions website threatened to sue over the Allen, the ex-Tory MP who was the first leader of Change UK, recalls her party became "lost in admin", sapping the fledgling movement of a name that speaks to your message and is not already taken by another political group of business is "trickier than you think", says Allen. Pamela Fitzpatrick, who runs the Peace and Justice Project with Corbyn, registered a party last month named "Arise" - a name drawn from one of Corbyn's favourite political strategist and pollster Chris Bruni‑Lowe, who has written a book on the history of politic slogans, would advise against using Arise as the new party's name. "Vague or overly poetic names will underperform, especially if the party is meant to be a corrective force," he his book, Bruni-Lowe says he found "voters don't reward wordplay - they reward clarity and conviction".A name must also be "clear" rather than "clever", he the most effective political brands "offer a vision or mission, not just an organisational label" and use "the electorate's own language and frustrations". Corbyn has insisted the final decision will only come after "all the responses" are in. The plan is to settle on a name at the party's founding conference, in the the discussions around the name are just a distraction, says tends to "hyper-fixate on things that don't really matter", she argues."It's not going to live or die based on a name," insists Sarkar. "It will live or die based on its political strategy.""The fact that 600,000 people have signed up to the new Corbyn project with no name is an answer to the question on how much the name matters," she a message to supporters on Friday, the party with no name said: "Make no mistake: whatever the name, it is always going to be your party." Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.
