logo
Plaid Cymru backs SDLP call for Parliament recall over Gaza

Plaid Cymru backs SDLP call for Parliament recall over Gaza

Plaid Cymru, alongside parties from Northern Ireland and Scotland, has backed the Social Democratic and Labour Party's (SDLP) call for an immediate recall of Parliament to address the situation in Gaza.
The joint letter to Prime Minister Keir Starmer also calls for diplomatic intervention, a halt to arms sales to Israel, and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid.
Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru, said: "We're proud to stand alongside other parties in calling for the immediate recall of Parliament to discuss the horrifying events unfolding in Gaza.
"It is incumbent on the UK Government to make clear that Israel's actions will not be tolerated, and to take urgent action to bring an end to the daily suffering being inflicted on the people of Gaza."
The letter was also signed by the SNP, Sinn Féin, Alliance, Scottish Liberal Democrats, Scottish Greens, and People Before Profit.
Liz Saville-Roberts, Plaid Cymru's Westminster group leader, said: "Plaid Cymru has long-called for the UK Government to do everything within their power to halt the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
"Recalling Parliament will give MPs the opportunity to scrutinise the UK Government's insufficient action in the face of an ever-increasing international and humanitarian crisis."
The SDLP's letter follows previous correspondence from Mr ap Iorwerth and Ms Saville-Roberts, sent on July 23, requesting that the UK Government impose an immediate arms embargo on Israel and recognise Palestinian statehood.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Israeli plan that could end the two state solution explained
Israeli plan that could end the two state solution explained

Channel 4

time4 minutes ago

  • Channel 4

Israeli plan that could end the two state solution explained

Israel's government also gave approval to a major settlement plan in the occupied West Bank that would effectively cut the Palestinian territory in two. The Israeli military also says it has begun the first stages of its offensive on Gaza City and claims it has a hold on some of the city's outskirts. It's begun calling up 60,000 army reservists, while it has yet to respond to a ceasefire and partial hostage release deal already agreed to by Hamas.

Starmer's own guidelines ‘should have spared Lucy Connolly from jail'
Starmer's own guidelines ‘should have spared Lucy Connolly from jail'

Telegraph

time5 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Starmer's own guidelines ‘should have spared Lucy Connolly from jail'

Sir Keir Starmer has become embroiled in a hypocrisy row over the prosecution of Lucy Connolly on the eve of her release from prison. The Prime Minister supported the conviction of Mrs Connolly for inciting racial hatred over an expletive-ridden post on X after the Southport attacks, but it has emerged that he had previously suggested that people who swiftly deleted offensive social media statements should not necessarily face criminal action. On Thursday, Mrs Connolly will be released after being sentenced to 31 months in prison for posting the comments, which she deleted hours later. The mother-of-one's supporters claim she has been subjected to an unfairly long jail term and made a scapegoat for the rioting last summer. Sir Keir has defended Mrs Connolly's conviction, saying that while he was strongly in favour of free speech he was 'equally against incitement to violence' against other people. He added: 'I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.' However, in 2013, when director of public prosecutions, he introduced guidance for prosecutors to consider a more lenient approach towards suspects who 'swiftly' deleted social media posts and expressed 'genuine remorse'. The guidance urged prosecutors to consider four factors where 'a prosecution is unlikely to be both necessary and proportionate'. These included if 'swift and effective action has been taken by the suspect and/or others for example, service providers, to remove the communication in question or otherwise block access to it'. Mrs Connolly was jailed for a post on the day three children were killed at a dance class in Southport, on Merseyside, urging followers to 'set fire' to hotels that housed asylum seekers 'for all I care.' At the time, the childminder had about 9,000 followers on X. Her message was reposted 940 times and viewed 310,000 times before she deleted it three and a half hours later, saying she regretted it. Sir Keir's 2013 advice was caveated with a warning to prosecutors that it was 'not an exhaustive list' of mitigating circumstances and that 'each case must be considered on its own factors and its own individual merits.' Legal experts who have followed Mrs Connolly's case noted that the guidance suggested public order offences, such as inciting racial hatred, should be treated separately and suspects would not therefore necessarily benefit from the same protections. Sir Keir followed up publication of the guidance with interviews in which he said: 'There's a lot of stuff out there that is highly offensive that is put out on a spontaneous basis that is quite often taken down pretty quickly, and the view is that those sort of remarks don't necessarily need to be prosecuted. 'This is not a get out of jail card, but it is highly relevant. Stuff does go up on a Friday and Saturday night and come down the next morning. 'Now if that is the case a lot of people will say that shouldn't have happened, the person has accepted it, but really you don't need a criminal prosecution. It is a relevant factor.' The 2013 guidance is repeated nearly word for word in the latest version for prosecutors. However, the initial advice that the factors could make a prosecution 'unlikely' has been tempered to state that prosecutors should take 'particular care' to ensure prosecution is 'necessary and proportionate'. Critics who have claimed Mrs Connolly was a victim of two-tier justice said it raised further questions over her treatment. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: 'Keir Starmer's enthusiasm for prosecuting Lucy Connolly appears to contradict his own guidelines. She rapidly deleted the message and showed remorse. This suggests Keir Starmer is guilty of hypocrisy and double standards by supporting a breach of his own prosecution guidelines. 'Lord Hermer personally authorised this prosecution, in what looks like another example of two-tier justice bearing in mind the very long sentence given when compared to others who committed actual acts of violence.' Lord Toby Young, the director of the Free Speech Union, said: 'Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, should have listened to the advice of Sir Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, and urged the CPS not to bring charges against Lucy Connolly. 'Sentencing her to more than two and a half years for a single tweet which she quickly deleted and apologised for has undermined public confidence in the criminal justice system, particularly when Labour councillors, MPs and anti-racism campaigners who have said and done much worse have avoided jail altogether. 'The public have concluded – rightly – that it's one rule for people on the Right and another for people on the Left. 'The Free Speech Union urged Lucy to plead not guilty, and offered to pay for her defence. Had she done so, I'm confident she would have been acquitted. But she decided against that precisely because she wasn't granted bail and was worried that her case would take so long to come to trial that she would end up spending more time in jail than she would if she pleaded guilty.' Richard Tice, the deputy Reform UK leader who visited Mrs Connolly in prison, said she should have pleaded not guilty. 'There was pressure in the legal system to get her to plead guilty. That was the establishment working in its mystical ways,' he claimed. 'The proof of my point is that Ricky Jones, the Labour councillor, can urge for people's throats to be slit live on TV in front of a big crowd and be found not guilty by a jury. It proves the whole point about two-tier justice and two-tier Keir. He is the biggest hypocrite that has been in Downing Street.' Frank Ferguson, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime and counter-terrorism division, said: 'It is not an offence to have strong or differing political views, but it is an offence to incite racial hatred – and that is what Connolly admitted to doing. 'The prosecution case included evidence which showed that racist tweets were sent out from Lucy Connolly's X account both in the weeks and months before the Southport attacks – as well as in the days after. The CPS takes racial hatred extremely seriously, and will never hesitate to prosecute these cases where there is enough evidence to do so.' The CPS also noted messages raised during her appeal on her remorse, in which she suggested she might claim that it was not her who had posted but that she was a victim of 'doxing', and that she had published the apology at the suggestion of a third party and her husband. A Government spokesman said: 'Sentencing is a matter for independent courts, and we support the action taken by the courts, as well as the police, to keep our streets safe. 'In all cases where Law Officers' consent is required, the Law Officers carefully consider whether to grant consent, including all relevant factors to the public interest in the prosecution.'

Is Labour really failing on immigration and asylum hotels?
Is Labour really failing on immigration and asylum hotels?

The Independent

time34 minutes ago

  • The Independent

Is Labour really failing on immigration and asylum hotels?

Councils across England are weighing up legal challenges after the High Court's decision to block a hotel in Epping from accommodating asylum seekers. The ruling blocks asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel in the Essex town, and current residents must be removed by September 12. On Wednesday, several local authorities, including some run by the Labour Party, said they were considering their options to take similar action. The ruling has resulted in another wave of criticism directed at Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour government over immigration, with opposition parties repeatedly accusing the government of failing to adequately tackle the issue. Yet amid backlash and local council tensions, the figures show that Labour has already made significant steps to move away from the use of hotels. The multi-billion cost of housing asylum seekers in hotels has dropped markedly from its peak in 2023. Last year (2024/5), the cost for hotel bills was at £2.1bn, down by a third from £3.1bn in the previous year. The smaller bill is a result of multiple factors, most notably the reduction in the asylum backlog. The average daily cost for housing each asylum seeker in a hotel has gone down from £176 to £170 per person. This still remains higher than previous years. The government has also made efforts to reduce the proportion of asylum seekers housed in hotels, moving them towards other types of accommodation. Figures from March show 32,345 asylum seekers out of over 100,000 were being accommodated in hotels, with the remainder housed in temporary accommodation including council-owned homes and a former airfield. Just 30 per cent are staying in hotels, which is meant as a contingency - or temporary - measure. Government accounts show that costs are likely to remain similar this year, with £2.2bn requested by the Home Office to asylum housing costs; suggesting that the number of asylum seekers is unlikely to fall significantly. In February, Home Office permanent secretary Sir Matthew Rycroft said the department was aiming to 'get to zero' asylum hotels by the end of this parliament in 2029. In 2022, the government began plans to use 'large sites' like cruise ships and ex-military bases to accommodate asylum seekers. Among these are the Bibby Stockholm barge, which was shut down last year, and former RAF airfield Wethersfield which now houses 588 people as of early 2025. But a review last year found that these sites cost more than hotels as a way to house asylum seekers. Nonetheless, hotels cost around six times more on average than other types of accommodation, according to analysis by the Migration Observatory; at £170 a day compared to £27 a day. Yet most of the time, the government is forced to place people in hotels due to a lack of capacity, with a shortage of accommodation and a substantial –albeit decreasing – asylum backlog. The asylum backlog stood at 78,745 cases at the end of March – a 13 per cent drop from December, and down 41 per cent from the mid-2023 peak. Yet the sizeable backlog, which is still higher than pre-2022 levels, represents a host of ongoing costs for the government as people wait for a decision on their asylum claims. Most asylum seekers are still waiting over six months for an initial decision on their claim, although waiting times have improved compared to the same time last year. The majority of people in the backlog are Afghan, Pakistani and Iranian nationals, according to the Migration Observatory. The UK's asylum backlog is the fifth largest in Europe. Where are asylum seekers staying in the UK? Now, over 8 in 10 local authorities host some asylum seekers, Home Office figures show. This is a significant rise over the last decade. Accommodation for asylum seekers varies by region. In the North East of England, just 5 per cent are housed in hotels, while in London hotels make up the majority of accommodation (65 per cent). Epping Forest council is within the East of England region, which has 41 per cent of migrants housed in hotels. However, being in Essex, the council is on the edge of London which has a higher concentration of asylum seekers than the rest of the UK. Around 140 migrants were being housed in The Bell Hotel in Epping, according to BBC reports, all of whom must now leave by September. Though the hotel has provided accommodation for the Home Office for several years, occupancy has fluctuated, with figures in March showing just 28 asylum seekers housed across Epping Forest hotels. Reform leader Nigel Farage has called on other councils to seek 'Epping-style injunctions' against the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, adding: 'It is high time that the outrageously expensive asylum hotel scheme, which nobody in Britain ever voted for, was brought down by popular demand.' The recent pushback has come amid record levels of small boat crossings to the UK. Labour's education minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has admitted that the high numbers are 'a problem that, up until this point, we haven't managed to tackle'. People coming on small boats make up an increasing proportion of asylum applications. Last year, a third of the UK's asylum claims came from small boat migrants. In 2025 so far, over 26,000 migrants have already crossed the English Channel, higher than summer levels in any year to date. In fact, figures at mid-August have nearly exceeded the entirety of 2023 (29,437). Meanwhile arrests of people smugglers who enable the crossings were down last year, according to National Crime Agency data obtained by The Independent. The shadow home secretary called Labour's failure to 'smash the gangs' an 'abject failure'. This suggests that small boats migration could be the highest on record over 2025, bringing with it a slew of new asylum claims; since almost all irregular migrants apply for asylum.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store