Latest news with #Yvette Cooper
Telegraph
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Starmer's claim that he's tackling immigration now looks more ridiculous than ever
Why precisely is it that, over the past two decades, the UK has imported so many millions of foreign workers? Supposedly it's because our country has severe 'skills shortages'. Personally, though, I have my doubts. Especially now that this newspaper has unearthed a list of the occupations that immigrants can cite when applying for 'skilled work visas'. And among them, believe it or not, is 'poet'. Now, it may well be true that our country no longer produces great poets of her own. Even so, I'd be surprised if many British employers have been anxiously petitioning Yvette Cooper to allow in more poets from abroad. 'Honestly, Home Secretary, we'd love to hire homegrown poets. Sadly, though, British workers nowadays are just too lazy and entitled to master iambic tetrameter. They'd rather sit at home claiming benefits than get up at 6am to do an honest day's graft on a villanelle or a rondeau redoublé. That's why we urgently need to recruit thousands of hard-working young poets from Poland, Pakistan and Somalia. Otherwise, this country's Petrarchan sonnet industry will collapse.' Even more surprising, however, is another job on the 'skilled visa' list. It's 'diversity and inclusion expert'. If there is one line of work in which Britain does not face even the faintest hint of a skills shortage, surely to goodness it's 'diversity and inclusion'. Every single year, without fail, our universities turn out hundreds of thousands of expertly brainwashed, virtue-signalling woke ideologues. That's easily enough to staff the nation's HR departments. So why on earth should we allow foreigners to come over here and steal these jobs in DEI, when our own deranged Left-wing fanatics could be doing them? Still, perhaps some good will come of this farce. The middle-class Left may finally turn against mass immigration, now it's putting their own jobs at risk. The single stupidest trigger warning yet Readers have long grown wearily inured to the dismal sight of trigger warnings on books that contain politically incorrect language. Even so, the one appended to a new novel entitled Men in Love merits special attention. Because, despite stiff competition, it must be the single most pointless trigger warning ever written. 'As a novel set in the 1980s,' it reads, 'many of the characters in Men in Love, as in society in general, express themselves in ways that we now consider offensive and discriminatory.' The warning then hastily reassures us that the author's use of such hurtful language is not 'an endorsement' of it – it's merely his 'attempt to authentically replicate' the way that all too many people used to speak in those shamefully unenlightened times. At first glance, the above may seem no worse than any other trigger warning. But what makes this one so outstandingly imbecilic is that Men in Love happens to be by Irvine Welsh. Indeed, it's a sequel to Trainspotting – his bestselling 1993 novel about the harrowing misadventures of a group of Scottish heroin addicts. Bearing this in mind, I'd love to know who exactly the trigger warning is intended to appease. Men in Love 's publishers, it would seem, believe that Mr Welsh has readers who will happily lap up graphic depictions of drug abuse, violence, underage sex and dead babies – and yet be horrified by the occasional scrap of sexist dialogue. God only knows what sort of complaints they expected to receive, if they didn't add the trigger warning. 'Dear Sirs, 'For the past three decades I have been an avid reader of your esteemed author Mr Irvine Welsh. With unalloyed pleasure I devoured Filth, his charming 1998 tale of a psychopathic, cocaine-snorting, sexually abusive police officer with a talking tapeworm. I equally adored Porno, his joyful 2002 romp about a gang of thugs attempting to produce a pornographic video. And, like millions of other cinema-goers, I delighted in the 1996 film adaptation of Trainspotting – thanks not least to that splendid scene in which a gentleman with diarrhoea explosively fouls the bedsheets of his young lady companion, and then accidentally sprays the sheets' contents all over her parents while they're eating breakfast. 'You will surely understand my disgust, therefore, when I opened Mr Welsh's latest novel Men in Love – only to discover that one of the characters refers to a woman living with obesity as 'a fat lassie'. 'Needless to say, I was shocked and appalled. Never in all my years of reading Mr Welsh did I imagine that he would stoop to writing something so unspeakably offensive. 'Please inform this sickening lout that, unless he makes his cast of violent working-class Scottish smackheads start talking like a panel of Guardian columnists discussing gender equality at the Hay Festival, I shall never read another word he writes.'
Daily Mail
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Channel boats deal shambles: Yvette Cooper admits she DOESN'T KNOW how many migrants will be returned to France - as EU threatens to block 'merry go round' pact
Yvette Cooper today admitted she does not know how many Channel migrants will be returned to France under Labour's vaunted deal. The Home Secretary said the numbers had not even been 'fixed' for the pilot stage of the 'one in, one out' scheme - after negotiations went down to the wire. The acknowledgement came amid claims that the pact agreed by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron during his state visit to the UK is already unravelling. There are questions over whether the scheme - which would see Britain send some Channel arrivals back but agree to take other asylum seekers from France - could even be blocked by the EU Commission. Unveiling the plan alongside Mr Macron last night, Sir Keir claimed it was 'ground-breaking' and would 'prove the concept that if you come over by small boats, then you will be returned to France '. But as the Anglo-French summit was being held, hundreds more migrants were crossing the Channel from northern France. Border experts said the proposals were 'scratching a very bare minimum of the surface'. Leaks had suggested 50 migrants a week, around one in 17 arrivals, would be sent back to France initially. But that was seemingly not signed off by the leaders. Touring broadcast studios this morning, Ms Cooper said: 'The numbers are not fixed, even for this pilot phase that we are starting now. 'So this will be a programme that we roll out step-by-step, and we will provide updates as we go. 'But we are going to do this in a steady way.' Despite signs EU states could object to the UK-France deal, Ms Cooper told LBC she was confident Brussels would let it go ahead. 'We have been talking to the EU commissioners. We've also been talking to other European interior ministers and governments throughout this process,' she said. 'The French interior minister and I have been speaking about this to develop this since October of last year, and the EU commissioners have been very supportive. 'So that is why we have designed this in a way to work, not just for the UK and France, but in order to fit with all their concerns as well.' She added: 'Because we've done that work all the way through, we do expect the EU Commission to continue to be supportive.' Ms Cooper also played down Mr Macron's jibe that Brexit had made tackling illegal immigration harder, arguing people smugglers would 'weaponise anything'. Since Labour came to power, 44,359 small-boat migrants have reached Dover, including 21,117 so far this year – a 50 per cent leap on the same period last year. The figures do not include up to 400 arrivals who made it to British soil yesterday, just as the two leaders announced the migrant plan in a press conference. Sir Keir said the governments were taking 'hard-headed, aggressive action'. 'For the very first time, migrants arriving via small boat will be detained and returned to France in short order,' he said. In exchange for every return, a different individual will be allowed to come here via a safe route, controlled and legal, subject to strict security checks and only open to those who have not tried to enter the UK illegally.' But the PM failed to say how quickly migrants will be sent back in total or on a weekly basis when the scheme launches, which he said would be in the 'coming weeks'. Mr Macron said the deal needed legal ratification first, without putting a time frame on it. Critics have derided the concept of a 'migrant merry go round'. Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the deal with France is a 'gimmick' which will be 'no deterrent whatsoever'. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'What they announced yesterday is a gimmick, just like 'smash the gangs' was a gimmick as well. 'And the reason it's a gimmick is the numbers will be tiny. 'It's been reported it will be only 50 a week, something the Prime Minister didn't contradict when it was put to him yesterday. 'Now 50 a week only represents 6% of people crossing the Channel, which means that 94% under this new scheme proposed, 94% will be allowed to stay and quite clearly, allowing 94% of illegal immigrants to stay in the UK will be no deterrent whatsoever.'
The Independent
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Yvette Cooper refuses to say if she agrees with Macron's Brexit criticism
Yvette Cooper has refused to say whether she agreed with Emmanuel Macron 's claim that Brexit had made tackling illegal immigration harder. It comes after the French president said voters were 'sold a lie' on Brexit when they were told it would 'make it possible to fight more effectively against illegal immigration '. Unveiling a new one-in-one-out returns agreement with the UK, the French president said that because Brexit left the UK without a returns agreement with the EU: 'it creates an incentive to make the crossing, the precise opposite of what Brexit had promised'. Asked whether Mr Macron had a point about Brexit, the home secretary told Sky News: 'I think what I've seen happen is that the way that the criminal smuggler gangs operate is that they will weaponise anything that is happening. 'And so what we saw in the run-up to Brexit being implemented was we saw criminal gangs promising people that they had to cross quickly, and they had to pay money to the smuggler gangs quickly in order to be able to cross in time before Brexit happened. 'As soon as Brexit happened, they then said 'Oh, well, now you've got to pay us money, because this means you can't be returned because the Dublin Agreement isn't in place'. 'So the thing about the criminal smuggler gangs is whatever arrangements are in place, they will use them in order to make money, but that's why we have to be fundamentally undermining their model.' Ms Cooper also declined to say how many migrants would be returned under new arrangements with France, telling Times Radio the figures had not been 'fixed'. 'The numbers are not fixed, even for this pilot phase that we are starting now. 'So this will be a programme that we roll out step-by-step, and we will provide updates as we go. But we are going to do this in a steady way.' Giving a press conference alongside Mr Macron at the Northwood military base in West London, Sir Keir Starmer said the deal to send small boats migrants back to France for the first time was a 'breakthrough moment' which would 'turn the tables' on people smugglers. The pair hope the deal will have a deterrent effect beyond the limited numbers involved in the pilot scheme. Under the one in, one out deal, for each small boat migrant sent back across the English Channel an asylum seeker will be allowed to enter the UK from France under a legal route. No details have been given about how many people will be covered by the scheme, but reports from France have indicated it could initially be limited to around 50 a week – a small fraction of the weekly average this year of 782. It is understood numbers will grow over the pilot period and depend on operational factors. Some 21,117 migrants have made the crossing in 2025 according to the latest Home Office figures, a record for this point in a year, with more attempting the journey on Thursday as the UK and French leaders met.
