Month: November 2022

Edi Rama told the BBC Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s remarks this week that the UK was being invaded would fuel xenophobia.

“This kind of language is not a policy, is not a programme,” he added.

Albanians are now the biggest group of those crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Ms Braverman – who said on Monday southern England was facing an “invasion” of migrants – has also accused “many” Albanians of “abusing our modern slavery laws”.

Last week, MPs were told 12,000 Albanians had arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel so far this year, compared to 50 in 2020.

Of these 10,000 were men – representing 1% of Albania’s adult male population.

In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Mr Rama said Ms Braverman’s “invasion” comment was “crazy” and he had found it “impossible to not react”.

He added: “It’s not about one person. It’s about the climate that has been created, and it’s about finding scapegoats and blaming others”.

“It’s not about Albanians or aliens or gangsters, but it’s about failed policies on borders and on crime.”

“This kind of language is not a policy, is not a programme, is not a vision. [It] is nothing but fuelling xenophobia and targeting, singling out a community”.

“I admire everything that Britain represents. But I really am disgusted about this kind of politics that at the end is doomed to fail.”

It comes after Mr Rama tweeted earlier that the UK was “discriminating” against Albanians to distract from “policy failures”.

Asked about those comments, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said he wanted a “productive relationship” with Mr Rama.

“But it’s also true that Albania is a demonstrably safe country, and the vast majority of people coming from Albania are young males,” he told ITV.

“It is a good example of economic migrants, of the kind that we as a country should be trying our best to deter,” he added.

Last week, Mr Jenrick said the government was looking at setting up a “bespoke route” for Albanians to have their immigration cases heard more quickly so they could be returned to Albania if their claims were unsuccessful.

But speaking on Sky News, Mr Jenrick said the UK must prioritise people in “genuine danger”.

“I want to have a constructive and productive relationship with our Albanian friends,” Mr Jenrick said. “But it is correct that a quarter of people who’ve come in small boats have come from Albania this year, and the NCA, our National Crime Organisation, has said that a very significant proportion of serious organised crime is emanating from those individuals.”

On Monday, Ms Braverman agreed with suggestions by Conservative MP Lee Anderson that “Albanian criminals” were leaving a safe country to come to the UK.

He said if accommodation in the UK was not good enough for them, they could “get on a dinghy and go straight back to France”.

Writing on Twitter, Mr Rama accused the home secretary of engaging in a “rhetoric of crime that ends up punishing the innocent”.

United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk has also criticised Ms Braverman’s “invasion” comments – saying it was “a horrible word” and politicians had to make sure their language did not “add fuel to the fire on issues that are about human beings”.

At the moment, the vast majority of those being sent back to Albania are convicted criminals who’ve served prison sentences – people who would expect to be deported under long-standing arrangements.

These are not the same people who have crossed the English Channel in recent months and sought asylum or filed human trafficking claims.

While the Home Office regards Albania as a safe country, if someone makes a plausible asylum claim it has to be considered.

That means these individuals would not be sent back until they have gone through the system and lost their case – a process that could take years.

The Home Office has an enormous in-tray of 101,000 unresolved asylum cases. The backlog has grown because case workers are taking more and more time to decide cases. This has been worsening for four years – and it’s not clear what the four home secretaries over that period have done to fix it.

Hence the reason immigration policy experts and Albania’s prime minister say the crisis in Kent is one of the government’s own making.

Albania is considered a “safe country” by the UK and is listed as a “designated state” under UK law, meaning there is generally “no serious risk of persecution” for people living there.

However, it is thought some Albanian migrants make asylum claims on the grounds that they have been trafficked to the UK.

Currently Albanians are the nationality most commonly referred for trafficking support in the UK.

Harjap Bhangal, an immigration lawyer, told BBC Newsnight that Albanians were being “targeted” by gangs, resulting in the high numbers travelling to the UK.

“Gangs are targeting Albanians and they’re saying, ‘Well, hold on, you want a better life. If you want to claim asylum in the UK, we can get you that’,” Mr Bhangal said.

Some 7,627 Albanians claimed asylum in the UK in the year up to June, more than double the number the previous year.

Albanians are less likely to be granted asylum than other nationalities, with the current rate at 53% compared with 76% for other nationalities.

But the latest figures will not include most of those who have arrived this year, as very few of these individuals will have had their asylum applications considered yet.

In 2022 – in the months to June – 440 people were returned to Albania from immigration detention centres. Almost all were single adult men.

Albanians also represented the highest number of foreign offenders sent back in the year to March 2022.

During Prime Minister’s Questions earlier, Rishi Sunak admitted not enough asylum claims were being processed and promised to fix the system.

Last week MPs were told just 4% of those who crossed the Channel in small boats in 2021 had received decisions on their asylum claims.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer accused the government of having lost control.

Almost 40,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats so far in 2022 – the highest number since figures began to be collected in 2018.

Ms Braverman has been under pressure to tackle severe overcrowding and poor conditions at the Manston migration processing centre in Kent, which ministers have blamed on an increase in migrant crossings in recent days.

Mr Jenrick has confirmed that the Home Office is facing a potential legal challenge over Manston centre, although he declined to say who was behind it.

He told Sky News the department had received “initial contact” for a judicial review – a process that could lead to a judge deciding whether the government has acted lawfully.

Council leaders in Kent warned the county was at “breaking point” because of the burden of accommodating migrants, and that the conditions at Manston could lead to unrest.

“Yes!” she replies enthusiastically as a passer-by gives a thumbs up.

Final polls on Friday indicated that Israel’s right-wing former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could come just one seat short of an outright majority in his push to return to power.

Israelis return to the polls on Tuesday for their fifth election in less than four years.

The country has been locked in an unprecedented period of political stalemate since 2019, when its longest-serving leader was charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, which he denies.

Mr Netanyahu was forced from office in mid-2021, when the centrist politician Yair Lapid pulled together a surprising coalition with liberal, right-wing and Arab parties united by their opposition to him.

The government outlasted the expectations of many, but finally collapsed in June.

Mr Lapid is now caretaker prime minister and Mr Netanyahu’s main competitor as he bids for a record sixth term in office.

What gives the ex-PM a boost in this vote is a deal between Likud and the far-right party, Religious Zionism, which has seen a sharp rise in popularity.

Its leaders, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, are outspoken Jewish supremacists. The former was also a follower of the late, explicitly racist, ultra-nationalist Meir Kahane, whose organisation was classed as a terrorist group by the US state department.

If they succeed in forming a new coalition government, it could prove a challenge for Israel’s international allies.

But among shoppers in the market, there is plenty of support for such a line-up.

“Other countries – in Europe, America – they think mainly from an economic perspective,” Tehila, a mother with a pushchair, tells me. “We need a prime minister who’s able to stand up for our security. I think Netanyahu is that someone.”

Yonathan backs Religious Zionism and feels optimistic about this vote.

“There’s less division on the right this time,” he says, noting that the left-wing Meretz party and the fractured Arab parties are in danger of failing to cross the electoral threshold.

“My hope is that they don’t pass, and the right wing might actually manage to make a stable government.”

Several polls by Israel’s main TV channels released at the end of last week indicated that the Netanyahu bloc – which also includes ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties Shas and United Torah Judaism – would win 60 of parliament’s 120 seats.

They predicted the rival, anti-Netanyahu bloc getting 56 seats and the Arab-led Hadash-Taal alliance, which has ruled out joining a coalition, taking four.

In the run-up to this election, the goal of Yair Lapid – leader of what looks set to be the second biggest party, Yesh Atid (There is a Future), has been to look prime ministerial.

During his past four months in office, commentators generally agree he has avoided missteps while hosting US President Joe Biden, overseeing a three-day bombardment of Islamic Jihad militants in Gaza, and signing a maritime border deal with neighbouring Lebanon, an enemy state.

“I’m voting for Lapid because I’ve liked what he’s done up until now,” says Etty, another shopper in Mahane Yehuda. “He should stay as prime minister. We have to give him a chance because Netanyahu [had] 12 years and he didn’t do anything.”

As with the previous four inconclusive elections, this looks like a referendum on Mr Netanyahu rather than a vote on Israel’s top security and diplomacy issues, notably Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the conflict with the Palestinians.

That is despite an increase in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank ahead of election day.

Last week, Israel killed three leaders of a new Palestinian armed group in Nablus known as the Lion’s Den. On Saturday, a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli in the Jewish settlement where Mr Ben-Gvir lives, before being shot dead by a guard.

“The traditional divide between left and right, that used to be about the Palestinian issue, it’s simply been suspended because of the fight between the ‘Yes’ or ‘No Bibi’ camps,” says Tal Shalev, chief political correspondent for Walla! News.

She notes that the current opposition leader appears to be in the strongest position going into this poll.

“Netanyahu is in a much better situation just mathematically than Lapid – his centre-left bloc is just much more divided,” she says. “What will voter turnout be? That’s the million-dollar question.”

So far, with so much at stake, overall turnout remained relatively high at 67.4% in 2021. However, voting among Israeli Arabs, or Palestinian citizens of Israel, who account for about a fifth of the population, was only 44.6% last year.

The prospect of Mr Ben-Gvir entering government – when he has previously called for expelling “disloyal” Arab citizens – is expected to push that up only slightly for this vote.

Critics of Mr Netanyahu raise concerns that if his bloc wins, the inclusion of ultra-nationalists in a new cabinet could strain ties with Western countries and Arab countries with which Israel has new relations, as well as the Palestinians.

They also fear it will put pressure on Israel’s legal system to prevent a conviction of Mr Netanyahu.

With voting so tight, the final result of the latest vote is unlikely to be clear immediately.

And after the experience of recent years, few Israeli analysts are ready to rule out the prospect of another deadlock, which could mean Israel going to the polls once again.

Moscow pulled out of the UN-brokered agreement on Saturday, alleging that Ukraine had used a safety corridor in the Black Sea to attack its fleet.

The UN says there were no ships inside the corridor that night.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the deal would be honoured and accused Russia of “blackmailing the world with hunger” – a claim Russia denies.

Despite the fallout, 12 ships containing 354,500 tons of food, including grain, left Ukraine’s Black Sea ports on Monday, Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said.

One of the vessels carrying 40,000 tons of grain was destined for Ethiopia, where “the real possibility of mass starvation” existed, it said.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February, its navy imposed a blockade on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, trapping about 20 million tonnes of grain meant for export inside the country, along with other foodstuffs such as maize and sunflower oil.

But in July, a deal between Ukraine and Russia was brokered by Turkey and the UN, agreeing to resume grain exports through the Black Sea ports.

On Monday, however, President Putin said the deal was being suspended, citing the “massive” drone attack on its fleet in Crimea that he alleged Kyiv was responsible for.

He said maritime safety must be ensured and that implementing grain exports under such conditions were too risky.

“Ukraine must guarantee that there will be no threats to civilian vessels,” Mr Putin said in a televised address.

Kyiv has not admitted responsibility for the attack, saying Moscow had long planned to abandoned the internationally-brokered deal and used the attack as a pretext to do so.

“In conditions when Russia is talking about the impossibility of guaranteeing the safety of shipping in these areas, such a deal is hardly feasible, and it takes on a different character – much more risky, dangerous and unguaranteed,” the Ukrainian president’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russia’s withdrawal from the deal has been condemned by the US, who said Moscow was “weaponising food”.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has urged Russia to reverse its decision, saying jeopardising the export of grain and fertilisers would impact the global food crisis.

The Russian ambassador to the US has rejected accusations that his country was exacerbating a global food crisis, saying it was unfair to criticise Russia.

The suspension comes as Russia says it has expanded its evacuations of the occupied Kherson region, despite stating over the weekend that these had come to an end.

During a heated debate at Westminster, Ms Braverman denied she blocked the use of hotels to ease overcrowding at the Manston migrant processing centre.

She sparked some MP’s fury when she said her policies were designed to repel an “invasion” on the south coast.

Labour condemned her remarks and accused her of being unfit for office.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said decision-making at the Home Office had “collapsed” on Ms Braverman’s watch and asked how “anyone is supposed to have confidence” in her.

Some 4,000 people are being held at the Manston processing centre, which is only designed to accommodate 1,600 people on a temporary basis.

Hundreds of people were moved there on Sunday after a man threw firebombs at a separate immigration centre in Dover. He was later found dead nearby.

Manston opened as a processing centre in February 2022, for the growing number of migrants reaching the UK in small boats and people are only supposed to be kept there for 24 hours for security and identity checks.

They are then meant to be moved into the Home Office’s asylum accommodation system, which often means a hotel.

When the chief inspector of immigration visited last week, he found some people had been there for over a month. That included one family who had been there for 32 days, sleeping on mats in a marquee.

Ms Braverman has also been accused of ignoring legal advice to procure more accommodation for migrants amid warnings that the centre was in danger of becoming dangerously overcrowded.

Sources have told the BBC the home secretary was warned by officials the government was acting outside the law by failing to provide alternative accommodation.

In a bullish statement in Parliament, Ms Braverman said “I have never ignored legal advice” by keeping people detained at Manston for longer than necessary.

Responding to questioning by Ms Cooper, Ms Braverman said on no occasion did she block hotels or “veto advice to procure extra and emergency accommodation”.

She claimed “on my watch” the use of 30 new hotels had been agreed since 6 September and she had “worked hard to find alternative accommodation to relieve the pressure at Manston”.

Ms Braverman said her policies of co-operating with French authorities and sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda would curb Channel crossings, calling the current system “broken” and illegal migration “out of control”.

A report following an inspection by the prison service in July found the management and treatment of arriving migrants at the centre had considerably improved.

Inspectors found it had been well-equipped and was being professionally run – but said they still had some significant concerns.

Among their findings were a lack of beds and no access to fresh air or exercise. The report said some toilet doors did not close fully and translation services were not always used.

A spokesperson for the Home Office welcomed the report, and said officials “continue to work hard to resolve the current pressures at Manston as an urgent priority”.

But the chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that “the home office and and contractors need to get a grip”.

He called on officials to “make suitable provisions so people can be moved off site as quickly as possible and housed in humane and decent conditions”.

Ms Braverman’s description of small boats crossing the Channel as an “invasion” drew condemnation, with one refugee charity calling her comments “indefensible”.

In her statement, Ms Braverman warned against using “inflammatory language” and spoke of a “witch hunt” against her, as she attempted to rally support among Tory MPs.

“I’m determined to do whatever it takes,” she went on. “That is why I’m in government. That’s why some people would prefer to be rid of me.”

She then paused as her statement was interrupted by heckles from opposition MPs, before adding: “Let them try.”

A record number of migrants have arrived in the UK on small boats this year, with nearly 1,000 making the crossing on Saturday and a further 468 crossing on Sunday.

The government has said in the year ending June 2022, there were 63,089 asylum applications, 77% more than in 2019.

The UK is spending almost £7m a day on hotels for asylum seekers – and the cost is likely to rise, MPs heard last week.

The Guardian reported on Sunday there were now at least eight cases of diphtheria and a case of MRSA at Manston.