13 h. ago Voting for Brexit, stopping the small boats – none of it will ever appease those who wage war on immigration | Nesrine Malik

The facts and the numbers are irrelevant: Donald Trump and Nigel Farage just find new excuses and increase the toxicityA few weeks after the Brexit referendum, a leave-voting friend of mine told me what the biggest benefit would be. “We will never hear about immigration again,” he said. If you give the people the control over the border they want, the logic went, then Brexit will finally dissolve immigration as an issue that politicians can exploit, and the country can crack on with all the other important stuff that needs doing. And, well, let’s just say that this prediction did not pan out on such a colossal level that no follow-up conversation has been necessary.Because that’s just not how the whole immigration thing works. The goalposts always move. Nothing clarifies that more than Nigel Farage getting everything he has said he ever wanted, the country heaving itself out of the EU and ending free movement, only for another boil to fester around the issue of immigration – and gue...

Events

13 h. ago Vote Brexit, stop the boats – the goalposts on immigration keep moving, and those who oppose it will never be appeased | Nesrine Malik

The facts and the numbers are irrelevant: Donald Trump and Nigel Farage just find new excuses and increase the toxicityA few weeks after the Brexit referendum, a leave-voting friend of mine told me what the biggest benefit would be. “We will never hear about immigration again,” he said. If you give the people the control over the border they want, the logic went, then Brexit will finally dissolve immigration as an issue that politicians can exploit, and the country can crack on with all the other important stuff that needs doing. And, well, let’s just say that this prediction did not pan out on such a colossal level that no follow-up conversation has been necessary.Because that’s just not how the whole immigration thing works. The goalposts always move. Nothing clarifies that more than Nigel Farage getting everything he has said he ever wanted, the country heaving itself out of the EU and ending free movement, only for another boil to fester around the issue of immigration – and gue...

Politics

31 h. ago Even Reform voters now want to unpick this one Brexit measure, shock poll reveals

Exclusive: A YouGov poll has revealed attitudes to Brexit may be changing – even among Nigel Farage’s supporters

Politics

38 h. ago I was minding my own business when someone shouted 'stop the boats' at me in the street

I have been racially abused before, but this time it made me fear for my life

Politics

3 d. ago Voices: Getting rid of the ECHR won’t stop a single boat of migrants

As New Labour grandees unite with Red Wall Labour MPs to call for the European Court of Human Rights to be reformed – legislation that Nigel Farage wants to scrap – Sean O’Grady says the mainstreaming of the view that it is no longer workable or needed is deeply dishonest

Events

5 d. ago The Guardian view on UK attitudes to Europe: Labour is following where it could be leading | Editorial

There are signs of ministerial courage in making the case for closer ties to our neighbours, but the government could go further and fasterBritain’s relationship with the European Union was not a prominent issue in national debate when Sir Keir Starmer became prime minister, and Downing Street has striven to keep it that way. Labour strategists have seen Europe as a fissile topic, and Sir Keir’s opposition to Brexit in the 2016 referendum as a liability with swing voters. The prime minister has moved Britain closer to Europe, but in timid increments. The summit that formally “reset” relations early this year was long on statements of ambition, but short on substance. The government’s private recognition that economic logics impel Britain back into a European orbit has been in constant tension with fear of making that case in public.The balance now appears to be shifting. In a speech on Wednesday, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for EU relations, made the...

Politics

6 d. ago Just like Brexit, Farage is simply telling voters what they want to hear on migration

Nigel Farage laid out details of his plans for mass deportation of migrants as the small boats crisis continues to grow, but The Independent’s political editor David Maddox has heard all the same rhetoric before

Politics

6 d. ago 'Threat to public order' unless small boats stopped says Nigel Farage as he lays out Reform immigration plans

Nigel Farage sets out Reform’s plans to tackle small boats crossings, saying his party will introduce ‘mass deportations’ if elected

Events

7 d. ago The Democrats are in deep trouble in the US – and Labour is on the way to joining them | Nesrine Malik

When millions of once-loyal supporters become disillusioned with a party, there can only be one result: electoral disasterThe measure of a political party’s failure lies not in how many agnostics and opponents it fails to convert, but in how many loyalists it fails to preserve. The endorsement of new, unnatural voters – Latinos in the US for Donald Trump, or Tories voting for Labour for the first time – might deliver big electoral swings but is ultimately not sticky. And these votes are only meaningful if the bedrock is solid. That bedrock is the people who consistently show up, no matter what, from generation to generation, for a party. And the Democrats are losing them.In extensive research published last week tracking voter registration, the New York Times identified an alarming pattern. The Democratic party has been “haemorrhaging” voters since way before election day. In the states that track voter registration by political party, Democrats lost to Republicans in all of them in...

Politics

7 d. ago Albanian gang member 'who smuggled people into Britain' says the Government could stop crossings tomorrow... but claims 'it doesn't want to'

The people smuggler said he thought Labour is not stopping small boats (pictured, file photo) from crossing the Channel because it bolsters the country's workforce.

Politics

7 d. ago Starmer's asylum court overhaul 'will not stop the boats landing': Critics accuse PM of 'tinkering around the edges' as tensions flare at hotel rallies

The Tories and Reform UK said the proposals are designed to see off public anger over migrant hotels but are nothing more than 'tinkering at the edges' of the asylum system.

Events

9 d. ago Voices: Starmer has to find a workable plan to ‘stop the boats’ or Farage will become prime minister

The only thing that will defeat Reform’s unworkable asylum policy is a workable one, writes John Rentoul. Looking at its numerous holes won’t work when symbolism is its main attraction to so many in Britain

Politics

1 week ago Asylum seekers are being targeted – and so are those who help them. It’s a disturbing new reality | Enver Solomon

Far-right influencers are menacing charities and individuals to further isolate the people we work with. Ensuring safety is now part of the jobIn today’s social media age, one version of events spreads like wildfire. So it is fast becoming accepted in the national conversation that all men risking life and limb to cross the Channel in flimsy vessels are dangerous people who are likely to abuse women and girls. The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, went so far as to say that, because of rising numbers coming in small boats, women had “stopped jogging in the park because there are men lurking in bushes”.As the political rhetoric has become more toxic, and especially this week, the real-world consequences for those inside the hotels and for organisations like my own and many others in the charity and statutory sector become more dire.Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee CouncilDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a r...

Events

2 w. ago Gaza’s journalists are talented, professional and dignified. That’s why Israel targets them | Nesrine Malik

Recent killings have dazed the world and provoked condemnation. But little is said about the calibre of Palestinian journalismThe first time I met Al Jazeera’s Gaza team lead, Tamer Almisshal, was in July last year. His team had already buried two journalists, Hamza al-Dahdouh and Samer Abu Daqqa. The rest, he told me, were hungry. They were also dealing with trying to get hold of protective gear, threats from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the killing of family members. Ismail al-Ghoul hadn’t seen his wife and child in months and was missing them intensely. Hossam Shabat, Mohammed Qraiqea and Anas al-Sharif were asking for time to secure food in the morning before they could start reporting. Today, they are all dead.I spoke with various members of the Gaza team while writing a profile of Gaza’s veteran reporter Wael al-Dahdouh, who lost his wife, three of his children and grandson. All spoke of their work as a duty that needed to be carried out despite the risks. Three members...

Politics

2 w. ago If stopping the boats were simple, it would have happened by now

Editorial: With the number of people who have crossed the Channel on small boats since Keir Starmer came to power passing 50,000, it is a reminder that, during the election, Labour gave the impression it had a plan to fix the problem of irregular migration. But that is not to decry their efforts so far

Politics

3 w. ago Here’s the truth about Britain’s immigration hysteria: Starmer and co have whipped it up to get cheap votes | Nesrine Malik

He is part of a political establishment that is fuelling a crisis way beyond the point that they can ever be seen to solve it. It’s a cynical, idiotic doom loopImmigration has been a fixture of Britain’s political discourse for so long, it now feels, like Voltaire’s god, that if the issue did not exist, we would have to invent it. What would our politics look like, what would the broad majority of Britain’s media do with themselves, without immigration? It has become such a feature of the country’s political culture, it amounts to a sort of historical exhibit: “rivers of blood”, the “hostile environment”, “go home” vans, “controls on immigration” crockery, the Brexit “breaking point” poster, the Windrush scandal, “stop the boats”, “island of strangers”. And now, summer riots.What conjoins all of these is one thing: misinformation. I have banged on for years in this column about the disconnect between immigration discourse and the reality of how hard and expensive it is to enter the ...

Politics

3 w. ago Border Force search charity row boat mistaken for ‘illegal migrants’ by Rupert Lowe

A group of charity rowers were stopped and searched by a Border Force patrol boat after MP Rupert Lowe mistakenly identified them as “illegal immigrants” on social media.

Events

4 w. ago DARREN LEWIS: Angry mobs could do well to remember the facts about asylum

Social media has replaced Enoch Powell’s racist scaremongering with shameful attempts to minimise the work of low-paid immigrants who rebuilt this country after the Second World War, writes Darren Lewis

Events

4 w. ago Voices: Will Labour’s new migrant controls stop the boats or encourage Nigel Farage?

As home secretary Yvette Cooper announces £100m to pay for more border officers and new surveillance technology, among a raft of key measures, Sean O'Grady admits that there is no silver bullet to stopping illegal immigration – and that slow, unshowy progress risks playing into Reform UK’s hands

Events

4 w. ago The real danger in this permacrisis is not the political drama: it’s the risk that nothing changes | Nesrine Malik

It is said the centre cannot hold, but what if it does? That’s a frightening recipe for more stasis and more rageA new party has launched in the UK, and it didn’t take long for it to become the subject of frantic speculation. Will it split the left? Will it create more of an opening for Reform UK? Should it forge an alliance with the Greens? The stunning speed with which Jeremy Corbyn’s new party amassed supporters, now standing at 600,000 in a week, reasonably makes it feel like a real and viable thing. And the next logical step is to assess its chances in meaningfully challenging the mainstream. But the bigger question is, can the mainstream be meaningfully challenged, or is the future one of increasing fragmentation, with a persistent but tense monopoly on power by the political establishment?The signs that the centre is fraying at the margins became clear at the last general election. There was a historically low turnout by share of the population (resulting in the most dispropo...

Events