Afternoon summary
A judge who granted a Palestinian family the right to live in the UK after they applied through a scheme originally meant for Ukrainian refugees made the wrong decision, Keir Starmer has said. As Rajeev Syal reports, a family of six seeking to flee Gaza were allowed to join their brother in the UK after an immigration judge ruled that the Home Office’s rejection of their application breached their human rights, it emerged today. Starmer said he did not agree with the decision and the Home Office intended to close the loophole. The family had made their application through the Ukraine Family Scheme. Hugo Norton-Taylor, an upper tribunal judge, allowed the family to come to the UK on the basis of their right to a family life under article 8 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR). Starmer spoke out after Kemi Badenoch raised the story at PMQs. Starmer was widely seen to have come out best during their exchanges (see 1.18pm), but Badenoch later said that Starmer was factually wrong in what he said at one point (see 3.37pm).
Badenoch challenged Starmer on immigration policy at PMQs after it emerged that the Home Office has strengthened guidance so as to make it almost impossible for people arriving in the UK to acquire British citizenship – even if they successfully apply for asylum. (See 9.22am.) The Tories claimed this as a policy win. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said:
Just days ago, Labour claimed changes to border rules were ‘unworkable’.
But now they’re dancing to our tune with a change in position they have been forced into.
In the House of Lords this afternoon David Blunkett, a former Labour home secretary, expressed concerns about the new guidance, and said parliament should get a vote on it. He suggested it would be bad for social cohesion and unfair on children, and that it could leave people stateless.
It says a lot that even someone like Blunkett is so concerned about the Government's decision to block so many refugees from ever being granted citizenship in the UKhttps://t.co/DjsQ2I0RR6 pic.twitter.com/tZoPqjeSzQ
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) February 12, 2025
Reform UK has said that, if it wins the next election, it will impose a £10bn a year tax on the renewable energy sector. (See 4.41pm.) The proposals has been criticsed by Common Wealth, a green energy thinktank. Its director Mathew Lawrence said:
The energy system is at a high-stakes crossroad. Households are still feeling the squeeze. Electricity costs for industry remain too high. The solution isn’t to double down on volatile and expensive fossil fuels. It is to deliver an investment surge that builds out home grown clean power. The most cost-effective and direct way to do that is how we built our energy system in the past: public ownership and investment.
Updated
Asked by ITV News about a report it has produced exposing a white supremacist group called Active Club England, Farage praises ITV for its “good, investigative journalism”. He says extremists have always existed, and probably always will. He says he is not underestimating how unpleasant they are. But he goes on:
It is worth just .. to remind ourselves that in terms of counterterrorism activities, at the moment only 10% of their work is dealing with the far right, 80% is dealing with the Islamist threat. So we just do need to get this into some sense of perspective.
