Afternoon summary
Lee Anderson, the deputy chair of the Conservative party, has been accused of “stoking up division and hate” against migrants. The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, denounced Anderson for saying asylum seekers unhappy about being asked to live on a barge should “fuck off back to France”. But, in comments supported by No 10, Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, said Anderson was articulating the “righteous indignation of the British people”. (See 10.18am, 1.13pm, 1.24pm and 1.44pm.)
Updated
Irish PM says breakthrough needed within next two months to ensure NI executive revives before general election
Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (Irish prime minister), has said Northern Ireland could remain without a power-sharing executive until after the next general election if the deadlock is not broken within the next couple of months.
Power sharing has been suspended for 18 months because the Democratic Unionist party is boycotting the executive until it secures changes to the Northern Ireland protocol, the post-Brexit trading deal that creates some new rules for goods being traded between Britain and Northern Ireland.
The Windsor framework, the new version of the protocol that Rishi Sunak negotiated with the EU, was supposed to assuage DUP concerns.
But the DUP has still not endorsed it and Northern Ireland has gone from thinking power sharing would return after the May local elections, to thinking it would happen in the autumn, to thinking, now, it may not even happen then.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Varadkar said he still hoped the executive would revive in the autumn. But he went on:
It is more hope than expectation at this stage, to be frank.
If we don’t seize this window of opportunity in the next couple of months, talk will turn both in Belfast and in London to the next Westminster elections and it might be after that before we can get things going again.
Varadkar said he thought the Irish and UK governments should “work hand-in-glove and apply both pressure and support … in a co-ordinated way” to get the executive restored.
But Rishi Sunak did not favour this approach, he said.
There has been a reluctance, I suppose, in Downing Street, to go down that route.
The FT report quotes a UK government official saying involving the Irish government in efforts to restore power sharing would cause problems with unionists.
Updated
Painting over murals for children at asylum centre cost Home Office £1,550
The Home Office spent more than £1,500 of public money painting over cartoon murals that were meant to welcome children to a controversial asylum reception centre, Rajeev Syal reports.
Luke McGee, European policy editor at CNN, says comments like those from Lee Anderson today (see 10.18am) affect how the UK is seen abroad. He does not mean for the better.
British people on here will probably say they don't believe me, but when you speak to diplomats or officials from international governments, comments like those made by Lee Anderson really do affect how our allies see us. You can point at actual policy as much as you like
— Luke McGee (@lukemcgee) August 8, 2023
Or you can point at how compassionate the UK has been with Hong Kong and Ukraine. The point is that this is someone the British government is happy having representing their party view saying these things that are, whatever your politics, aggressive.
— Luke McGee (@lukemcgee) August 8, 2023
Cool, if that's how you want to be seen. But always remember that people outside the UK see what happens here. We have diplomats in other countries watching their local politics; same over here. And it's all observed and reported.
— Luke McGee (@lukemcgee) August 8, 2023
According to the Daily Telegraph, the latest green measure being targeted by Conservative MPs is the plan to ban the installation of new oil boilers in off-grid homes from 2026. The paper says “more than 30 Tory MPs have already written to the prime minister to raise the issue, amid concern it could disproportionately affect rural Conservative communities”.
One of the MPs concerned is George Eustice, the former environment secretary, who represents Camborne and Redruth in Cornwall. He told the paper:
Rural communities are about to have their own version of the Ulez [ultra low emissions zone] dumped on them …
They should call off the ban on the sale of boilers and pursue a different strategy which would be to properly incentivise renewable fuels in those boilers.
The Sun says it has spoken to an Iranian asylum seeker who was taken to the Bibby Stockholm barge yesterday who told the paper: “It’s OK, I like it.”
Updated
Suella Braverman has tweeted a picture of the meeting she chaired today as part what the government calls its “clampdown on crooked lawyers who coach illegal migrants to lie”.
Lawyers who game our asylum system by lying are a stain on the legal profession.
— Suella Braverman MP (@SuellaBraverman) August 8, 2023
Today I chaired a roundtable with @AlexChalkChelt, regulators and members of our new taskforce to crack down on rogue lawyers and support more prosecutions. pic.twitter.com/7d5ARTHYjR
Tory peer urges Sunak to block Liz Truss's resignation honours list, saying letting her have one would be 'insult to nation'
Yesterday it was reported that at least two people had reportedly turned down honours nominations from Liz Truss, with one apparently being too “humiliated” to accept one from the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister. But 14 names remain on the list, according to a report in the Times.
Today the Conservative peer Lord Cormack said it was “absurd” to let Truss have a resignation honours list given how little time she served as prime minister. Cormack told the World at One.
It’s absurd to think that somebody who was in office for such a short space of time, and who was not only the shortest-serving British prime minister in our history, but also the most expensive – to think that she should be able to dole out honours to people. What can they have done in the 40 days and 40 nights that she was in No 10 to be worthy of honours?
I think it brings the whole system into disrepute.
I know it places the prime minister in an awkward situation, and I’m very sorry for him … But I think he should say no, and he could easily say that he’s not going to have one either, however long he serves.
I just think it is not necessary. [Not all prime ministers have one]. It’s been fairly abused by her predecessor [Boris Johnson] and it would be complete nonsense – and, frankly, an insult to the nation – for her to have a list after such an ignominious period in No 10.
Updated
Suella Braverman, the home secretary, has said that at the start of July there were 218 unaccompanied child asylum seekers being housed in hotels. The Home Office tries to place child asylum seekers who are on their own with foster parents, but it uses hotels when foster placements are not available.
Braverman gave the figure in a letter to the Commons home affairs committee responding to questions raised by the committee at a hearing in June. In her letter, which has been published by the committee today, she also said:
Only 52 of the 154 young asylum seekers who were in hotel accommodation but who went missing earlier this year were still under the age of 18 on 27 July.
Between 13 December and 1 June, 1,788 Albanians were returned to Albania. Braverman gave this figure in response to a question about how many of the 12,000 Albanians who came to the UK in small boats in 2022 had been returned. She did not say who many of the 1,788 Albanians were small boat arrivals from last year.
Downing Street has said that Alex Chalk was speaking on behalf of the government when he defended Lee Anderson’s “fuck off back to France” comment about migrants unhappy with being asked to live on a barge (see 10.18am), Liz Bates from Sky News reports.
Number 10 has backed Lee Anderson over his 'migrants who don't like barges can f**k off back to France' comment.
— Liz Bates (@wizbates) August 8, 2023
After Justice Sec Alex Chalk said "his indignation was well placed", No10 told Sky: "The Justice Secretary was speaking on behalf of the government."
Updated
Labour's Sadiq Khan accuses Lee Anderson of 'stoking up division and hate' with anti-migrants comment
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has accused Lee Anderson, the Conservative party deputy chair, of “stoking up more division and hate” with his comment about asylum seekers published this morning. (See 10.18am.) He posted this on what most of us still call Twitter.
Language matters. This lot have been in Government for 13 years. After their abject failure all that’s left is stoking up more division and hate. We deserve so much better.
Language matters. This lot have been in Government for 13 years. After their abject failure all that's left is stoking up more division and hate. We deserve so much better. https://t.co/I3Dv6dAB7V
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) August 8, 2023
Registers of UK Electoral Commission hacked by ‘hostile actors’
The Electoral Commission, the UK’s elections watchdog, has been targeted by a cyber-attack that enabled “hostile actors” to access electoral registers. The full story is here.
Lee Anderson doubles down on anti-migrant comment
Lee Anderson, the Conservative party deputy chairman, has been tweeting this morning in the light of the controversy generated by his “fuck off back to France” remark. (See 10.18am.) Both tweets feature dubious claims.
The first is directed at the left in general.
Note to the Left.
Every illegal migrant that crosses the Channel from France is taking the place of someone genuinely in danger in a refugee camp.
Why can’t you see that these fit healthy young men are actually preventing help reaching those desperate people who really need it?
Note to the Left.
— Lee Anderson MP (@LeeAndersonMP_) August 8, 2023
Every illegal migrant that crosses the Channel from France is taking the place of someone genuinely in danger in a refugee camp.
Why can't you see that these fit healthy young men are actually preventing help reaching those desperate people who really need it? pic.twitter.com/hAtQBlLzT5
This comment reflects Rishi Sunak’s argument that stopping small boats is justified on the grounds of “fairness” because people who claim asylum after arriving in the UK illegally are cheating because they are in effect jumping the queue, and taking up asylum places that should go to people who apply through the legitimate asylum routes.
But the problem with this argument is that most people from countries where they are at risk of war or persecution do not have what Sunak or Anderson would describe as a legitimate route to claiming asylum in the UK. A Tory MP made this point very effectively last year when he left Suella Braverman, the home secretary, floundering at a home affairs committee hearing because she could not say what her “safe and legal” asylum routes were for a hypothetical refugee.
Anderson also responded to a critcal tweet from Diane Abbott. (See 11.19am.)
Wrong again @HackneyAbbott
I told illegal migrants to go back to France not genuine asylum seekers.
Btw not seen you in Parliament for a few months. Are you on leave or have you said something daft again?
Wrong again @HackneyAbbott
— Lee Anderson MP (@LeeAndersonMP_) August 8, 2023
I told illegal migrants to go back to France not genuine asylum seekers.
Btw not seen you in Parliament for a few months. Are you on leave or have you said something daft again?https://t.co/jL7g2h3eGt
This tweet implies that asylum seekers unhappy about being housed on a barge (the ones he said should return to France – see 10.18am) are not genuine asylum seekers. Since their applications have not been decided, it is impossible to know for sure. But there is no evidence to back Anderson’s assertion that all their claims will be bogus, and the latest Home Office data suggests that most of them are genuine. In 2022 76% of initial asylum applications that were processed were accepted – “a substantially higher grant rate than in pre-pandemic years and the highest yearly grant rate since 82% in 1990”, the Home Office said.
The Home Office added:
Of the top 10 nationalities applying for asylum, half have a grant rate above 80% (Afghanistan 98%, Iran 80%, Syria 99%, Eritrea 98%, and Sudan 84%).
Updated
80% of Britons have little or no confidence Sunak will cut number of small boat crossings, poll suggests
Rishi Sunak has said that one of his five priorities for this year will be stopping the small boats crossing the Channel. No 10 presents this an absolute pledge to “stop the boats”, not just as a promise to implement measures that might reduce small boat crossings, although Sunak himself has been evasive as to what counts as the pledge being met.
According to new polling from YouGov, 80% of Britons have little or no confidence that Sunak will reduce the number of asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats. The overall figures are similar for Conservative voters and Labour voters, although Tories are more likely to say they are “not very” confident the promise will be kept, while Labour supporters are more likely to say they are “not at all” confident.
80% of Britons have little to no confidence the government will reduce the number of asylum seekers crossing the Channel in small boats
— YouGov (@YouGov) August 8, 2023
All Britons
Confident: 9%
Not confident: 80%
Conservative voters
Confident: 15%
Not confident: 80%https://t.co/35RyIWNPkN pic.twitter.com/dHFfW8kjlG
While these numbers look dreadful for the government, if 80% of people suspect there will be no reduction in the number of people crossing the Channel in small boats this year, Sunak would at least be exceeding expectations if he achieved even a modest reduction. According to the tracker run by Migration Watch UK, a thinktank that campaigns for tighter controls on migration, small boat crossings are currently 17% lower than the figure for the same point in 2022.
YouGov also found that three-quarters of Britons think the government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlikely to go ahead.
The government still hopes to enact the Rwanda plan, but 73% of Britons, including 77% of Conservative voters, think it is unlikely to happenhttps://t.co/35RyIWNPkN pic.twitter.com/DlbaNEBHRx
— YouGov (@YouGov) August 8, 2023
Updated
The Foreign Office has announced fresh sanctions against Russia, which it says will limit Vladimir Putin’s access to foreign military equipment.
The sanctions cover 22 individuals and businesses outside Russia “supporting Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, as well as three Russian companies importing electronics vital to Russia’s military equipment used on the battlefield”, the Foreign Office said in a news release.
Updated
Chalk signals he is opposed to making it easier for prisoners who have convictions quashed to get compensation
The Andrew Malkinson miscarriage of justice story has highlighted two anomalies with the system by which victims in these cases receive – or do not receive – compensation.
One was the surprise revelation that victims of miscarriage of justice could have money deducted from their compensation payment to cover their living costs while in jail. Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has scrapped this rule, and this morning said this might be backdated (which in theory would allow three people who did lose out because of this to get their money back). See 11.17am.
The other relates to the threshold for getting compensation. Partly as a result of a law passed in 2014, prisoners who have a conviction quashed do not qualify for compensation unless new evidence shows “beyond reasonable doubt” that they did not commit the offence. There have been calls for this rule to be changed too, on the grounds that it is unfair.
But in his Today interview this morning Chalk signalled that he was opposed to changing this rule. He said that if he lowered this threshold, that would lead to people who were clearly guilty, but who were freed on a technicality, getting compensation. He said:
Let me give you two quick examples. I remember a case back 10 years ago now, horrible GBH in a pub, someone had their hands nearly severed, two people convicted, they went into custody and so on.
And yet, whilst they’re in custody, it emerged that the indictment, that’s to say the charge sheet upon which they had been tried, was defective because it hadn’t been signed. And as a result, the court of appeal, I think the supreme court, decided to quash those convictions and they were released.
Now, is it right in those circumstances, where there’s no doubt, everyone knows that they committed the crime, that they should be entitled £100,000.
Or what about terrorists who have been convicted, and yet it emerges after their conviction that the state gave an undertaking that they wouldn’t be prosecuted, and therefore the convictions are quashed as an abuse of process?
What happened when Bibby Stockholm used to house asylum seekers in Netherlands
Long before it was docked in Dorset, the Bibby Stockholm was used by the Netherlands to also house asylum-seekers.
While the barge has since been refurbished, its use in Rotterdam in the early 2000s sparked complaints over the cramped accommodation and poor living conditions of those onboard.
In 2006 a reporter with the Dutch Magazine Vrij Nederland went undercover as a security guard on the barge. At the time, 472 asylum seekers were living on the boat. The journalist, Robert van de Griend, said it was like a jail.
He wrote:
Calling the prisoners ‘inhabitants’ and the cells ‘rooms’ seems like a bad joke. People are packed here on top of each other. The ceilings on the boat are low and the corridors so narrow that it’s hard not to bump into each other. The four-person cells are inhumanely small, no larger than twenty square metres. It’s stuffy and there’s not much light coming in.
His observations were echoed in a 2008 report by Amnesty International, in which a 32-year-old asylum seeker told the campaign group that conditions on the boat were “very difficult”. The asylum seeker quoted in the report went on:
There were four people in a cell, which caused frequent fights over the use of the television, cleaning the cell and the noise. There is only a little daylight in the cells, which makes reading difficult. Moreover, the ventilation in the small cell is insufficient to keep the cell fresh; when someone went to the toilet the smell would fill the whole cell. In the morning the guards would open the cell with their nose covered to protect themselves against the stench which filled the cell overnight.
The Netherlands eventually stopped using the barge following the opening of new facilities for asylum seekers.
In June of this year, a Home Office spokesperson said the Bibby Stockholm had “completed a statutory inspection and refurbishment”.
Updated
Diane Abbott, who was shadow home secretary when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, has described Lee Anderson’s latest outburst (see 10.18am) as “a new low even for the Tories”.
Conservative Deputy chairman Lee Anderson tells asylum seekers to 'f*** off back to France if they don't like barges’ A new low even for the Tories. https://t.co/58VJBPIR1O
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) August 7, 2023
Chalk says new ban on prisoners wrongly convicted paying living costs from compensation could be backdated
Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has said he is “considering” backdating new rules which mean that wrongly convicted people will no longer have prison living costs deducted from their compensation payments, PA Media reports. PA says:
The minister made the reform with immediate effect on Sunday after the outrage sparked by the miscarriage of justice case centring on Andrew Malkinson.
Malkinson, who spent 17 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, had his conviction quashed after DNA linking another man to the crime was produced.
The 57-year-old quickly expressed concern that the rules meant expenses could be deducted from any compensation payment he may be awarded to cover the costs of his jail term.
In response, Chalk updated the guidance dating back to 2006 to remove them from future payments made under the miscarriage of justice compensation scheme.
Speaking to broadcasters this morning, he suggested he may go further by backdating the change after Malkinson and Sir Bob Neill, the Tory MP who chairs the Commons justice committee, called for wider reform.
He told BBC One’s Breakfast programme: “Certainly since 2006 there have been three cases where deductions have been made, and none in the last 10 years.
“Of those three cases, the reductions from their compensation award have been 3% and 6% so it’s important to get some perspective.
“There’s also issues around the public interest, about retrospectivity – normally there’s a rule that says you shouldn’t make rules retrospective but I’m considering this all in the round.”
Updated
Chalk says courts likely to let Home Office leave migrants homeless if they refuse housing on barge
Yesterday 15 asylum seekers were moved to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, but dozens more who were due to go there had their transfer postponed because of legal action. We don’t know the full details of the legal arguments involved, but the Care4Calais, the refugee charity helping many of the migrants, said people who were disabled, who had survived torture and who had had a traumatic experience of being at sea, were among those objecting to being housed on the barge.
According to a report by Charles Hymas in the Daily Telegraph, Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is threatening to withdraw accommodation from asylum seekers who refuse to move to the barge without a reasonable excuse. He quotes a government source saying:
Anyone refusing to move without a reasonable excuse has 24 hours to reconsider, after which their asylum support will cease and they will have to fend for themselves.
In his Today interview this morning Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, was asked if it would be legal to leave migrants homeless in this way. He said that ultimately this would be a matter for the courts to consider, but he said it was “unlikely” that this would be ruled illegal.
He said that accommodation on the barge was “basic”. But it was “perfectly safe” and “perfectly decent”, and it was “not unreasonable” for the government to say asylum seekers should have to live there, he said.
He explained:
If people were therefore told, ‘Right, if you don’t want to come on the barge, that’s it, the state has discharged its duty to you’. You’re putting to me, would that be an illegal position? Would that be an unlawful stance to take? My position is it’s unlikely that would be unlawful. In other words, I suspect that would be lawful. But that would have to be considered in the normal way.
Chalk defends Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson over his sweary 'back to France' jibe about migrants complaining about barges
As the first asylum seekers moved into the Bibby Stockholm barge at Portland, many charities and campaigners (see here, here and here, for example) complained about the conditions in which they were being housed.
In an interview with the Daily Express, Lee Anderson, the Conservative deputy chairman, delivered a characteristically blunt response. He told the paper:
If they don’t like barges, then they should fuck off back to France …
I think people have just had enough.
These people come across the Channel in small boats. If they don’t like the conditions they are housed in here then they should go back to France or better not come at all in the first place.
Asked on LBC if Anderson was speaking on behalf of the party, Chalk defended what he said, arguing that his Tory colleague was expressing the “righteous indignation of the British people”. Chalk said:
Lee Anderson expresses the righteous indignation of the British people. Yeah, he does it in salty terms and that’s his style. But his indignation is well placed.
People are coming from a safe country. France is a signatory to the European convention on human rights, and people should claim asylum in the first country. It shouldn’t be like a sort of open shopping list of where you want to go.
So he expresses himself in his characteristically robust terms, but there is a lot of sense, in my respectful view, in what Lee says.
Does Tory Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson 'speak for the party' when he says migrants who don't like barges should 'f*** off back to France'?
— LBC (@LBC) August 8, 2023
'There is a lot of sense in what Lee says,' Justice Secretary @AlexChalkChelt tells @NickFerrariLBC. pic.twitter.com/I0pzarm1AU
On the Today programme Nick Robinson, the presenter, reminded Chalk that after Brexit he said that Britain should be a “tolerant, outward-facing nation” and that he did not want to see a return of “the kind of ugly bigotry that I thought we had left long behind”. Asked if what Anderson said was the language of a tolerant and outward-facing nation, Chalk replied:
I think that this is absolutely fine. I have no difficulty with that. It’s not bigotry at all.
This country, lest we forget, has offered its home to 400,000 people since 2015: Ukrainians, people from Hong Kong, Afghans. We are an open and warm and outward-facing country.
But equally we’re a country that believes in fairness and playing by the rules, and those who don’t play by the rules, who don’t take advantage of those opportunities we provide, and try to jump the queue, rightly cause indignation. And I think Lee was expressing that indignation in his own way, but there was nothing unreasonable in principle about what he was saying.
Updated
Justice secretary Alex Chalk claims lawyers have become increasingly political, and says it's 'mistake'
Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has been giving interviews this morning to promote the announcement about the “professional enablers taskforce”, the group set up to facilitate enforcement action against what Suella Braverman calls “crooked immigration lawyers”. (See 9.11am.) In an interview with Today, Chalk said there was a difference between the lawyers who are knowingly helping people make false claims and those who were helping asylum seekers with legitimate claims.
Asked if the government was criticising the lawyers who launched the legal challenges that prevented some migrants being moved to the Bibby Stockholm barge yesterday. Chalk said what they were doing was legitimate. He said:
You are absolutely right to draw a distinction.
People who are making stuff up deserve, frankly, the full force of the law, the law should come down like a ton of bricks.
Yes, the government is frustrated, of course, by legal challenges. Those legal challenges aren’t improper of themselves, but we will be challenging them because we take the view that they are misguided, they are wrongheaded, they are last-minute, they are … completely misconceived.
(Many lawyers believe that a lot of the “lefty lawyer” rhetoric from senior ministers in recent years, including Braverman and Rishi Sunak, does elide the distinction between corrupt solicitors, and the majority working on immigration cases honestly and professionally, and that this is deliberate.)
Although Chalk said that he was not criticising lawyers for pursuing legitimate claims, he claimed that recently lawyers have become increasingly political. This was regrettable, he said.
The strong tradition of lawyers in this country is that you simply act for your client without fear or favour, and you don’t necessarily associate yourself with that cause.
But I think it is fair to point out that in the last 10 years there has been a growing, and I think regrettable, trend for lawyers to actively parade their politics and to identify more with their clients. And if they can avoid that, they should avoid it.
It’s much better, I think, for lawyers in the main to keep their politics to themselves and to simply do the job on behalf of the clients.
But some seem to be much more willing, and indeed almost enthusiastic, about parading their political opposition. I think that’s a mistake.
Updated
Illegal Migration Act will make asylum system worse, leaving thousands 'in legal limbo', says Law Society
In his Today programme interview David McNeill, head of public affairs at the Law Society, argued that the problem with the asylum system was not false claims, but the backlog of applications caused by delays in dealing with them. He told the programme:
Most asylum claims are successful. Those claims which are unsuccessful go to appeal; over half are granted on appeal. There’s something fundamentally wrong with this system.
He also said the Illegal Migration Act would make the situation worse. Describing it as a “really flawed piece of legislation”, he said:
On a practical level the government doesn’t have sufficient number of places in secure accommodation and the plan is to put everybody in secure accommodation for 28 days.
It doesn’t have sufficient numbers of return agreements with other countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, so actually even if you wanted to return asylum seekers it can’t because there isn’t a return agreement.
So what they are going to create is a new group of this 50,000 in hotels, basically a new group of asylum seekers in legal limbo, and it will just make the situation worse.
Braverman accused of cracking down on ‘crooked immigration lawyers’ as a distraction tactic
Good morning. It’s day two of what is down on the No 10 grid as “small boats week” and this morning the government is publicising the existence of the “professional enablers taskforce”, a group set up to beef up enforcement action taken against lawyers who knowingly help migrants make false immigration claims. The taskforce has been running for a while now, but the Home Office has decided to promote it today, with a press release quoting Suella Braverman, the home secretary, saying:
Crooked immigration lawyers must be rooted out and brought to justice. While the majority of lawyers act with integrity – we know that some are lying to help illegal migrants game the system. It is not right or fair on those who play by the rules.
Aubrey Allegretti has written up the story for the Guardian here.
But the story is getting the biggest show in the Daily Mail, which is particularly interested in the topic of “crooked immigration lawyers” because they recently published an investigation that led to the Solicitors Regulation Authority closing three law firms where there was evidence (obtained undercover by the Mail) exposing lawyers or legal advisers telling someone posing as an economic migrant how to fabricate a story that might allow them to successfully claim asylum.
Lawyers accept that conduct of the kind exposed by the Daily Mail is wrong, and that the perpetrators should be punished. But the government has been criticised this morning for presenting this as part of a wider crusade against “leftie lawyers”.
David McNeill, head of public affairs at the Law Society, told the Today programme this morning:
It’s not in our interest to have any solicitor acting improperly or crookedly, but this announcement today is something of a red herring.
This task force which they tout with such aggressive language has been in existence for months now so really from our perspective it just looks like a bit of lawyer-bashing as a distraction from really bad news for the government on the number of asylum seekers now accommodated in hotels, 50,000, problems with processing asylum claims – the backlog is continuing to be extremely bad with cases taking over a year – and also the quality of the case work.
McNeill’s argument was broadly endorsed by Lord Garnier, a Conservative peer and former solicitor general. He was also on on the Today programme and, asked what he thought of government rhetoric about lawyers, he replied:
Attacking judges, attacking lawyers, purely for political rhetoric is a waste of time, and I’ve said as much on the floor of the House of Lords.
I’ve been accused of many things but one thing I’ve not been accused of being a lefty lawyer, but I do believe in the rule of law. And if people would concentrate on what they’re supposed to be doing, rather than deflect by attacking others, we might have a rather more productive set of affairs.
Alex Chalk, the justice secretary, has been defending the government’s stance in an interview round. I will post his comments shortly.
If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a PC or a laptop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line, privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate), or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.
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