End of day summary
Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day:
All asylum seekers being housed onboard a controversial barge are being removed because of potentially deadly bacteria in the water system, it has been confirmed. Home Office sources said legionella had been identified on the Bibby Stockholm, the 222-bedroom hulk hired by the Home Office as part of a £1.6bn immigration deal.
Treasury minister John Glen has said he does not back the UK leaving the European convention on human rights. He made the comments when asked on LBC’s Nick Ferrari if he is in support of “what we understand to be a growing sentiment within the Conservative party that the United Kingdom should quit the European convention on human rights”.
The Home Office is preparing for a large number of small boat arrivals over the next few days and has issued an appeal for contractor staff from across the country to work at Manston processing centre in Kent even if they are not rostered to work, the Guardian understands. Government sources have confirmed a high number of crossings are likely in the next few days. Weather conditions on Friday night are thought to be particularly favourable.
Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales, has said he could stand for election to a directly elected senate at Westminster if Labour follows through on its pledge to abolish the House of Lords. Drakeford, the Welsh Labour leader, has previously refused invitations to stand as an MP and instead devoted himself to the Senedd in Cardiff, overseeing the implementation of new powers for the devolved parliament.
The MP Angus MacNeil has announced he has been expelled from the Scottish National party (SNP). He was suspended from the party’s Westminster group last month after reportedly clashing with its chief whip, Brendan O’Hara.
Junior doctors in England have launched a fifth round of industrial action, with thousands going on strike just days after starting their first NHS jobs. Soon after the doctors began their strike action the chief secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, ruled out pay negotiations with the doctors.
Steve Barclay has urged the British Medical Association to end strike action and for junior doctors to accept the latest pay deal offered. The health secretary told broadcasters that he was concerned about the impact strikes are having on patients and “that is why I call on the BMA to end their industrial action”.
Humza Yousaf was branded a “pestilence on the land” by a heckler as he appeared at an Edinburgh festival fringe event. The Scottish first minister was interrupted three times when he took to the stage with broadcaster Iain Dale on Friday.
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Home Office appeals for extra staff to assist with sharp rise in small boat arrivals
The Home Office is preparing for a large number of small boat arrivals over the next few days and has issued an appeal for contractor staff from across the country to work at Manston processing centre in Kent even if they are not rostered to work, the Guardian understands.
Government sources have confirmed a high number of crossings are likely in the next few days. Weather conditions on Friday night are thought to be particularly favourable.
The Home Office said it did not comment on operational matters.
The government confirmed there was a very large number of crossings on Thursday with 755 people arriving in 14 boats, pushing the number of people who have crossed since records began in 2018, over the symbolic 100,000 mark.
Thursday’s arrivals included one boat that got into difficulty with 17 people overboard off the Kent coast. They were rescued by four RNLI lifeboats. There were no crossings detected over the previous four days.
According to charity workers in the camps in northern France, where people wait for the smugglers to approve their journey across the Channel, there are “a lot of people on the move” and about 800 people counted in Grande-Synthe camp, Dunkirk, waiting to cross.
The high number of crossings is expected despite the prime minister and home secretary’s repeated pledges to “stop the boats” and Rishi Sunak’s assurances that the policy of increased patrols by the French had significantly increased interceptions of those trying to cross. However, after these interceptions people can simply attempt to cross again the following night.
Read the full story here:
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Humza Yousaf heckled at Edinburgh fringe event
Humza Yousaf was branded a “pestilence on the land” by a heckler as he appeared at an Edinburgh festival fringe event.
The Scottish first minister was interrupted three times when he took to the stage with broadcaster Iain Dale on Friday, PA News reports.
As he spoke about how he had experienced “too many people who have been racist” Yousaf was interrupted by Niall Fraser, a member of the Scottish Family party.
Fraser shouted at Yousaf:
On behalf of Scotland, fuck you. You are a pestilence on the land.
You are despicable, you should be behind bars.
As the man was led out of the room, Yousaf quipped: “I don’t mind a good heckle, frankly, because it saves my dad from doing it.”
However, he told the audience at the All Talk show:
I’ve had too many people who have been racist to me throughout my life.
As a person of colour, there is a real sense of frustration at the amount of times people of colour in any profession get told, essentially, ‘you don’t belong here’.
They’re told that in different ways: ‘you’re not intelligent enough’, ‘you’re not good enough’ ‘you’re out of your depth’, this that and the other.
He said he had spoken about this with London mayor Sadiq Khan, as well as former SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheik, who is now a member of the rival pro-independence Alba party.
We all get told the same thing,” Yousaf said. He continued: “Every interaction I have I am conscious about my colour.”
He continued:
I can be the first minister of this country but I am afraid there are some people who will always look at me first as a person of colour, and they will form a judgment.
So when you ask me if it’s something that is on my mind, I can’t not be conscious of my colour, because everybody else is conscious of my colour.
While he insisted his race “does not dominate everything I do”, the first minister went on to say it would be “a shame if I didn’t use my position to make sure that I do as much as I can for any marginalised group, not just people of colour”.
Later, he was interrupted by environmental protesters, who called on him to speak out against new oil and gas licences being granted by the UK government in the North Sea.
Yousaf told them:
I don’t think Scotland’s future is in oil and gas.
Rishi Sunak last month travelled to Scotland to announce government support for future oil and gas licensing rounds, with the prime minister saying he wanted to “max out” developments in the North Sea.
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Responding to the news that people being housed onboard the controversial barge Bibby Stockholm are being removed because of potentially deadly bacteria in the water system, a Dorset council spokesperson said:
Dorset council’s environmental health team and Public Health Dorset are advising the Home Office and its contractors, alongside the UK Health Security Agency and NHS Dorset, following notification of positive samples of legionella bacteria in the water system on the Bibby Stockholm barge.
No individuals have presented symptoms of legionnaires’ disease, and there is no health risk to the wider community of Portland.
It is understood the Home Office is managing the search for alternative accommodation for the asylum seekers.
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The government must stop putting refugees into “unsafe and undignified accommodation”, the director of survivor empowerment at charity Freedom from Torture said.
Kolbassia Haoussou said:
The presence of life-threatening bacteria onboard the Bibby Stockholm is just another shocking revelation that we’ve seen unfold over the past few weeks.
This government’s punitive policies and deliberate neglect of the asylum system is not just cruel, it’s dangerous.
This government urgently needs to stop forcing refugees into unsafe and undignified accommodation, and instead focus their efforts on rebuilding a compassionate and efficient system that protects people like me who have fled torture and persecution.
Full story: Legionella discovery forces asylum seekers off Bibby Stockholm days after arrival
All asylum seekers being housed onboard a controversial barge are being removed because of potentially deadly bacteria in the water system, it has been confirmed.
Home Office sources said legionella had been identified on the Bibby Stockholm, the 222-bedroom hulk hired by the Home Office as part of a £1.6bn immigration deal.
The first asylum seekers boarded on Monday, and by Friday there were 39 onboard the vessel, which is docked in Portland Port, Devon.
People can get lung infections, such as legionnaires’ disease or Pontiac fever, if they breathe in small droplets of water in the air that contain the bacteria. No one has so far been identified as contracting the disease.
A Home Office spokesperson said environmental samples from the water system on the Bibby Stockholm had shown levels of legionella bacteria that required further investigation.
Read more from my colleagues Rajeev Syal and Diane Taylor here:
Housing refugees on a barge 'untenable' after legionella discovery - charity
The charity Care4Calais said ministers “should now realise” that keeping refugees on barges was “untenable” after asylum seekers were removed from the Bibby Stockholm following the discovery of levels of legionella bacteria in the water system onboard.
Steve Smith, the chief executive of Care4Calais, said:
We have always known our concerns over the health and safety of the barge are justified, and this latest mismanagement proves our point.
The Bibby Stockholm is a visual illustration of this government’s hostile environment against refugees, but it has also fast become a symbol for the shambolic incompetence which has broken Britain’s asylum system.
The government should now realise warehousing refugees in this manner is completely untenable, and should focus on the real job at hand – processing the asylum claims swiftly, so refugees may become contributing members of our communities as they so strongly wish.
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Bibby Stockholm barge residents taken off boat just days after moving on
The asylum seekers who arrived on the Bibby Stockholm barge this week are being removed after legionella bacteria was found in the water, the Home Office said.
A spokesperson said 39 asylum seekers who moved on to the barge earlier in the week are being disembarked.
The first group of asylum seekers were seen arriving at Portland on Monday morning in buses and were taken onboard.
The barge was docked off the Dorset coast more than three weeks ago and remained empty until Monday due to health and safety concerns.
The spokesperson said:
The health and welfare of individuals on the vessel is our utmost priority. Environmental samples from the water system on the Bibby Stockholm have shown levels of legionella bacteria which require further investigation.
Following these results, the Home Office has been working closely with UKHSA and following its advice in line with long-established public health processes, and ensuring all protocol from Dorset council’s environmental health team and Dorset NHS is adhered to.
As a precautionary measure, all 39 asylum seekers who arrived on the vessel this week are being disembarked while further assessments are undertaken.
No individuals onboard have presented with symptoms of Legionnaires’, and asylum seekers are being provided with appropriate advice and support.
The samples taken relate only to the water system on the vessel itself and therefore carry no direct risk indication for the wider community of Portland nor do they relate to fresh water entering the vessel. Legionnaires’ disease does not spread from person to person.
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UK economy grows faster than expected after surprisingly strong June
The UK economy grew faster than expected in the second quarter of this year after growth was boosted by a recovery in car manufacturing and a surprisingly strong June.
UK GDP increased by 0.2% in April to June, up from 0.1% in the previous three months and the best quarterly reading in more than a year, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The data surprised economists, with a poll of them beforehand forecasting no growth in output during the quarter. The reading was helped by an unexpectedly strong performance in June, when output rose by 0.5%. GDP had fallen by 0.1% in May because of an extra bank holiday to celebrate the coronation of King Charles after growth of 0.2% in April.
However, the UK economy still remains 0.2% smaller than it was in the final quarter of 2019, before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic triggered the deepest recession on record.
The cost of living crisis period of the last 18 months remains the weakest period outside a recession for 65 years, the Resolution Foundation thinktank pointed out, despite the UK economy dodging a technical recession of two consecutive quarters of declining GDP.
Darren Morgan, an ONS director of economic statistics, said:
The economy bounced back from the effects of May’s extra bank holiday to record strong growth in June. Manufacturing saw a particularly strong month, with both cars and the often-erratic pharmaceutical industry seeing particularly buoyant growth.
Services also had a strong month, with publishing and car sales and legal services all doing well, though this was partially offset by falls in health, which was hit by further strike action. Construction also grew strongly, as did pubs and restaurants, with both aided by the hot weather.
The increase in output in the latest quarter was mainly driven by an increase of 1.6% in manufacturing, the ONS said. It said falling prices of materials may be “relieving some pressure on manufacturers”.
You can follow our business liveblog here for more on this story:
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Steve Barclay has urged the British Medical Association to end strike action and for junior doctors to accept the latest pay deal offered.
The health secretary told broadcasters that he was concerned about the impact strikes are having on patients and “that is why I call on the BMA to end their industrial action”.
He said:
Junior doctors will receive up to 10.3%, an average of 8.8%, in terms of their pay deal. We have accepted in full the recommendations of the independent pay review body, but we are also investing more widely.
The first-ever workforce long-term plan, to expand workforce training, the biggest-ever investment in the NHS estate, over £20 billion of work, investing record sums in the NHS.
We have accepted in full the recommendations of the independent pay review body process, and it is also right that we balance that with our wider commitment to bring inflation down, because that matters to NHS staff just as it does to the community.
Barclay added:
Of course I stand ready to have discussions with junior doctors in terms of other issues around their working conditions, but in terms of pay we have made a fair and final offer, we have accepted in full the recommendations of the independent pay review body process.
That is why the BMA should now call off their strikes.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats have announced their candidate in the forthcoming Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection.
Gloria Adebo, who works as a data analyst, will run for the party in the vote triggered by the successful recall petition for Margaret Ferrier.
While a date for the byelection has not been set yet, it will be keenly contested by the SNP and Labour.
Adebo, who lives in Rutherglen with her family and previously stood as a council candidate, started her campaign by calling for more help for people struggling to pay their mortgages.
She said:
The Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection is a real chance for local people to deliver a judgment on the difficulties and disasters we have been landed in by incompetent, populist governments in London and Edinburgh.
It needn’t be like this. And it is the Liberal Democrats who, increasingly, are a growing and dynamic part of an alternative way forward - offering hope in place of despair, founded on a belief in individuals, in the rule of law, in equality of opportunity and the importance of human rights here and across the world.
Other candidates in the byelection include Labour’s Michael Shanks, the SNP’s Katy Loudon and the Conservatives’ Thomas Kerr.
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China’s new London embassy on hold pending Westminster intervention
China has temporarily shelved plans to build a new embassy in London, angrily accusing the British government of not doing enough to force through planning permission for the project.
China had been given until Thursday to file an appeal to Tower Hamlets council in east London after the proposals for the embassy were rejected.
Beijing bought the Royal Mint Court site for its new embassy in 2018 for £255m, with the plan to move from its long-term but relatively cramped site in Portland Place, near Regent’s Park.
Chinese officials appear to have decided that rather than appeal through the local Tower Hamlets planning process, where they have relatively little chance of success, they want central government to intervene and give assurances that it will back a resubmitted application.
The UK Foreign Office is aware that if it does not intervene, its already strained relations with Beijing will be damaged further.
The Chinese foreign ministry in a statement urged the British government to meet its “international obligation” to help it build a new embassy, and said China wanted to find a solution “on the basis of reciprocity and mutual benefit”.
China wants to build a 65,000 sq metre (700,000 sq ft) embassy, which would be its biggest mission in Europe and almost twice the size of its embassy in Washington. A decision to build such a large embassy would be proof that China regarded relations with the UK as critical since Brexit.
Read more here:
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Record 755 people detected crossing Channel in small boats on Thursday, Home Office says
On Thursday 755 people were detected crossing the Channel in small boats, the highest number on a single day so far this year, the Home Office said.
The previous high for this year was 686 people on 7 July.
The cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2023 now stands at a provisional total of 15,826. Total arrivals last year were 45,755.
The latest figures mean there have been 100,715 arrivals detected since January 2018, when data was first reported.
There were 14 boats detected crossing the Channel on Thursday, which suggests an average of about 54 people per boat.
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Junior doctors in England launch fifth round of industrial action
Junior doctors in England have launched a fifth round of industrial action, with thousands going on strike just days after starting their first NHS jobs.
The latest strikes from British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors began at 7am on Friday and will end at 7am next Tuesday. It could result in the total number of appointments cancelled due to NHS industrial action hitting 1m.
Foundation year 1 doctors started their first roles after medical school nine days ago, on 2 August, and will now strike for four days amid the bitter dispute with the government over pay.
Dr Raymond Effah, one of those striking first-year doctors who has just begun his first placement, said:
When I chose medicine as my career, never did I imagine my second week in the job would see me going on strike. The government may not see the value of myself and my doctor colleagues, but we do, leaving us no choice but to strike.
As a medical student I have now gone through a pandemic, a cost of living crisis, and now have student debts of almost £100,000. Even with the 10% pay uplift, I’m still starting in a job where real-terms pay has eroded by more than a quarter. That is why first-year doctors are going on strike today even though we have barely begun. It is for our future in this profession.
Soon after the doctors began their strike action the chief secretary to the Treasury, John Glen, ruled out pay negotiations with the doctors.
He told Sky News:
A 35% pay increase, which is what they’re asking for, is completely unrealistic. It would be sending completely the wrong signal to the economy and to the wider public at a time when obviously inflationary pressures are the top priority of the government.
He added:
We will continue to be open to them to talk about working conditions, but what we can’t move on is additional pay, given that we’ve listened to their independent pay review body ... we urge the doctors to stop the strikes and start serving the patient.
Read the full story here:
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Rob Blackie has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate in next year’s London mayoral contest.
The party confirmed the Pimlico native and former director of research for Charles Kennedy will run in an attempt to defeat Sadiq Khan.
Blackie said:
It is an absolute honour to have been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for London mayor. London needs a liberal challenger to the mayor – who has been a disappointment to many Londoners.
Khan has failed to tackle rape, sexual offences and other serious crimes over the last seven years and Labour are committed to the worst possible priorities for the police – arresting people for laughing gas rather than spending time on serious crimes.
The Conservatives are discredited nationally by their cost of living failures and in London they’ve all but given up.
For far too long people in London have been let down by Labour and the Conservative plan for London shows that they are not serious about tackling our city’s problems.
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Angus MacNeil expelled from SNP after row with party’s chief whip
The MP Angus MacNeil has announced he has been expelled from the Scottish National party (SNP).
He was suspended from the party’s Westminster group last month after reportedly clashing with its chief whip, Brendan O’Hara.
The party’s conduct committee met on Thursday to discuss his case after he refused to immediately rejoin the group at the end of his suspension.
MacNeil, 53, has represented the Na h-Eileanan an Iar, or Western Isles constituency since 2005.
He tweeted about his expulsion, using a kangaroo emoji to refer to the member conduct committee.
He said:
The Summer of Member Expulsion, has indeed come to pass. As I have been expelled as a rank & file SNP member by a ‘member conduct committee’.
I didn’t leave the SNP - the SNP have left me. I wish they were as bothered about independence as they are about me!
He was suspended from the Westminster group for a week in early July following reports of a row with O’Hara in the House of Commons.
Later that month his membership of the party was suspended later the same month because he refused to immediately rejoin the SNP group.
He released a statement attacking the SNP leadership’s approach to independence, accusing it of a lack of urgency.
Read the full story here:
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Rishi Sunak said the government’s plan was working, after the latest GDP figures showed the UK economy had grown by 0.2% in the second quarter of the year.
The prime minister said:
This is good news. At the beginning of the year I made growing the economy one of my top priorities, and we are making progress.
There’s still more work to do, but today’s figures show the plan is working.
A government minister has defended a Tory MP who failed to declare she held shares valued at more than £70,000 in Shell while she was environment secretary.
Theresa Villiers admitted her shareholding in the oil and gas company via her latest update to the register of members’ financial interests.
Under the section “other shareholdings on, valued at more than £70,000”, Villiers’ entry says: “From 23 February 2018, Shell plc; energy. (Registered 17 July 2023).”
Asked about the omission on Sky News, Treasury minister John Glen described it as an “oversight on her part” and insisted the former minister had been “very clear” in apologising.
Villiers served in Boris Johnson’s cabinet as environment secretary from July 2019 until February 2020.
MPs are required to register any change to their registrable interests within 28 days.
A list of ministers’ interests from November 2019 did not include a mention of the shares for Villiers.
The MP for Chipping Barnet’s latest entry also included newly declared shares above the same threshold in drinks manufacturer Diageo from February 23 2018 and Experian plc from July 29 2019.
Glen said:
I think she’s apologised. She’s admitted their mistake. I think part of the situation is there’s an MP regime for disclosures of private assets and there’s a ministerial regime.
As I understand it, she didn’t fulfil the obligations of the MP regime while she was a minister.
But as I say she’s been very clear in apologising, it was an oversight on her part, and she will correct it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Here’s more on that story from my colleague Henry Dyer:
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Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales, has said he could stand for election to a directly elected senate at Westminster if Labour follows through on its pledge to abolish the House of Lords.
Drakeford, the Welsh Labour leader, has previously refused invitations to stand as an MP and instead devoted himself to the Senedd in Cardiff, overseeing the implementation of new powers for the devolved parliament.
But Drakeford, 68, the most electorally successful of Welsh Labour leaders, confirmed on Wednesday he plans to quit as an MS at the next Senedd elections in 2026; he has said he will quit as first minister before then, to allow his successor time to bed in.
Replacing the Lords with an elected senate for the UK’s nations and regions is one of Keir Starmer’s major post-election pledges, alongside a suite of new powers for the devolved governments and England’s region.
The measure was central to a constitutional reform commission led by former prime minister Gordon Brown, which Drakeford has endorsed.
The timetable for abolishing the Lords has slipped. Labour now favours installing a large slate of new peers in its first months of power, to act as a counterweight to the Tory majority built by recent prime ministers.
Quizzed about his future by Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith on the Edinburgh fringe on Thursday, for their podcast For the Many Live, Drakeford vehemently ruled out accepting a peerage: he said the Lords was a “desperate, desperate anachronism. It’s not for me.”
The Brown report “powerfully argues for a much smaller elected chamber of the regions and the nations, with a particular responsibility for the constitution”. Asked by Smith whether he would stand for the new senate, Drakeford said:
I wouldn’t rule that out, put it like that. But I wouldn’t go to an unelected one.
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Treasury minister rejects calls for UK to leave ECHR
Treasury minister John Glen has said he does not back the UK leaving the European convention on human rights.
He made the comments when asked on LBC’s Nick Ferrari if he is in support of “what we understand to be a growing sentiment within the Conservative party that the United Kingdom should quit the European convention on human rights”.
Earlier this week, Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, said the government would do “whatever is necessary”, even if that meant pulling out of the ECHR, the 70-year-old pan-European treaty that protects human rights and political freedoms in the continent.
His comments are an escalation of the government’s previous statements that leaving the ECHR was not an immediate step it was going to take. It has insisted that it can deliver on Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” within the convention.
Glen told Ferarri he did not support leaving because he believed in the plan and said it hadn’t finished the legal process yet.
He said:
This is a Europe-wide problem. We’ve had a 30% increase in illegal immigration across Europe, but we’re working with Turkey, new arrangement with them last week, with France, with Albania. The arrangements with France have led to 33,000 fewer crossings – also tougher fines for employers and landlords.
We’ve got the professional enablers taskforce. We’re working with media companies as well. So this is a multi-dimensional approach as well as the immigration (bill) which of course many criticised us for and it was a real battle to take through the Houses of Parliament. But we’ve got a legal challenge waiting on that, but I believe in plan A and we will see that come to fruition in the autumn.
Glen said he did not want to “speculate about alternatives” to the government’s immigration policy.
Asked about “small boats week” on Times Radio, he said:
I think it’s important to recognise that there are many dimensions to the government’s policy.
We have diplomatic arrangements with Turkey, in France, Albania. Indeed from France, we’ve seen 33,000 fewer arrivals because of that arrangement.
But we’ve got to understand is this phenomena of illegal migration of criminal gangs taking people across Europe and across the Channel, we have seen a 30% increase in Europe as well over recent months.
Glen went on:
We’ve obviously passed legislation in the House of Commons. There is a legal challenge to that, but we are confident, and the government has been made clear by the legal system that they support the principle of offshoring our illegal immigrants to Rwanda, and we haven’t finished the conclusion of that legal process yet, but we are confident that that will work.
Asked about a “plan B”, he said:
Well, we believe that the actions that we’ve taken – and I’ve just taken you through a number of them – and including the legislation which hasn’t yet been fully enacted, because of the legal challenge outstanding in the autumn, will work and we stand by that.
I don’t want to speculate about alternatives until we’ve exhausted the process that we think will work.
I will be looking after the politics blog today. If you have any tips or suggestions, please get in touch: nicola.slawson@theguardian.com.
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