Closing summary
More than 50,000 migrants have arrived in the UK after crossing the English Channel since Labour won the general election last July.
Home Office figures show 474 migrants arrived by small boat on Monday alone, which brings recorded arrivals to 50,271 since the election.
Jacqui Smith, an education minister and former home secretary under Gordon Brown, admitted this morning that reaching the milestone is “unacceptable”.
Asked if the Conservatives could reduce the number of crossings to zero, Kemi Badenoch replied that “it wouldn’t happen straight away, but it would happen quickly”. A day earlier the Conservative party leader suggested asylum seekers housed in hotels could instead be held in “camps”.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, claimed stability has returned to the UK’s economy despite mounting concerns about its ability to respond to shocks amid global uncertainty from Donald Trump’s trade war. Her comments came on the day new figures showed employers have cut annual pay increases and pared back hiring in recent months as the economic slowdown took its toll on the jobs market.
UK ministers have appointed insolvency advisers to make contingency plans for the potential collapse of Thames Water.
David Lammy is facing possible legal action over a plan to invite staff from the oil firm Shell and the defence firm BAE Systems to work inside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
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Updated
Politicians – including Keir Starmer – have been accused of stoking fear and anger with anti-migrant rhetoric which often inaccurately frames all of immigration through the lens of irregular arrivals and is ultimately dehumanising.
The following is from a report by my colleague Diane Taylor:
More than 200 refugee organisations, charities and trade unions have signed an open letter calling on Britain’s political leaders to end “pernicious and insidious currents” of racism and hatred that underpin a slew of anti-migrant protests.
The letter, coordinated by the campaign coalition Together With Refugees, has been signed by organisations including Amnesty International UK, City of Sanctuary UK, Care for Calais, Doctors of the World, the End Violence Against Women Coalition, Freedom from Torture, Islamic Relief, Oxfam, the Public and Commercial Services Union, Refugee Action and Safe Passage.
It was drafted in response to weeks of protests outside asylum seeker hotels in locations across the country, often countered by anti-racism activists.
The protests have come against a backdrop of inflammatory language or misinformation from senior politicians including the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and the senior Conservative Robert Jenrick. In June, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he regretted a speech warning that Britain could become an “island of strangers”.
