Britain expects EU to approve migration deal with France, says Cooper
Yesterday Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron published a leaders’ declaration that implied the returns agreement would need EU sign-off. They were not very clear about this, but the Times led its main story on this on the suggestion that the EU might block the deal.
As Kiran Stacey reports, in her interviews this morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said that European commissioners had been “very supportive” of the plan and that she did not expect them to block it.
Key events
Starmer reportedly set to meet Trump in Scotland when US president visits later this month
One of the joys, or perils, of being prime minister is that every summer you get invited to Scotland for a sleepover with the royal family. They tend to view these trips with mixed feelings. The king is seen as a great host, as was his mother, but some PMs grumble that Balmoral is freezing cold, and stuffy, and the rituals of a Scottish country home can feel a bit odd if you are not used to that sort of thing.
Donald Trump hasn’t been made a king yet, but obviously he would like to be one and he too has invited the PM to Scotland this summer. According to Reuters, Trump will be visiting Scotland later this month, reportedly to check up on his golf courses, and he has invited Starmer to join him. “Starmer has accepted,” Reuters says.
Parliament’s standards watchdog launches inquiry into Rupert Lowe over alleged failure to register interests properly
Rupert Lowe, the independent MP originally elected as a Reform UK candidate, is being investigated by the parliamentary commissioner for standards over an alleged breach of Commons rules. Daniel Greenberg, the commissioner, says on his website the case relates to an alleged failure to declare an interest properly, but has given no further details. However, the BBC reports that the complaint relates to money raised by Lowe to fund his proposed independent inquiry into rape gangs.
In a statement today, the rape gang inquiry says that money from a crowfunder did not arrive in the inquiry’s account until 23 June and it claims Lowe has 28 days from that point to register the money in his declaration of interests. “All appropriate checks have been made for Rupert’s parliamentary declaration,” it says.
The UK has agreed an industrial strategy partnership with France, the Department for Business and Trade has announced. It was agreed at the summit yesterday, and details have been published today. It will involve “a collaboration in key growth sectors including in technology, clean energy industries and advanced manufacturing”, the department says.
Cash Isa limits set to be left untouched by Reeves in next week’s Mansion House speech
Cash Isas will be left untouched at next week’s Mansion House speech, in a move that has been welcomed by savings experts, PA Media reports. PA says:
Speculation had been mounting that plans to cut the annual tax-free cash Isa allowance could be announced in chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Mansion House speech on 15 July.
But the PA news agency understands that Reeves will instead focus on new plans to provide consumers with the information and support they need to invest.
The government is expected to continue talking to industry members and others about the options for reform, with a broad consensus that the UK’s savings and investment culture needs to be encouraged.
Harriet Guevara, chief savings officer at Nottingham Building Society, said: “This is positive news for savers and for lenders. We’ve consistently made the case, alongside others across the mutual and building society sector, for maintaining the full allowance, and welcome any decision to consult further with industry rather than rush through damaging reform that would disincentivise saving.”
This news will come as no surprise to readers of the Economist’s Bagehot column on UK politics. In a recent article about the power of middle-class lobbying, Bagehot said:
When Labour looks to raise money, broad-based tax rises are ruled out. That means niche attacks on the middle classes are in. Pension pots are a tempting target. The Treasury gazes longingly at ISAs, the tax-free saving accounts that are a tremendous bung to middle-class people. Middle England feels about ISAs the same way rural America feels about guns.
Cooper says people with links to UK will be prioritised when migrants are picked for admission from France
The government will prioritise people with a connection with the UK when deciding which asylum seekers to accept from France, in return for small boat arrivals being returned, Yvette Cooper said this morning.
Asked how the government would select the 50 or so migrants from France expected to be brought to the UK every week under the scheme, the home secretary told LBC:
In terms of people applying to come to the UK, we’ve said that priority will be given to people who have a connection to the UK, people who are most likely to be genuine refugees or have been targeted by the smuggling gangs as well.
But this is a pilot, and we will develop it over time, but that principle, that fundamental change is really important.
Returns deal will involve some people arriving on small boats being detained, Cooper says
Yvette Cooper has confirmed that the returns agreement with France will involve some small boat arrivals being detained prior to removal.
Speaking on the Today programme, she said:
We will be detaining people certainly as the pilot is introduced and as the programme becomes operationalised.
Asked to clarify who would be detained, she added: “Those will be operational decisions and we will update people on those as we roll the programme out.”
Cooper declines to say how many people will be returned under deal with France, but says numbers expected to go up
In her interviews this morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, declined to say how many people arriving in the UK on small boats would be returned to France under the deal announced yesterday.
It has been widely reported that the pilot will start with 50 people a week being returned – although this figure has not been officially confirmed.
Cooper did not challenge the claim that 50 a week would be the starting piont, but she stressed that the “ultimate numbers” were not fixed. She told LBC:
We’re not actually fixing the ultimate numbers, either in the first phase of the pilot or in subsequent phases of the pilot, and so we need to get this started, and we need to build this over time.
She also insisted that the government wanted to increase the numbers over time. She told the Today programme:
It is a pilot, and we’ve been clear about that, and we obviously want to extend and develop this.
She also told LBC that the government was deliberately being coy about process because it did not want to help the people smugglers. She explained:
We don’t want the smuggler gangs to find different ways around this, and they will respond to whatever information we put out about this pilot. They will respond and they will twist details, and they will use that in order to make more money, because that’s how they work.
Britain expects EU to approve migration deal with France, says Cooper
Yesterday Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron published a leaders’ declaration that implied the returns agreement would need EU sign-off. They were not very clear about this, but the Times led its main story on this on the suggestion that the EU might block the deal.
As Kiran Stacey reports, in her interviews this morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said that European commissioners had been “very supportive” of the plan and that she did not expect them to block it.
Yvette Cooper avoids saying if Macron right about Brexit making UK’s illegal migration problem worse
Good morning. Keir Starmer notched up a notable achievement yesterday – by agreeing a pilot returns agreement with France, something never managed by his immediate Conservative predecessors. But, as Kiran Stacey and Jessica Elgot report in their analysis, there was some Tory precedent for the policy. When Robert Jenrick was immigration minister, he tried, and failed, to get Rishi Sunak to negotiate a deal of this kind.
Yesterday Jenrick, who is now shadow justice secretary and seen as a likely replacement for Kemi Badenoch before the next election, told GB News that the Starmer scheme “hasn’t got a cat in hell’s chance of working” because the numbers involved were too small. The key Tory papers, like the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and Daily Telegraph, are fiercely critical. But, nevertheless, this is a win for Starmerism. The PM regularly argues that calm, sensible cooperation with allies can pay off, and now he has that the returns deal with Emmanuel Macron can achieve this.
In politics good news never lasts for long and the headline lines this morning is about the economy shrinking in May. Graeme Wearden has the details on his businesss live blog.
This is a setback because Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, have made boosting growth their number one priority. Graeme is covering the reaction to this.
I will be focusing on the reaction to the returns deal. Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning. She dismissed claims that the EU would try to block the arrangement, but she was less forthcoming about how many migrants might actually be returned to France, saying the numbers had not been fixed. And she declined to say whether Macron was right to say at the press conference with Starmer yesterday when he said Brexit had made it harder for the UK to deal with illegal migration.
In comments that have infuriated the pro-Brexit papers, Macron said:
Many people explained that Brexit would make it more possible to fight effectively against illegal migration But since Brexit the UK has no illegal migration agreement with the EU … That creates an incentive to make the crossing, the precise opposite of what Brexit promised.
The British people were sold a lie, which was that [migration] was a problem with Europe. With your government, we’re pragmatic, and for the first time in nine years we are providing a response.
Asked on Sky News if Macron had a point, Cooper replied:
I think what I’ve seen happen is that the way that the criminal smuggler gangs operate is that they will weaponise anything that is happening. And so what we saw in the run-up to Brexit being implemented was we saw criminal gangs promising people that they had to cross quickly, and they had to pay money to the smuggler gangs quickly in order to be able to cross in time before Brexit happened.
As soon as Brexit happened, they then said ‘Oh, well, now you’ve got to pay us money, because this means you can’t be returned because the Dublin Agreement isn’t in place’.
So the thing about the criminal smuggler gangs is whatever arrangements are in place, they will use them in order to make money, but that’s why we have to be fundamentally undermining their model.
I will post more from the Cooper interviews soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: MPs debate backbench bills, starting with Linsey Farnsworth’s unauthorised entry to football matches bill.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Lunchtime: Keir Starmer is hosting a cabinet awayday, reportedly at Chequers.
And Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in her constituency, North West Essex, today.
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