Channel migrants seeking asylum in the UK are smuggling themselves back to France because of Priti Patel’s crackdown, says a UK charity. Care4Calais has revealed the case of an Iranian who came to Britain on a small boat but has since managed to return to Dunkirk after becoming disillusioned with his experience in the controversial Napier barracks used to house Channel migrants in Folkestone, Kent. He told volunteers working for the charity that he had smuggled himself back to France on a lorry. “England does not have any law,” he told them. “I don’t have a good memory of the place. It is broken from the inside.” Napier barracks was at the centre of a near-riot when migrants being kept on the former military base after an outbreak of Covid-19 went on the rampage and set fire to buildings in protest at the Home Office’s refusal to move them to a hotel. The Home Secretary has been under pressure to close down the barracks as an asylum centre, including from local Tories because of the conditions, location and spartan regime. Care4Calais’s founder Clare Moseley also disclosed that two young men from El Salvador who had come to the UK to seek asylum had also applied to the Home Office to be repatriated, but had been told there was a waiting list before they could be returned home. “Their father is in the military and the family was being pursued by terrorist and criminal groups so he sent them to England, but they are now stuck in Manchester. All they want to do is work and don’t like relying on the state,” said Ms Moseley. She blamed the increasingly tough restrictions and hostility that the migrants faced for their decisions to seek to leave the UK. The Government is seeking to deter illegal migrants from making the perilous journey across the Channel through increased patrols and surveillance on French beaches and a tougher approach to asylum. A new law, introduced after Brexit, makes any migrant’s asylum claim inadmissible if they have been in a safe third country before their arrival in the UK. This weekend it emerged that Ms Patel is drawing up plans for smugglers to face life sentences, rather than the current maximum of 14 years. A policy paper due this month is expected to tighten up what ministers claim is the “broken” asylum system by placing curbs on “litigious” human rights claimants who seek to delay their deportation and encourage judges to take a tougher stance against asylum seekers with criminal records.
The Royal Family has "more important things to worry about" than the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Oprah Winfrey interview, Buckingham Palace aides said on Monday night, as the Duke of Edinburgh was transferred to a leading cardiac hospital. Prince Philip, 99, was taken by ambulance from the private King Edward VII’s Hospital to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in central London just hours after a dramatic clip of the Sussexes’ “shocking” comments was released by a US television network. The timing of the couple’s interview was described as “unfortunate” amid speculation about whether it might have to be pulled. Palace aides suggested that the family’s focus was solely on the Duke, who had already spent 13 nights in hospital and is expected to remain there until at least the end of the week. One said: “The family is very worried about him and their thoughts are very much with him rather than this Oprah interview. They have much more important things to worry about.” Another senior aide said: “This programme is really not something we are focusing on at the moment.”
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Police at Formby beach in Merseyside had to turn cars away from as far as Leeds and Manchester at the weekend. Merseyside Police said patrols have been increased in the area following reports of "large numbers" of people at the coastal beauty spot looking to enjoy the nice weather. Superintendent Graeme Robson said there was a "large increase" in people travelling to the Formby beach area due to the good weather, some of whom had "travelled a significant distance".
A photographer in London witnessed as schoolyard scrap of an unusual kind on March 1, when a disgruntled driver and a skateboarder traded blows at the gates of a school.Thomas Butler, who recorded the footage, told Storyful that the “driver of the car almost hit the skater” and things escalated from there.As the car pulls in at the gates of the Riverstone School, the skateboarder hits the bumper with his board. The driver then gets out, and grabs an umbrella before confronting the boarder. The umbrella is soon dropped, as the boarder gets the upper hand.Butler told Storyful he stopped filming and went to break up the fight. The driver was left battered and bloody, Butler said, and drove away. Police arrived some time later, Butler said. Credit: Thomas Butler via Storyful
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On Sunday evening, the world was presented with two not unrelated televisual events. In the first, CBS, the US television network that will broadcast Oprah Winfrey’s interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, released a tantalising trailer of its big tell-all released next weekend – in which Prince Harry noted that his biggest fear has been “history repeating itself”. Lest his message be insufficiently clear, he added: “I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her going through this process by herself all those years ago,” while the screen revealed a picture of a toddler Harry with his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
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Nicola Sturgeon's deputy is to finally hand over the SNP government's "key" secret legal advice for Alex Salmond's judicial review after he faced being forced to resign if he refused. John Swinney caved in to opposition demands for the advice to be published after a majority of MSPs swung behind a Tory motion of no confidence in him, which could have been voted on this afternoon. In a humiliating about-turn, he said he had decided to release the advice "to counter the false claims being made by some." He said it would be provided to parliament "immediately" after legal notifications are issued to "individuals impacted." Mr Swinney was in danger of losing his job after Ms Sturgeon - who appears tomorrow (weds) before the Holyrood inquiry investigating the scandal - recused herself from the legal advice decision. The First Minister did not appear at the Scottish Government's Monday Covid briefing for the first time this year amid claims she was closeted away with her legal team ahead of her appearance. Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory, welcomed Mr Swinney's about-turn after the Deputy First Minister ignored two previous votes by MSPs for the advice to be given to the inquiry.
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