Gavin Mortimer

As of Monday, migrants arriving in Britain no longer have the right to claim permanent asylum. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has changed the rules so that now migrants will be eligible only for temporary refugee status. Asylum seekers' applications will be reviewed every 30 months, and they could be returned to their country of origin if it is deemed safe. There are caveats. People who have already submitted an asylum claim (100,000 submissions in 2025) are not affected by the new rules. Nor are unaccompanied children, who will continue to receive five years' protection. Mahmood hopes that these new measures will weaken the appeal of Britain to migrants. She has been influenced by a trip last week to Denmark.

It was a weekend of mixed emotions for the European Union. There was the news from Donald Trump that he will impose a 10 per cent tariff on eight European countries in retaliation for their opposition to his plans to take control of Greenland. But on a brighter note, the EU finally signed the Mercosur trade agreement with several South American countries. The European Commission hailed it as the creation of ‘a free-trade zone of roughly 700 million people’, one which they promise will save EU companies more than €4 billion a year in customs duties. Ursula von der Leyen, the Commission president, said: ‘We choose fair trade over tariffs, we chose a productive long-term partnership over isolation.

Marine Le Pen returned to a court in Paris on Tuesday as her appeal began against her five-year ban from political life. The leader of the National Rally was disqualified in March last year after she was found guilty of misusing €4 million ($4.6 million) of funds from the European Union. She claims she is the victim of a political witch-hunt, a view supported by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D Vance. The appeal will last a month and the verdict is expected in June. If Le Pen is successful she will be able to run in the presidential election in April 2027. If she fails, however, it will be her protege, 30-year-old Jordan Bardella, who will represent the National Rally.

The Labour government may not like X these days but they have turned to another social media platform in their latest bid to smash the gangs and stop the boats. As of today, an official Home Office TikTok account will have the people smugglers quaking in their boots as it posts images of illegal migrants and foreign criminals being arrested, detained and deported. What is a TikTok channel if not gesture politics? Called ‘Secure Borders UK’, the TikTok channel’s mission statement is ‘restoring order and control to our borders’. It’s a similar refrain to the rhetoric deployed by Keir Starmer in May 2024 as he campaigned to become PM. In a speech that month he outlined how he would stop the boats. He also castigated the Tories for their attempts to curb illegal immigration.