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Category: UK news

  • UK universities have failed to protect gender-critical academics, report finds

    Report’s author raises ‘stark concerns about barriers to academic freedom’

    UK universities have failed to protect gender-critical academics from bullying and career-threatening restrictions on their research, according to a report.

    The report, by Prof Alice Sullivan of University College London, recommends that students and staff “taking part in freedom-restricting harassment should face consequences commensurate with the seriousness of the offence”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Pressure grows on Yvette Cooper to abandon plans to ban Palestine Action

    UN experts and hundreds of lawyers warn that proscribing group would conflate protest and terrorism

    The home secretary is coming under increasing pressure to abandon plans to ban Palestine Action, as UN experts and hundreds of lawyers warned that proscribing the group would conflate protest and terrorism.

    In two separate letters to Yvette Cooper, the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) lawyers’ group and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers said that proscribing the group would set a dangerous precedent.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Goldsmiths apologises to Jewish students and staff over ‘culture’ of antisemitism

    Inquiry concludes college’s management failed to help Jewish students ‘feel welcome and safe from antisemitism’

    Goldsmiths College in London has apologised to Jewish students and staff after an independent inquiry found it had allowed a “culture” of antisemitism to build up on its campus over a number of years.

    The inquiry concluded that Jewish students were subjected to antisemitism during their studies at Goldsmiths and that the college’s management failed to help Jewish students and potential applicants to “feel welcome, included and safe from antisemitism”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Co-op to stop sourcing goods from Israel, Iran and 15 other countries

    Retailer says ‘internationally recognised’ abuses take place in nations including Russia and Syria

    The Co-op is to stop sourcing goods from Israel, Iran and 15 other countries where it says there are “internationally recognised” rights abuses and violations of international law.

    The mutual, which operates about 2,300 grocery stores in the UK, has drawn up a list of about 100 products affected by the change, including Israeli carrots and mangos from Mali.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • English universities barred from enforcing blanket bans on student protests

    Office for Students guidance urges ‘very strong’ approach to permitting lawful speech on campus

    Universities in England will no longer be able to enforce blanket bans on student protests under sweeping new guidance that urges a “very strong” approach to permitting lawful speech on campus.

    The detailed regulations set out for the first time how universities should deal with inflammatory disputes, such as those between the University of Cambridge and students over the war in Gaza, and rows over academics who hold controversial but legal opinions, such as the gender-critical professor Kathleen Stock.

    The guidance issued by the Office for Students (OfS) will make it harder for universities to penalise students and staff for anything other than unlawful speech or harassment.

    Academics should not be pressed to support particular views.

    Protests should not be restricted for supporting legal viewpoints.

    Students or staff should not be “encouraged to report others” for lawful speech.

    Universities must “secure freedom of speech” for visiting speakers.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Echoes of Brexit as Starmer is pressed to seize initiative on human rights | Jessica Elgot

    Labour MPs fighting Reform want action and a European renegotiation looks unappealing. How would the PM sell a third way?

    Can a lefty human rights lawyer be the one to take on Britain’s uneasy relationship with the European convention on human rights (ECHR)?

    It is the most unlikely of causes for Keir Starmer. But there is a growing feeling in government that he should seize the initiative.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Shabana Mahmood says UK will seek reform of human rights convention

    Justice secretary says ‘public confidence in the rule of law is fraying’ but she wants to protect ECHR by changing it

    The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has said Britain will pursue reform of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), both at home and in Strasbourg, saying “public confidence in the rule of law is fraying”.

    Mahmood’s warning in her speech at the Council of Europe came as the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said she would undertake an examination of how the courts were applying the right to freedom from degrading treatment.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • DWP says transitional payments scheme for those losing Pip ‘one of most generous ever’ – UK politics live

    Department for Work and Pensions publishes text of bill cutting benefits and claims three-month transitional period is ‘one of most generous ever’

    Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, will be taking PMQs shortly. And she will be up against Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary.

    When Kemi Badenoch became Tory leader, she did not appoint a deputy (or even a “de factor deputy”, a post that has existed in Tory politics in recent years) and she said she would decide who would stand in for her at PMQs on a case by case basis. Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, got the gig the first time Starmer was away.

    Chris Philp follows Alex Burghart in rotating for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. One Westminster wag asks “When is it going to be Robert Jenrick’s turn?”

    We have this profound challenge of the number of people joining the armed forces being outweighed by the outflow the people leaving. So ultimately its about retention.

    And the number one issue reason cited in last month’s attitude survey for the armed forces for leaving was family life. We know the quality of housing is unfortunately poor. It’s due to the basically to the structural nature of those homes.

    To wrap up this topic, the state of housing for the armed forces is in a poor state because your government did not do enough for it?

    [The housing] which is not in a good enough state because of your government?

    What did I do about it? I did something that hasn’t been done for 30 years – yes, it completed under Labour – and now we would recommend to the government, when they bring forth their housing defence white paper, that we set up a housing association.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The Guardian view on Egypt and Alaa Abd el-Fattah: Starmer and Lammy vowed to do all they can. So do it | Editorial

    The UK still has ways to press for the release of the British-Egyptian writer and bring an end to the hunger strike endangering his mother’s life

    Last month, Sir Keir Starmer promised to do “everything I possibly can” to free Egypt’s highest profile political prisoner, Alaa Abd el-Fattah. A few months earlier, the foreign secretary had described the case of the British-Egyptian writer and campaigner as the “number one issue”. In opposition, David Lammy had joined a protest in Mr Abd el-Fattah’s support outside the Foreign Office and demanded serious diplomatic consequences for Cairo if no progress was made.

    Progress has not been made and time is running out. Arbitrary detention has stolen almost a decade of Mr Abd el-Fattah’s life, while that of his remarkable mother, Laila Soueif, may be drawing to its close. As of Tuesday, the 69-year-old, who lives in London, had not eaten for 261 days, as she demands her son’s release. After taking 300-calorie liquid supplements for a short period, she returned to a full hunger strike almost a month ago and has been hospitalised since the end of May. In Egypt, Mr Abd el-Fattah has been on hunger strike for more than 100 days.

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • MPs back bill to end criminal penalties for abortion in key vote – as it happened

    Parliament votes on biggest shake-up to reproductive rights in England and Wales in 60 years

    Casey says in the past government has talked relentlessly about the need for better data sharing between departments.

    But she says there is a need to consider making this mandatory.

    I was there when the tragedy of Soham happened. We knew at that point that if we had had better data sharing there’s a possibility that we might have saved those girls’ lives. There’s certaintly an absolute clarity that intelligence would have been much faster in either avoiding it or or actually finding that dreadful human being earlier.

    And we’ve known that forever onwards. And so I think there is also an issue that the Home Office can’t drag their feet on, looking at police intelligence systems, given we’ve living in the 21st century. Probably everbody in this room can connect within seconds. Yet we had Befordshire police finding a young boy that was being, in my mind trafficked to London. But the data intelligence system did not make it easy for them to find that he was in Deptford and being circled and dealt with by predators.

    I feel very strongly on issues that are as searing as people’s race, when we know the prejudice and racism that people of colour experience in this country, to not get how you treat that data right is a different level of public irresponsibility.

    Sorry, to put it so bluntly, I didn’t put it that bluntly yesterday, but I think it’s particularly important if you are collecting those sorts of issues to get them 100% right.

    When we asked the good people of Greater Manchester Police to help us look at the data we also collected – I think it’s in the report – what was happening with child abuse more generally, and of course … if you look at the data on child sexual exploitation, suspects and offenders, it’s disproportionately Asian heritage. If you look at the data for child abuse, it is not disproportionate, and it is white men.

    So again, just note to everybody, really outside here rather than in here. Let’s just keep calm here about how you interrogate data and what you draw from it.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • China considers lifting sanctions on UK parliamentarians as relations warm

    Exclusive: Restrictions to be reviewed as embassy official says ‘UK-China relations are showing a positive momentum’

    China is considering lifting the sanctions it imposed on UK parliamentarians in 2021, in the latest sign of warming relations between London and Beijing.

    The Chinese government is reviewing the sanctions, which it introduced four years ago in response to what it called “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to two UK government sources familiar with the conversations.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • China considers lifting sanctions on UK parliamentarians as relations warm

    Exclusive: Restrictions to be reviewed as embassy official says ‘UK-China relations are showing a positive momentum’

    China is considering lifting the sanctions it imposed on UK parliamentarians in 2021, in the latest sign of warming relations between London and Beijing.

    The Chinese government is reviewing the sanctions, which it introduced four years ago in response to what it called “lies and disinformation” about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, according to two UK government sources familiar with the conversations.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • The idea was to crush his spirit’: family of jailed British-Egyptian man describe awful prison conditions

    As Alaa Abd el-Fattah’s mother remains on hunger strike, supporters say activist’s continued detention is campaign of vengeance by Egypt’s president

    Family, friends and supporters of the jailed British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah have spoken about the conditions of his long imprisonment as his mother, Laila Soueif, remains in a London hospital in declining health on a hunger strike to secure his release.

    Amid a mounting campaign to put pressure on British ministers to intervene more forcefully on Abd el-Fattah’s behalf, supporters say his continued detention is part of a campaign of vengeance motivated by the personal animus of the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, towards him.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Foreign Office staff told to consider resigning after challenging UK policy on Gaza

    Department’s top officials respond to last month’s letter from more than 300 civil servants who raised concerns

    More than 300 Foreign Office staff have been told to consider resigning after they wrote a letter over fears the government had become complicit in Israel’s alleged war crimes in Gaza.

    It is the fourth internal letter from staff about the offensive in Gaza, which started in October 2023 in response to Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Tory proposal to leave ECHR would put peace in Northern Ireland at risk, Labour suggests – as it happened

    Labour dismisses Kemi Badenoch speech on European convention on human rights as an attempt to appease Reform UK and Robert Jenrick. This live blog is closed

    As Jessica Elgot and Amelia Gentleman report, Downing Street is exploring new proposals for a digital ID card to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work, set out in a policy paper authored by a centre-left thinktank.

    Steve Reed, the environment secretary, was the government voice on the media this morning and he confirmed that the government is interested in this idea. He told Times Radio:

    It’s absolutely something that we are looking at, and that we should be looking at.

    We know we need to look at all the actions we can take to stop the levels of illegal migration that we were seeing particularly under the last government.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • EHRC commissioner calls for trans people to accept reduced rights after years of ‘lies’

    Akua Reindorf said law never permitted self-ID, but trans campaigners call remarks ‘profoundly unhelpful’

    Transgender people must accept a reduction in their rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.

    Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Egypt’s president ‘ignores’ Starmer’s pleas over mother of jailed activist

    Laila Soueif is critically ill after nearly 250 days on hunger strike in protest against her son’s imprisonment

    The Egyptian president is refusing to take a call from Keir Starmer, knowing it will be a plea to save the life of the mother of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a famous human rights activist and British Egyptian dual national, it has been claimed.

    Laila Soueif is in St Thomas’ hospital in London with very low blood sugar levels as she suffers from the effect of nearly 250 days on hunger strike.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Laila Soueif, on 247th day of hunger strike for jailed British-Egyptian son, defiant in face of death

    Soueif is willing to do ‘what it takes’ to free Alaa Abd el-Fattah, after a lifetime of speaking up against injustice

    Laila Soueif, lying shrunken on a hospital bed at St Thomas’ hospital in London on the 247th day of her hunger strike in pursuit of freedom for her son, imprisoned British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, is locked in what may prove to be her last of many trials of strength with Egypt’s authoritarian regime.

    A remarkable, witty and courageous woman, she has the self-awareness to admit: “I may have made a mistake, God knows,” but she will not back down, and anyone looking back at her rich life has little evidence to doubt her perseverance.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UK should impose sanctions on Egypt over jailed activist, says Helena Kennedy

    Top human rights lawyer calls for UK to take case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah to international court of justice

    The UK government should impose sanctions on key figures in the Egyptian government in response to its refusal to release the British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, Labour’s most prominent human rights lawyer has proposed.

    Writing in the Guardian, Helena Kennedy called for the UK to take the case to the international court of justice, as France has recently done in the case of a national held by Iran.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Must Laila Soueif die from her hunger strike in London before her son Alaa Abd el-Fattah is released? | Helena Kennedy

    Egypt’s lack of respect for the rule of law is alarming and Britain should impose sanctions to ensure his freedom

    Laila Soueif is one of the most determined people I know, and for that reason, she is in grave danger. The grandmother, 69, is lying in a hospital bed in central London, perilously close to death after 245 days on hunger strike. She could still survive, but it will depend on the UK government taking strong action.

    Soueif stopped eating to try to save her son, the imprisoned British-Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah, an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and winner of the 2024 English PEN writer of courage award. He has spent more than a decade in an Egyptian jail cell because of his writings on democracy. Soueif wants more than anything else to reunite him with his own son, 13, who lives in Brighton and has barely been able to spend time with his father.

    Helena Kennedy KC is a Labour peer and was chair of the Power inquiry into the reform of democracy

    Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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  • Attorney general apologises for comparing Tories and Reform to Nazis

    Badenoch and Farage seize on Richard Hermer’s ‘clumsy’ remark in speech made in defence of international law

    The attorney general has apologised for a “clumsy” remark that compared Conservative and Reform calls to disregard international treaties and quit the European convention of human rights (ECHR) with the early days of Nazi Germany.

    In a speech on Thursday, Richard Hermer defended the government’s commitment to abide by international law and likened those who wanted to ignore it to German jurists in the 1930s, such as Carl Schmitt.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist hospitalised after 242 days on hunger strike

    Laila Soueif continues protest against detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo

    The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has been admitted to hospital after spending more than 240 days on hunger strike.

    Laila Soueif’s family said she had been admitted to St Thomas’ hospital in London on Thursday night with dangerously low blood sugar levels, but continues to refuse medical intervention that would provide her with calories.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Dismay as UK prepares to sign ‘values-free’ £1.6bn trade deal with Gulf states

    Exclusive: Trade unions and human rights organisations fear environment and human rights being pushed aside

    The UK is on the brink of signing a £1.6bn trade agreement with Gulf states, amid warnings from rights groups that the deal makes no concrete provisions on human rights, modern slavery or the environment.

    The deal with the Gulf Cooperation Council – which includes the countries Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates – is within touching distance, making it a fourth trading agreement by Keir Starmer after pacts were struck with the US, India and the EU.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Pick-and-mix approach to international law will make UK less secure, says attorney general

    Richard Hermer accuses Conservatives of misunderstanding laws that have ‘kept us safe since 1945’

    The UK faces “disintegration” and will become “less prosperous and secure” if it takes a pick-and-mix approach to international law, the attorney general has said.

    In a speech on Thursday, Richard Hermer launched a defence of international law and multilateral frameworks which “have kept us safe since 1945”.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Former ambassador calls on UK to advise citizens against travel to Egypt

    John Casson says Cairo ‘fobbing us off’ by refusing to release British-Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah

    The former British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, has urged the UK to advise its citizens against travelling to Egypt, in response to Cairo’s refusal to release dual British Egyptian national Alaa Abd el-Fattah.

    A UN panel found on Wednesday that Fattah had been held arbitrarily in jail since 2019, but Egypt was refusing to give the UK consular access – let alone release him. His mother has been refusing food in protest at his detention.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Egypt illegally detaining Alaa Abd el-Fattah, UN investigators find

    Report says British-Egyptian writer held for expressing political views and should be released without delay

    The Britsh-Egyptian human rights activist and writer Alaa Abd el-Fattah is being illegally detained by the Egyptian government, an independent UN panel has found after an 18-month investigation.

    He is being held in a Cairo jail while his mother, Laila Soueif, based in Britain, is on hunger strike. She is holding a daily one-hour vigil outside Downing Street, the limit her health and weight loss allows. She is on day 241 of the hunger strike, and her body weight has halved.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • Mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist resumes full hunger strike

    Laila Soueif announces life-endangering action in protest over continued detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo

    The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has announced she has resumed a near-total hunger strike, stopping taking the 300-calorie supplements she had been consuming on her partial hunger strike for the past three months.

    Since the start of her hunger strike 233 days ago, Laila Soueif, 69, has lost 36kg, about 42% of her original body weight, and now weighs 49kg. She is taking the life-endangering step in protest at the continued detention of her son in Cairo beyond his five-year sentence.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • UK faces legal challenge over asylum seekers’ deportations to Bulgaria

    Deportees face inhumane treatment and torture, say lawyers contesting Labour’s migration policy

    The UK government’s migration plans are facing an imminent challenge this week, with lawyers seeking to overturn deportations to Bulgaria due to allegations of brutal conditions faced by migrants and asylum seekers in the country.

    There have been more than 24,000 returns – both enforced and voluntary – from Britain since Labour’s election victory in July 2024, according to government figures. More than 200 people were returned to Bulgaria in 2024.

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  • Labour MP says Starmer’s ‘island of strangers’ warning over immigration mimics scaremongering of far right – as it happened

    PM unveils new policies meant to drive down net migration by end of this parliament

    Q: If you want to grow the economy, won’t these plans make it harder because it will be more difficult for people to get UK citizenship?

    Starmer says he does not accept the argument that high immigration is always good for growth. The last government had high immigration but stagnant growth.

    I promise that [net migration] will fall significantly, and I do want to get it down by the end of this parliament, significantly.

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  • Plan to fast-track appeals of some UK asylum seekers could face legal backlash

    Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn

    A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.

    A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

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    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.