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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Windrush: MPs ask government for answers on deportation flights – as it happened

Afternoon summary

  • Kevin Foster, a Home Office minister, has defended government plans to deport 50 people to Jamaica tomorrow, despite the fact that some of them came to the UK as children. Responding to an urgent question tabled by the Labour MP David Lammy, Foster said that the people being deported had collectively been sentenced to a total of 300 years in prison and that the government was deporting them to comply with rules introduced by Labour to protect the public from serious and persistent offenders. But Lammy and other Labour MPs said that there was a danger of the government perpetrating an injustice of the kind inflicted on the Windrush generation, and that the deportations should be halted pending the publication of the Windrush lessons learned review. According to BBC’s Newsnight, one draft of the lessons learned report recommended that the government consider ending the deportation of offenders who came to the UK as children.
  • Aslef, the train drivers’ union, has said that it is backing Rebecca Long-Bailey to be the next leader of the Labour party, and Angela Rayner to be the deputy leader.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

The legal challenge against the government plan to deport 50 people to Jamaica tomorrow (see 12.32pm) has been refused, the BBC’s Adina Campbell reports.

Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald speaking to journalists in Moore Street in Dublin, Ireland, after her party’s triumph in the Irish general election.
Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald speaking to journalists in Moore Street in Dublin, Ireland, after her party’s triumph in the Irish general election. Photograph: Aidan Crawley/EPA

This is from Steve Back, the photographer who covers Downing Street and who tweets as @PoliticalPics.

And here is a gloss on what it means from Faisal Islam, the BBC’s economics editor.

The SNP has issued its own comment on Boris Johnson’s plan for a bridge linking Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it is more critical than Nicola Sturgeon was when she was asked about this earlier. (See 3.30pm.) An SNP spokesperson said:

It is going to take more than a bridge to undo the harm to EU relations that the Tory government has caused with its extreme Brexit plans, and given Boris Johnson’s failed history of unwanted and over budget bridge projects we are going to take a lot of convincing.

The SNP will always welcome engagement with how we can strengthen relations with Northern Ireland and Ireland, but we will focus on practical and achievable ideas - not unsubstantiated vanity projects and baseless briefings which this Tory Prime Minister is all too familiar.

The full text of Nicola Sturgeon’s speech to the European Policy Centre earlier is now here, on the Scottish government’s website.

A bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland would be bad new for ferry operators, and so understandably the UK Chamber of Shipping is not keen. It has just issued this statement on the PM’s proposal.

We fully support any initiative which seeks to improve trade and tourism links. However, there are already a range of ferry operators taking tourists and trade between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Spending £15bn-£20bn of taxpayers’ money on a bridge simply to replicate what those ferries already do is unnecessary. The money could be far better spent improving road and rail links to our ports across the UK.

These are from my colleague Anushka Asthana, who presents the Guardian’s flagship podcast, Today in Focus. They are regularly outstanding, and this episode is particularly fascinating.

Labour’s Stephen Doughty says Foster is asking MPs to trust a department that regularly makes mistake. He says the Home Office has admitted wrongly detaining 312 people in just one year. And it will not say how many people have been wrongly deported, he says.

Foster says it would be wrong for the government to not deport these people, because that would leave the public at risk.

And that’s it. The UQ is over.

Labour’s Shabana Mahmood says Foster should not be hiding behind the 2007 legislation when he knows that the independent review of lessons learnt from Windrush will say that people who came to the UK in childhood should not be deported.

Foster says the government is not hiding behind the 2007 law; it is implementing it.

Labour’s Claudia Webbe asks if any of those facing deportation have had access to legal advice and representation.

Foster says they have all gone through the criminal justice system.

Labour’s Stephen Timms asks Foster to confirm that there will be 50 people on the flight tomorrow. How many came to the UK in childhood?

Foster says he will not comment on individuals, or on the numbers. But he says they all meet the threshold for deportation.

Labour’s Taiwo Owatemi says one of the people being deported was jailed some time ago. Is if fair for someone to be punished twice of an offence?

Foster says the deportations are required by law.

Alex Chalk, a Conservative, asks Foster to confirm that the government would be subject to judicial review if it did not deport these individuals.

Foster says this is an interesting point. He says if the deportations did not go ahead, the government would be answerable to any potential future victims.

Yvette Cooper, the Labour chair of the home affairs committee, asks Foster to give details of the offences committed by those people being deported, and the age at which they came to the UK.

Foster says all the offences meet the threshold set by the act. These are people who are serious or persistent offenders, he says.

Updated

Foster says it is unbelievable that Labour wants to associate the Windrush generation with a group of serious offenders.

Vicky Ford, a Conservative, asks Foster if he has looked at the casework for every individual being deported and assured himself that they are all “persistent and serious” offenders.

Foster says he has looked at the list. He says he cannot comment on individual cases, but all these cases have been properly reviewed, he says.

Labour’s Marsha de Cordova says Kevin Foster’s attitudes is “shameful”. She says one of her constituents is being deported having served a seven-month sentence in 2015. She says the government should accept the recommendations of the review of lessons to be learnt from Windrush. She asks Foster why he is not interested in the consequences of what he is doing.

Foster says the government is worried about the consequences of allowing criminals to stay in the UK to commit further crimes.

Here is some comment from journalists on the tone being adopted by the Home Office minister Kevin Foster.

From the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush

From my colleague Peter Walker

Stewart McDonald, the SNP’s justice spokesman, says some of those being deported tomorrow have much stronger connections with Britain than with Jamaica.

He says these deportations will leave 41 children without fathers, and nine Britons without a husband or a father.

Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary, says there is real concern in the community about this mass deportation flight. She says Kevin Foster’s dismissive attitude implies he is dismissing all the concerns of the community.

Foster says the law is clear; the government is obliged to make deportation orders. And the law is applied in accordance with the offences committed by offenders, not their nationality.

Lammy is responding to Foster.

He asks Foster how he can be sure that none of the people facing deportation to Jamaica are actually British citizens, in the light of the experience of the Windrush generation. And he asks Foster to confirm that some of them came to the UK were very young. He says the government is showing disrespect for the contribution of West Indian, Caribbean and black people to this country.

Foster says none of those being deported tomorrow are Britons. He says that between them they have been sentenced to 300 years in jail. It is wrong to compare them to the Windrush generation, he says. That fact that Labour is implying otherwise implies Labour has “lost the plot”, he says.

David Lammy's urgent Commons questions on Windrush and deportations

The Labour MP David Lammy asks for a Commons statement on the government’s suppression of the review of its treatment of the Windrush generation, and its plans for a deportation flight tomorrow.

Kevin Foster, a Home Office minister, is replying. He says the government has acted swiftly to address the injustices suffered by the Windrush generation. He says some 8,000 people have received some form of documentation and there have been 5,000 grants of citizenship, he says.

He says there have been news stories recently citing a draft report from last summer. He won’t comment on leaked reports, he says. But he says the lessons learnt report has not been completed. When it is available, the Home Office will publish it.

As for the flight tomorrow, he says the home secretary is required by law to issue a deportation order for people subject to deportation. He says these laws were drawn up when Labour was in office. He says the deportation rules relate to the offences committed by people, not where they come from. He says he does not accept that there is any similarity with the Windrush generation.

Updated

Sturgeon's speech and Q&A - Summary

Here are the main points from Nicola Sturgeon’s speech and Q&A at the European Policy Centre in Brussels this afternoon.

  • Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, dismissed Boris Johnson’s plan for a bridge linking Scotland to Northern Ireland as a “diversionary tactic” and said there were better ways of spending the money. Asked about the plan, she said:

Boris Johnson has promised lots of physical bridges in his political career so far. He hasn’t delivered, to the best of my knowledge, a single one of them.

I bow to nobody in my ambitions for Scotland, and my ambitions for Scotland to be connected to Ireland and to Europe.

But I do think there are big practical questions over the feasibility and deliverability of this – not just the distance, but the depth of the water, there’s an old munitions dump underneath it.

We’ll see where it goes. I certainly don’t close my eyes, or close my mind, to suggestions like this. But I suspect from Boris Johnson it’s more a diversionary tactic – to have people talking about that rather than some of the real issues we are grappling with in both Scotland and Ireland.

I would say, if you’ve got £20bn or whatever it might take to build such a bridge going spare just now, I’m sure the Scottish government and the Northern Ireland executive could find lots of ways to spend it on possibly more important priorities.

  • She claimed that Johnson was refusing to keep the UK aligned to EU regulations after Brexit because he wanted to lower standards. She said that Johnson had not given any examples of how divergence could benefit the UK. She went on:

The only possible reason for wanting the freedom to diverge is if you want to adopt lower standards than the EU does.

  • She said Scotland would remain aligned with EU rules so as to make it easier for Scotland to rejoin the EU in due course. This is from the BBC’s Glenn Campbell.
  • She said she thought it was possible that Boris Johnson could abandon his determination not to allow an extension to the post-Brexit transition. (See 2.26pm.)
  • She said the COP 26 climate change summit in Glasgow in November could be the most important event happening in the world this year. This is from the BBC’s Natalie Higgins.
Nicola Sturgeon giving a speech in Brussels.
Nicola Sturgeon giving a speech in Brussels. Photograph: John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

Updated

Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, has activated the government’s emergency Bellwin scheme for areas in the north of England affected by Storm Ciara, the Press Association reports. The scheme - activated for qualifying areas in West Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire - enables local authorities dealing with the storm to apply to have all of the eligible costs they incur, above a threshold, to be reimbursed by the government.

On the subject of the post-Brexit transition (see 2.26pm), Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister in charge of no-deal planning, said at an event this morning that there would be no extension. Gove was giving a speech at an event for “UK border stakeholders” (as No 10 describes them).

But, intriguingly, there might be a phased implementation, apparently. These are from Peter MacSwiney, chairman of ASM UK, which provides customs clearance software.

This is interesting. Last week my colleague Patrick Wintour reported that Foreign Office officials are under strict instructions not to refer to the transition period as an implementation period, even though under Theresa May implementation period was the government’s approved terminology. Peter Foster, the Telegraph’s Europe editor, had a very plausible theory as to why this might be.

The Cabinet Office has not released a copy of Gove’s speech yet, but I will post more on it if I ever get a copy.

Updated

Q: Do you think there is any chance of Boris Johnson changing his mind in relation to ruling out an extension to the post-Brexit transition?

Sturgeon says she has to assume that what the UK government says about ruling out an extension is what they mean.

But it would not be beyond the bounds of possibility, and not inconsistent with the way he has behaved before, if he were to change his mind. So she won’t rule it out, she says.

  • Sturgeon says she thinks it is possible that Boris Johnson could abandon his determination not to allow an extension to the post-Brexit transition.

And that’s it. The Q&A is over.

I will post a summary shortly.

Q: Have you had any contact from the police in relation to Derek Mackay’s conduct? And do you think he should resign as an MSP?

Sturgeon says she has not had any contact over this from the police.

As for whether Mackay should stand down as an MSP, she says he should reflect on this. But it is not a decision for the SNP, she says.

Sturgeon dismisses PM's bridge Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge plan as 'diversionary tactic'

Q: Lawyers argue that Scotland does not need Westminster’s permission to have a referendum, or declare independence. Kosovo was able to declare its independence unilaterally?

Sturgeon says she is a democrat. For Scotland to legitimately become independence, you have to demonstrate that. She says opinion polls are not enough.

She jokes that, however tempting just declaring independence might be, she thinks others would not agree.

As for holding a referendum without Westminster’s approval, she says whether or not Edinburgh can do this has not been tested in court. She is not ruling this out, she says. It may have to be tested. But she says going to court always involves uncertainty. That is why she wants the UK government to grant permission for a referendum.

She repeats the point about thinking that Johnson will not be able to resist the pressure for one.

Q: What do you think of the plan for a bridge between Northern Ireland and Scotland?

Sturgeon says Boris Johnson has promised lots of bridges in the past. But they have never been built.

She says she thinks there would be many practical difficulties, not least the depth of the water and the munitions dump. (See 1.56pm.)

She goes on:

I don’t close my mind to suggestions like this. But I suspect from Boris Johnson it’s a diversionary tactic.

She says, if Johnson has got a spare £20bn, the Scottish government and Northern Ireland executive could suggest better ways of spending the money.

Updated

On Scottish independence, Sturgeon says she wants to have a referendum that is seen as legal. There is no point having one not seen as legitimate, she says.

She says people think the deadlock between London and Edinburgh won’t be broken.

But she says she does not agree; she thinks Boris Johnson realises he has to win the argument. She says that is why the UK government is making the case for the union in Scotland.

As for what currency an independent Scotland would use, she says it would start using sterling, before moving to its own currency.

As for the claim that independence would lead to controls at the border, Sturgeon says that it is Brexit that creates problems at the border, not independence.

Nicola Sturgeon says the SNP has been critical of the common fisheries policy for years. But she says she thinks the UK government will find it hard to meet the promises it has made to Scottish fishermen.

Updated

Nicola Sturgeon's Q&A

Nicola Sturgeon has finished her speech to the European Policy Centre in Brussels. She is now taking questions. There is a live feed here.

Nicola Sturgeon at European Policy Centre

The Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn has more on the problem posed by unexploded ordnance (UXO) to the proposal to build a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Richard Burgon, a candidate for the Labour deputy leadership, says there is a lesson for his party from Sinn Féin’s success in the Irish general election.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is giving a speech to the European Policy Centre in Brussels. Here are some excerpts, from the Sun’s Nick Gutteridge.

There is one urgent question in the Commons today, on the planned deportation flight to Jamaica, and one statement, on the flooding.

On the subject of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, it is worth flagging up this letter on the subject, sent to the Sunday Times in 2018 after the paper first reported that Boris Johnson was interested in the idea. It is from a a retired offshore engineer who said the idea was “about as feasible as building a bridge to the moon”.

And here is what the Labour MP Wes Streeting is saying about the bridge plan.

Last summer my colleague Matthew Weaver calculated that projects championed by Boris Johnson when he was London mayor, that were all subject to legitimate criticism, cost a total of £940m. The worst example was probably the doomed garden bridge, which cost the public more than £40m before it was abandoned with nothing to show for all the time and money lavished on it, but Matthew identifies seven other projects where Johnson’s passion for new infrastructure led to questionable spending decisions.

Since Matthew wrote his piece, fresh problems have emerged with Johnson’s Routemaster buses. As my colleague Gywn Topham wrote last month, Transport for London is going to convert them to stop passengers boarding the buses at the back - supposedly one of the main advantages of the Routemaster design - because they have realised the feature encourages fare dodging.

Updated

Here is Andrew Adonis, the Labour former transport secretary, on Boris Johnson’s proposal for a bridge linking Scotland and Northern Ireland.

It was the Mail on Sunday that first seems to have broken the bridge story at the weekend, not the Sun. It is also worth noting that No 10 estimate for what this might cost seems to have risen from £15bn to £20bn within just five months. (See 12.17pm.)

My colleague Kate Proctor points out various potential problems with building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Another potential problem is that, if Boris Johnson were to go ahead with the project, it is not impossible that, by the time it was actually finished, Scotland could have voted for independence and Northern Ireland could have voted for reunification with the Republic of Ireland. It could end up as a bridge between two countries no longer part of the UK.

Judicial review launched in attempt to halt deportation flight

Lawyers are launching a judicial review in an attempt to halt a flight deporting 50 people to Jamaica amid widespread calls for the jet to be grounded, PA Media reports. Duncan Lewis Solicitors, which is representing 15 people due to be on the flight, is expected to file the papers at the high court imminently and have called for an urgent oral hearing on Monday afternoon to discuss the matter. PA says the move comes after the government insisted it would be pressing ahead with the flight, which is thought to be leaving the UK at 6.30am on Tuesday.

Updated

The Rebecca Long-Bailey campaign has sought to draw a line under the row about alleged breaches of data rules in the campaign. (See 9.30am.) A spokesman for the campaign said:

The investigation into Keir Starmer’s campaign over an alleged data breach should not be allowed to distract from a moment of significant importance in determining the future direction of our party.

As Rebecca’s campaign has said previously, the accessibility of members’ data stemmed from a failure to close [phone banking app] Dialogue at the end of the general election campaign.

Updated

Farage describes PM's Scotland-Northern Ireland bridge plan as 'crazy'

Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has described the notion of building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland as “crazy”.

The question at the No 10 lobby briefing about the proposed bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland was prompted by this story by Natasha Clark in the Sun, saying part of the link could take the form of a tunnel. She says the bridge could run from Portpatrick in Scotland to Larne in Northern Ireland. Here is an extract from her story.

The bridge, made of steel and concrete, would consist of two levels - one for cars and one for a railway.

Part of it could be a tunnel too, as a way of dealing with the offshore dumpsite Beaufort’s Dyke.

Unexploded World War Two bombs are believed to be one of the risks of the project, which lie near the dump.

An artificial island around 2.5 miles long and 500 yards wide is likely to link the bridge to the tunnel.

Under one version of Boris’ plan, the bridge would run from the Scottish coast over the trench, before becoming a tunnel for the final stretch to Northern Ireland.

Local geography might even dictate the need for two artificial islands to span the North Channel.

Johnson has in the past signalled that he favours in principle building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland - for example, here, in September, and here, in the Queen’s speech debate in December - but Downing Street has never been as explicit as it was this morning (see 11.26am) in saying that officials are working on the idea.

UPDATE: Sorry, it seems to have been Glen Owen in the Mail on Sunday who had this story first. When Johnson was speaking about the proposal in September, he said it might cost £15bn. Five months later, according to the Mail on Sunday, the estimated cost now seems to have risen to £20bn.

Updated

Asked about the Daily Mail story about a rift between Dominic Cummings and Carrie Symonds (see 10.43am), the spokesman says he does not recognise the thrust of what the story is saying.

And that’s it. The briefing is over.

Q: Is levelling up about spreading opportunity, or making the country more equal?

The spokesman says the PM’s agenda is about both opportunity and outcome.

Q: Is the government considering a mansion tax?

The spokesman says he does not comment on budget matters.

And he sidesteps a question on the reshuffle too.

Asked about the Irish elections, the spokesman says close links between the UK and Ireland will continue.

UPDATE: The spokesman said:

We are of course following the results of the Irish election carefully.

The UK and Ireland are close neighbours and friends and we look forward to continuing to work together.

The close relationship between the UK and Ireland will continue regardless of the election result.

Updated

Government officials working on plans for bridge linking Scotland to Northern Ireland, says No 10

Q: Is the government committed to building a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland?

The spokesman says he has nothing to add to what the PM said about this at PMQs a few weeks ago. The PM said the idea had some merit.

So officials are looking into this, he says. He says:

Work is underway looking into the idea of a bridge.

Q: Is the PM concerned that his previous record with bridges does not inspire confidence?

The spokesman does not accept this. He says:

The PM is ambitious in terms of infrastructure projects. He is looking at a wide range of schemes across the United Kingdom that could boost productivity.

Asked for more detail of the work being undertaken, the spokesman says he has not more to add.

Q: Can you say roughly how many officials are working on this?

No, says the spokesman.

Q: Recently the Treasury told ministers not to waste money on projects. Would this count as a waste of money?

The spokesman did not accept this.

Q: But it is being seriously considered?

Yes, says the spokesman.

Updated

Q: Should the public be worried about coronavirus?

The spokesman says the NHS is extremely well prepared.

Q: But won’t some people be concerned by the decision to declare it a serious and imminent threat?

The spokesman says the language reflects the steps being taken.

But the chief medical officer says the threat is moderate, he says.

Q: When did the government learn that Anne Sacoolas was a US spy?

The spokesman says the Foreign Office has said she was notified to the UK government as the spouse of a US official, with no official role.

Q: Was the Foreign Office misled?

The spokesman says he has nothing to add.

The spokesman also says that a host government has to be notified of a diplomat’s role for them to be covered by diplomatic immunity.

Q: Will you get an announcement on immigration before the end of the week?

The spokesman says the government is not planning to publish anything this week.

Q: Rishi Sunak said this morning the Jamaicans due to be deported tomorrow had committed serious offences. Do you have details?

The spokesman says some of those due to be deported have been convicted of manslaughter, rape, violence or drug dealing. He says it is long-standing policy that foreign offenders sentenced to more than 12 months are considered for deportation. He says the people on tomorrow’s flight will come into this category.

It’s correct to say that some of those on board are convicted of manslaughter, rape, violence and drug dealing.

It is long-standing government policy that any foreign national offender sentenced to 12 months or more in prison should be considered for deportation.

The policy is designed to protect the public.

Q: But Sunak implied most of the offenders had committed crimes like manslaughter?

The spokesman repeats the point about 12-month sentences.

The spokesman also says that people facing deportation can appeal.

Updated

Q: Last week Robert Jenrick said he would like to see a British embassy in Jerusalem. Is this government policy?

The spokesman says he did not see that. He will chase it up, and come back with an answer later.

Downing Street lobby briefing

The Downing Street lobby briefing has started.

The prime minister’s spokesman says Michael Gove will be giving a speech today about border arrangements at the end of the year.

The spokesman refuses to say when the HS2 announcement will come, even though it has been widely reported that it will come on Tuesday. He confirms that cabinet will have to sign it off.

I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing. I’ll have my laptop, and so I will probably be posting updates as it goes along, but the embargo arrangements on these briefings are a bit fluid at the moment and so that will depend on whether the embargo gets lifted.

One story that may come up is a report by Simon Walters in the Daily Mail claiming there has been “a falling-out between Boris Johnson’s partner Carrie Symonds and his chief adviser Dominic Cummings over the cabinet reshuffle”. Walters writes:

Well-placed Treasury sources say Miss Symonds is backing ministers who say Mr Cummings’ aggressive approach towards ministers, officials and journalists is damaging the Prime Minister.

The rift has been fuelled by reports that Mr Cummings urged Mr Johnson to fire two ministers with close links to Miss Symonds: Chancellor Sajid Javid and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace.

It is understood Mr Johnson has refused to sack Mr Javid in the reshuffle expected this week, but the fate of Mr Wallace is less clear.

In addition, Mr Cummings is believed to be planning to fire several Conservative ministerial special advisers, including some with connections to Miss Symonds.

Insiders fear Mr Johnson is in danger of being caught in the middle of a damaging power struggle between the two most powerful members of his No 10 kitchen Cabinet of key advisers.

David Henig, the former civil servant and trade expert who now runs the UK Trade Policy Project, has been tweeting about the government’s freeports plan today.

Henig also accused Rishi Sunak, the chief secretary to the Treasury, of not accepting that freeports can and do operate within the EU.

To be fair to Sunak, elsewhere in his Sky interview he claimed that the UK would be able to operate freeports in a more ambitious way than when it tried them when it was in the EU. He said the EU’s definition of a freeport was “very narrow”.

For more on freeports, this Institute for Government briefing is helpful. Here’s an extract.

Economic studies have found the main advantage of freeports is that they encourage imports by lowering duty and paperwork costs. Manufacturing businesses that are inside the freeport can benefit from cheaper imported inputs/components in comparison to those outside the area.

On the other hand, the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) cautions that the evidence of wider economic benefits of freeports and other zones are mixed, as they depend heavily on the design, access to transport infrastructure, skilled labour and capital within the zone in question. There is also a risk that freeports and zones don’t create new economic activity but rather divert existing business into the area with the allure of tax breaks – at a cost to the taxpayer in the form of lost revenue.

Recently Lisa Nandy, a Labour leadership candidate, said that Twitter was causing “real problems” for the left because it gave people a misleading view of public opinion. Now Clive Lewis, who was interested himself in running for the Labour leadership but could not get enough backing from MPs, says he is giving it up himself.

Ireland voted for Sinn Féin to be in government, says Mary Lou McDonald

This blog focuses on UK politics, but no country is closer to the UK than Ireland, or more entwined with its politics (at least in one region) than Ireland, and so there will be intense interest in what is happening in Dublin following Saturday’s election.

Ireland uses the single transferable vote with multi-member constituencies, which means counting the results can take a while. My colleague Seán Clarke is keeping a tally of the results here.

Here is my colleague Rory Carroll’s overnight story.

This morning Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin president, told RTE that she thought the best outcome for Ireland would be government without Fianna Fail or Fine Gael. The Sinn Féin leader has made contact with a number of smaller groupings, according to the Press Association.

McDonald said:

This vote for Sinn Féin is for Sinn Féin to be in government, for Sinn Féin to make a difference, for Sinn Féin to be tested, for Sinn Féin to deliver ... There are very serious issues facing our society and we have a duty and feel that responsibility very keenly to deliver solutions.

We want to talk to anyone who is interested in delivering a programme for government, that is about getting to grips with the housing crisis and solving it, getting to grips with the crisis in health and giving families and workers a break and giving a new lease of life to government.

Mary Lou McDonald celebrating with Sinn Fein supporters at the RDS Count centre last night.
Mary Lou McDonald celebrating with Sinn Fein supporters at the RDS Count centre last night. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Yesterday the BBC ran a report saying that the Labour party had formally reported members of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign team to the information commissioner’s office, accusing them of misusing the membership database. The Starmer camp described that claims that it had done anything wrong as “utter nonsense”, saying that the Labour letter to the ICO was in fact sent in response to the Starmer campaign warning about a potential abuse of the database rules by Rebecca Long-Bailey’s campaign.

This morning David Lammy, the Labour MP and vice chairman of Starmer’s campaign, said the allegations against his side were “scurrilous”. He told the Today programme:

It didn’t happen. There was no data-scraping. I can say categorically that this did not happen and it’s denied fundamentally.

There was no attempt by the campaign to do this - it’s scurrilous to suggest so and I’m quite sure that the information commissioner will find the allegations completely untrue.

Updated

Treasury minister dismisses claims new freeports plan could facilitate tax avoidance

Good morning. Within the last hour or so the government has declared the coronavirus outbreak a serious and imminent threat to public health, in a move that means people with the illness can be forcibly quarantined. My colleague Frances Perraudin has the full story here, and my colleague Aamna Mohdin is covering this on a coronavirus outbreak live blog.

In non-coronavirus news, the government has this morning launched a consultation on creating up to 10 freeports and Rishi Sunak, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has been on Sky News promoting the plan. There were two main news lines.

  • Sunak dismissed claims that free ports would facilitate tax avoidance as a red herring. When Sky’s Kay Burley put this to him, he replied:

I absolutely don’t think they do [facilitate tax avoidance] and obviously you have stringent rules.

It’s worth pointing out that the EU is pretty much the only place in the world that doesn’t use freeports, for example there are over 200 in the US, employing several hundred thousand people, hundreds, billions of dollars of trade happens in those areas and that’s replicated around the world.

The US head of customs and border protection told me a while ago he thinks their free trade zones are actually more secure than their regular ports, because they go through vetting with the customs bodies before they get given freeport status, and they have dedicated agents in the freeports, so I think that’s a bit of a red herring.

What that plane is about is deporting foreign national criminals. Many of these people have committed crimes such as manslaughter, rape, other very serious offences. I think it’s right and the British public would expect us to be able to deport foreign national criminals - that’s what’s going on here.

Regardless of the country they come from, it’s a policy that’s been in place. It’s reasonable, it’s proportionate, and something the British people would expect us to do for foreign criminals who have committed very serious crimes should be sent back to their countries where they have a right to reside elsewhere.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11am: Downing Street lobby briefing.

11am: The committee on standards in public life publishes a report on artificial intelligence.

2.30pm: Priti Patel, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up.

You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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Why is the US so expensive? Everything comes in a ‘premium’ version, from doctors’ appointments to movies
Want a good view of the cinema screen? You’ll need to sign up to the VIP scheme. A quick chat with your doctor? An extra $50,000 will let you jump the queue, writes Arwa Mahdawi
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Philadelphia airport sets world record for longest line of cheesesteaks
Nearly a thousand pounds of steak went into the meaty effort, and TSA agents, unpaid for weeks, ate the results
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
'Next Level Fakery'? Chinese Woman Stuns Internet by Selling 'POV' Photos From Prime Concert Seats
A Chinese woman's unique side hustle of selling 'POV' photos from prime concert seats is stirring debate about social media authenticity.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
This Tiny Cat Living With A Rare Genetic Condition Was Rescued And Found His Loving Family
Grub’s life doesn’t look like most cats’, but he’s loved in ways that make all the difference.
Bored Panda
Bored Panda
Did Miley Cyrus And Emily Osment Not Get Along In Hannah Montana? Absence During The Show's Anniversary Raises Questions
Emily Osment's absence from the Hannah Montana anniversary special raises questions about her relationship with Miley Cyrus. Here's what we know.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
'Vaping Squirrels' in London and Philadelphia Go Viral: Here's Why They Are Drawn to E-Cigs
Discover the viral phenomenon of 'vaping squirrels' and the environmental dangers posed by discarded e-cigarettes.
International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
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