Politics
Former security minister urges Government to ‘improve’ Home Office scheme ‘not scrap it’
Home Office’s Prevent programme should be “improved” not scrapped, says former Security minister Tom Tugendhat as Axel Rudakubana was jailed for 52 years for attacking and killing children in Southport last year.
The Government has launched a review of the Prevent programme after it emerged Rudakubana was referred to Prevent three times between 2019 and 2021, yet went on to commit his bloody murders in July last year.
Tugendhat – who was Security minister between 2022 and 2024 – was asked on Chopper’s Political Podcast whether he felt that Prevent should be axed.
He replied: “No, I wouldn’t. I would improve it.”
Home Office’s Prevent programme should be “improved” not scrapped, says former Security minister Tom Tugendhat as Axel Rudakubana was jailed for 52 years for attacking and killing children in Southport last year
Getty/ GB News
Tugendhat urged ministers to implement the recommendations in a review of Prevent by Sir William Shawcross.
He told today’s Chopper’s Political Podcast: “I would look at the Shawcross report – there’s a huge amount in there that we were able to get done. And there’s bits that we weren’t able to get done because they take time to introduce.
“And part of it is about making sure you’re ‘triaging’ properly. So you’re getting stuff in line in the appropriate way and you’re responding appropriately.”
Tugendhat – who was Security minister between 2022 and 2024 – was asked on Chopper’s Political Podcast whether he felt that Prevent should be axed
GB News
He added: “We need to get better at identifying triggers, as it were, on people.
“And when people have radicalised themselves or been radicalised to find out where we’re going.
“That’s why the Prevent aspect is so important.”
Listen or watch Chopper’s Political Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or GB News’ YouTube channel.
Politics
Illegal migrants coming to Britain should be ‘put in camps on a west coast island’, Lowe claims
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has called for a “national emergency” to be declared over illegal migration, suggesting authorities should “round people up and deport” those in the country unlawfully.
Speaking on GB News, Lowe urged for a hardline approach similar to measures being taken in the United States.
Politics
Keir Starmer urged to ‘declare national emergency’ on illegal migration after shock London figures: ‘Deport, deport, deport!’
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has called for a “national emergency” to be declared over illegal migration, suggesting authorities should “round people up and deport” those in the country unlawfully.
Speaking on GB News, Lowe urged for a hardline approach similar to measures being taken in the United States.
“We have to declare a national emergency, rather like Trump’s doing, and we have to then be actually prepared to take hard decisions and deport, deport, deport,” he said.
The Reform UK politician criticised the current Labour Government’s handling of immigration, claiming the Prime Minister is “up to his neck in this”.
Rupert Lowe demanded that the Prime Minister declare a ‘national emergency’ on illegal migration
GB News / PA
“If it means we have to round people up and deport, and that’s what we have to do,” Lowe stated.
A confidential report commissioned by Thames Water has revealed that as many as one in 12 Londoners may be living in the capital illegally.
The study, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, suggests up to 585,000 illegal migrants are currently residing in London.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the reported figures “deeply alarming”.
The Home Office, responding to The Telegraph’s findings, hailed how it had ‘removed 16,400 illegal migrants in just six months’PA
Lowe outlined proposals for dealing with illegal migrants, suggesting they should be housed in “tented camps” on a UK island.
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“Put them on a West Coast island with a limited, uncomfortable tented camp and minimal food, and encourage them then to go back to where they came from and apply to come back legally,” he said.
The Reform UK MP claimed most arrivals are economic migrants rather than asylum seekers.
He criticised the current immigration system as “weak,” suggesting much of the process relies on applicants’ own statements.
Lowe expressed concern about voting rights, stating: “What worries me is, after six years if we’re not very careful, these people have full voting rights.”
Lowe told GB News that migrants could be housed on a ‘UK island’
GB News
He pointed to Australia’s approach as a model to follow. “The Australians have shown us what to do. You only have to look. They stop the boats coming, and then people realise it’s a waste of time, spending whatever it is 500 euros to get here,” he said.
Lowe called for Britain to exit various international treaties beyond the ECHR to “take back control of our own borders.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “This Government is strengthening global partnerships and rooting out the criminal gangs who profit from small boat crossings which threaten lives.
“We have also removed 16,400 illegal migrants in just six months, the highest figure in half a decade, making it clear that those who arrive illegally will be returned.”
Politics
Reform UK MPs Lee Anderson and Richard Tice demand death penalty debate after Axel Rudakubana handed ‘unduly lenient’ 52-year sentence
Reform UK MPs have ramped up calls for a debate around the death penalty after Southport’s remorseless killer Axel Rudakubana was handed an “unduly lenient” 52-year-sentence.
Ashfield MP Lee Anderson, Boston & Skegness MP Richard Tice and Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe all demanded a conversation about the reintroduction of capital punishment.
Sharing an image of a hangman’s noose, Anderson said: “This is what is required.”
Tice added: “I don’t think we should be afraid of having a national debate on important big issues like this. I think that many people in the country would like at least a debate.”
Lowe also claimed that it was now “time for a national debate” on the use of capital punishment “in exceptional circumstances”.
The death penalty was only officially abolished in Britain in 1998.
However, Peter Anthony and Gwynne Owen Evans were the last people executed in the UK back in 1964.
Following Rudakubana’s sentencing yesterday, a petition was launched on the Houses of Parliament website demanding the abolition of whole life orders and reintroduction of the death penalty.
Judge Mr Justice Goose was unable to hand Rudakubana a whole life order because he was just nine days away from turning 18 at the time of the horrific attack last July.
Southport’s Labour MP Patrick Hurley said the 52-year sentence was “not severe enough” and asked Attorney General to review the sentence as “unduly lenient”.
Attorney General Lord Hermer and Solicitor General Lucy Rigby have 28 days to decide whether to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal.
FOLLOW BELOW FOR LIVE UPDATES THROUGHOUT THE DAY…
‘Shut up!’ Badenoch instructs ‘unhelpful’ ex-PM Truss to keep quiet
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has instructed her former Cabinet colleague Liz Truss to keep quiet during a meeting last week.
Speaking to her Shadow Cabinet, the Leader of the Opposition suggested the former Prime Minister should “shut up for a while” and “stop making unhelpful interventions”.
Despite four sources confirming comments were made about Truss, Badenoch’s spokesman said she did not use the phrase “shut up”.
Politics
Patrick Christys: I love Great Britain, but our politicians and authorities are making it unbearable
I love Great Britain. But today, Great Britain hit rock bottom.
The walking, talking advert for the death penalty, Axel Rudakubana, was sentenced for the Southport massacre.
He showed no remorse. He kicked off in the dock. And he is evil personified.
But how was he allowed to do this? Caught with a knife 10 times, reeported to Preevent 3 times, he called ChildLine and said he wanted to kill someone, they called the police, the police went round and didn’t do anything.
Patrick Christys says Britain HAS to get a grip
GB NEWS
The authorities have blood on their hands.
But as Britain’s biggest monster began his 52-year prison sentence today, I looked around at the other news.
A man in a balaclava allegedly stabbed five people in Croydon today.
Last night when I got home I saw about a stabbing spree in Plymouth – a 40-year-old woman died. The suspect is still on the run.
Look at The Sun today – A 12-year-old boy was walking through a park in Birmingham and was stabbed in the stomach.
A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of his murder.
Axel RudakubanaPA
Yesterday, a man admitted killing his ex-girlfriend and her sister with a crossbow and their mother with a knife after he broke into their home.
Paedophiles caught with hundreds or even thousands of indecent images of children are not being sent to prison. They’re allowed back out onto the streets to just live their lives.
This is ridiculous.
A man was caught with a loaded AK-47 in Leeds – he had 30 rounds of live ammunition. He got 5 years in prison, he’ll be out in two and a half.
We’ve got illegal immigrants running rampant – one in 12 people in London are here illegally.
Just today an asylum seeker driving an uninsured vehicle was sent to prison after he smashed into a nurse and broke her spine three weeks before her wedding.
That’s before I’ve mentioned the catalogue of asylum seeker rapists that we have over here.
There was one bit from today’s sentencing of Axel Rudakubana that stood out to me as well.
The judge there, despite everything we heard in court today, at pains to say Axel Rudakubana wasn’t to blame for the summer disorder.
Well I think he was, now I’m not condoning the torching of a migrant hotel or any of that stuff but whether Rudakubana is to blame or not is irrelevant – it’s ALL of it, isn’t it!
It’s all of it. Every day we see news stories like the ones I’ve rattled off here.
Every day we get damning figures, like this morning the Home Office revealing the number of foreign national offenders living in the UK has tripled in the last seven years.
Or two thirds of sexual assaults in London being committed by foreigners.
It’s all of it! It’s every day. And it’s so avoidable. Don’t let wrong’uns into the country. Deport the ones we have now. Don’t miss all the warning signs from a lunatic like Axel Rudakubana who has literally screamed the fact he was going to be a serial killer from the age of about 13.
Our politicians should hang their heads in shame for all the crime we have but our authorities should do for everything.
I love Great Britain – but they are making it unbearable.
We have to get a grip.
Politics
Chopper's Political Podcast: UK terrorism agency needs reform says Tom Tugendhat after Rudakubana failings
Sit back, pour yourself a drink and join GB News Political Editor Christopher Hope at his regular table in a Westminster pub where he will discuss the latest insider political intrigue and gossip with everyone from popstars to politicians.
New episodes released every Friday.
Politics
Ben Habib warns Britain risks ‘wipeout’ if it doesn’t follow Donald Trump fundamentals: ‘Get on that bandwagon!’
Political commentator Ben Habib has warned that Britain risks being “wiped out” if it fails to follow America’s conservative reform agenda, as demonstrated by Donald Trump’s sweeping executive actions in his first days back in office.
Speaking on GBN America, Habib endorsed Trump’s extensive Day one policy changes, which included over 100 executive measures targeting immigration, climate policy and diversity programmes.
The former Brexit Party MEP cautioned that the UK faces an exodus of millionaires and expertise to America unless it adopts similar reforms.
“The world is a very fluid place for expertise and capital and it will go to where it finds its best home,” Habib said.
Ben Habib called on Starmer to follow in Trump’s footsteps
GBN AMERICA / PA / GB NEWS
Trump’s first day back in office saw him sign 45 executive orders, 11 memoranda, five proclamations and four sub-cabinet appointments, whilst revoking 78 Biden-era orders.
The flurry of activity began moments after his swearing-in at the US Capitol, before moving to a packed Capital One Arena where he signed orders dismantling key Biden policies.
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Ben Habib spoke on GBN America
GBN AMERICA
Major changes included declaring a national emergency at the southern border, ending federal diversity programmes, and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Trump also ordered the termination of electric vehicle mandates and established a new Department of Government Efficiency.
“With these actions, we will begin the complete restoration of America and the revolution of common sense,” Trump declared in his inaugural address.
The new president’s border initiatives included reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy and designating cartels as foreign terrorist organisations.
Donald TrumpREUTERS
His order on federal workers stripped job protections from career officials in policy roles, making it easier to dismiss them.
Trump also signed measures requiring government employees to return to in-person work and establishing new rules for security clearances.
In a symbolic move, he ordered the renaming of Alaska’s Denali back to Mount McKinley and proposed changing the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The president celebrated his actions by tossing signing pens to supporters at the Capital One Arena.
Habib urged Labour leader Keir Starmer to look across the Atlantic, warning that without similar reforms, Britain would see “an even faster growing US, an even more attractive US with a further exodus of millionaires from the UK”.
“We have driven it out of the UK already through a really bad set of policies, even before Labour won the election,” he told GBN America.
He argued that Trump “is showing that what we have been doing for the last 27 years, the liberal, global approach to governance is not the way to run a country”.
“He is showing us the way to do it and we better get on that bandwagon or we will be wiped out,” Habib concluded.
Politics
Donald Trump ‘personally asked Boris Johnson’ to witness his swearing in while Nigel Farage ‘did not make the cut’
Donald Trump personally asked Boris Johnson to witness his swearing in as President, and has a “good working relationship” with him, says former Tory Security minister Tom Tugendhat.
Tugendhat, who was in Washington DC last week ahead of the President’s inauguration, said Trump has personally asked Johnson to be in the rotunda on Capitol Hill to witness personally his swearing in.
Earlier this week Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, told GB News that he had not “made the cut” and been invited to sit in the Rotunda audience.
Tugendhat told today’s Chopper’s Political Podcast that he had been told by “members of the administration” that it was “a personal decision by the President” to invite Johnson to be there.
Donald Trump personally asked Boris Johnson to witness his swearing in as President, and has a “good working relationship” with him, says former Tory Security minister Tom Tugendhat
Getty
He said: “It is very clear to me that that was a personal choice by the president choosing people who he was close to, to be around him on the day.”
He added: “It wasn’t a large list. There’s not that many people can fit in there. And the President went through the list personally and removed some names and added [others].”
Tugendhat added that Johnson – who has in the past intimated he wants a way back into politics – “has had a very good working relationship with Donald Trump.
Tom Tugendhat, who was in Washington DC last week ahead of the President’s inauguration, said Trump has personally asked Johnson to be in the rotunda on Capitol Hill to witness personally his swearing in
GB News
“He’s got a lot of friends in Washington.
“He’s got a voice that reaches parts that other politicians don’t reach.”
Listen or watch Chopper’s Political Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or GB News’ YouTube channel.
Politics
Rupert Lowe skewers human rights lawyer over outrageous illegal immigrant demand: ‘Pork barrelling a living!’
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has strongly rejected calls for an amnesty for illegal migrants in Britain, following suggestions by human rights lawyer Ivon Sampson.
Speaking on GB News, Sampson argued that offering an amnesty would enable better tracking of migrants, stating: “The only sensible thing to do is to offer an amnesty – then we have a sensible policy of ensuring those people who come in are tracked.”
Lowe hit back, saying: “These human rights lawyers pork barrel a living on the back of all this Tony Blair legislation which has created our problem.”
He called for tougher measures, suggesting migrants should be placed in “uncomfortable, untented camps” on remote islands.
Rupert Lowe said human rights lawyers like Sampson are ‘pork barrelling a living’
GB NEWS
The clash comes as new figures reveal up to one in 12 people living in London are illegal migrants.
A previously confidential report commissioned by Thames Water estimates between 390,355 and 585,533 illegal migrants are living in the capital, with a median figure of 487,944.
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Reform’s Rupert Lowe joined Matt Goodwin on GB News
GB NEWS
The study, conducted by Edge Analytics and Leeds University experts, suggests most illegal migrants initially arrived on work, study or visitor visas before overstaying.
The research indicates around one million illegal migrants could be living in the UK, with 60 per cent concentrated in London.
The findings were obtained through Freedom of Information requests to Thames Water, who commissioned the study to better understand their “hidden” service users.
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf warned the situation represents “not just a national emergency, it’s a national security emergency.”
The human rights lawyer argued in favour of giving all illegal migrants amnesty
GB NEWS
He expressed particular concern about demographics, noting: “90 per cent of the people crossing the Channel are men.”
“The number of military age males making that journey legally surpasses the number of available soldiers, both standing and territorial,” Yusuf told GB News.
Deputy Reform UK leader Richard Tice added: “One in 12 people in London are here illegally, probably working illegally using taxpayer-funded public infrastructure and services. It is totally unacceptable.”
The Home Office reports having removed 16,400 illegal migrants in the past six months, the highest figure in half a decade.
More than 1,000 people have already crossed the Channel in small boats during the first 23 days of 2025.
This follows 38,816 Channel crossings in 2024, the second highest total on record.
A Home Office spokesman said: “This Government is strengthening global partnerships and rooting out the criminal gangs who profit from small boat crossings which threaten lives.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp called the figures “deeply alarming” and urged the Labour government to “urgently start deporting far more illegal immigrants.”
Politics
Donald Trump poised to release JFK assassination files as President signs latest executive order
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to release the assassination files of John F Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
In his latest high-profile signing since returning to the White House on Monday, Trump vowed that “all will be revealed” as he put pen to paper on bringing the details of JFK’s death to light.
“That’s a a big one, huh?” Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office. “A lot of people have been waiting for this for years, for decades. Everything will be revealed.”
And in a show of faith to JFK’s nephew – and Trump’s incoming health secretary – Robert F Kennedy Jr, the President directed aides to pass the signing pen to his key ally.
‘That’s a a big one, huh?’ Trump said to reporters in the Oval Office
REUTERS
On the campaign trail on the path back to office, Trump had vowed to release classified intelligence and law enforcement files on JFK’s mysterious November 1963 killing.
On Sunday, he told supporters at a Washington DC rally: “In the coming days, we are going to make public remaining records related to the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr Martin Luther King Jr and other topics of great public interest.”
But he may face resistance from what he calls the “swamp”.
Trump had released some documents related to the assassination, but ultimately caved to pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation, and kept a significant chunk of documents under wraps over “national security concerns”.
Soon-to-be-health chief RFK Jr has said he believes the CIA was involved in his uncle’s death – which the agency has described as “baseless”.
Kennedy Jr has also said he believes his father, Robert Kennedy, was killed by multiple gunmen – which flies in the face of public accounts of his death.
More to follow…
Former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has accused authorities of suppressing crucial information about the Southport dance class killer, claiming they presented him as “a Welsh choir boy” to the public.
Speaking on GB News, Kwarteng said officials “clearly knew things about the killer which they suppressed” in the aftermath of the attacks.
“At the time of the murder, they essentially were presenting the killer as a Welsh choir boy,” he said.
The former chancellor suggested there was a deliberate withholding of information about Axel Rudakubana’s background and potential motivations.
GB News / CPS
“Either they suppressed it for whatever reason, and we need to get to the bottom of it, or it was a cover up because they felt that in that very patronising way, they felt that people couldn’t handle that information,” Kwarteng said.
Rudakubana, 18, pleaded guilty earlier this week to murdering three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport last July.
He is due to be sentenced today at Liverpool Crown Court – while his crimes could warrant a whole life order, this cannot be applied as he was 17 at the time of the offences.
Kwarteng claimed Merseyside Police were instructed by “people on high” not to release information they had about the case.
Axel Rudakubana will be sentenced in court today for the Southport attack
CPS/PA
“What was so crazy about that was that it actually stoked the very thing that they wanted to avoid because people were kept in the dark,” he said.
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The former chancellor pointed to what he called an “obvious double standard” in how the case was handled.
“Picture a situation where the terrorist, the killer, had been a white teenager who had been found with white supremacist literature, who then went out and killed three girls of ethnic origin,” he said.
“There wouldn’t be this debate. They would have denounced it,” Kwarteng added. He also criticised how Rudakubana had “slipped through the net” despite being repeatedly referred to Prevent.
Starmer has defended his position on withholding information about the Southport killer. The Prime Minister insisted he was following “the law of the land” to prevent the case against Rudakubana from collapsing.
Kwarteng questioned how the 18-year-old ‘slipped through the net’ after being referred to Prevent three times
GB News
“You know and I know that it would not have been right to disclose those details,” Starmer told reporters. “The only losers if the details had been disclosed would be the victims and the families because it ran the risk the trial would collapse.”
Rudakubana faces a life sentence, with a minimum term to be set by the judge before he can be considered for release. Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said investigations revealed “a man with a unhealthy obsession with extreme violence” but noted that “no one ideology was uncovered.”
Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor Ursula Doyle described it as “an unspeakable attack” that turned what should have been a day of “carefree innocence” into “a scene of the darkest horror.”
“It is clear that this was a young man with a sickening and sustained interest in death and violence,” she added.
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