Sunak says ‘all sides should show restraint’ after Iranian attack on Israel – UK politics live

LIVE – Updated at 18:24

British PM says he will speak to Netanyahu to express solidarity and discuss how further escalation can be avoided.

Early evening summary

18:24

Rishi Sunak is facing cross-party pressure to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group after Tehran’s assault on Israel over the weekend.

Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, has told MPs that the Cass report shows that young people attending gender clinics in recent years received harmful treatment because this was an area “where fashionable cultural values have overtaken evidence, safety and biological reality”. In a statement in the Commons, she also said that confirmed that all adult gender clinics – six of which had refused to take part in Dr Cass’s study – have now agreed to “fully co-operate” and to provide information about the outcome of patients receiving medical treatment to change gender. She said:

All bar one of the adult gender clinics refused to co-operate with this vital research, this is unacceptable, to quote Dr Cass – I’d go even further, I think it is deplorable.

It is a dereliction of their professional duty and so I’m pleased to update the house that following the publication of Dr Cass’s report, I have been informed that all seven clinical leads in adult gender services now intend to fully participate in this important work.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said what the Cass report revealed was a “scandal” – although his explanation of what made it a scandal was not the same as Atkins’. He told MPs:

For the sake of all of those children, young people and now adults, but particularly those being referred into gender identity services today, we have a duty to get this right. What has emerged in the Cass review is a scandal. It is a scandal that children and young people are waiting far too long, often years for care while their wellbeing deteriorates and their childhood slips away.

It is scandalous that medical interventions have been made on the basis of shaky evidence. It is scandalous that despite all this some NHS providers refuse to co-operate with Dr Cass’s review. And perhaps the worst scandal of all is that the toxicity of this discussion means that people have felt silenced and it required investigative journalism to prompt this review taking place.

The number of people travelling by small boat to seek asylum in the UK hit a new daily high for 2024 at the weekend, figures show, as Rishi Sunak braces for a fresh round of parliamentary wrangling over the Rwanda deportation bill.

Victoria Atkins tells MPs Cass report shows how ‘fashionable cultural values’ led to gender clinic children being harmed

18:09

Back in the Commons Rishi Sunak has finished the Iran/Israel statement, and Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, is making a statement the Cass review into gender identity support for young people that was published last week.

In her opening statement, Atkins used much stronger language than Hilary Cass herself did last week when she set out her findings. Atkins that that this was “an area of public policy where fashionable cultural values have overtaken evidence, safety and biological reality” and she declared: “This must now stop.”

Atkins said that since 2009 there has been an enormous increase in the number of children seeking medical help because they were questioning their gender, and more than half were teeenage girls. In 2022 more than 5,000 children and young people were referred to gender identity clinics and almost three quarters were female, she said.

Atkins said this increase was driven by “a number of factors”, but at its heart it was “driven by a myth”. She went on:”

This was myth was that, for children and young people grappling with adolescence, who were questioning their identity, their sexuality or their path in life, that the answer to their questions was inevitably to change gender to solve their questions of unease, discomfort or distress.

And this near uniform prescription was imposed on children and young people with complex needs without full and thoughtful consideration of their wider needs, including, as is set out in the report, conditions such as neurodiversity, experiences such as childhood trauma or experiences of mental health conditions, or indeed discovering who it is that they may one day fall in love with.

Indeed, the response from some of the people who should have protected them, some of the clinicians in charge of their care at the Tavistock clinic, was almost always to put them on an irreversible path, blocking puberty, then the prescription of cross-sex hormones and onto surgery as an adult.

In other words, such professionals were not asking the right questions of themselves or their patients.

Atkins said parents who questioned whether the interventions being offered to their children were the right ones were let down. And she suggested the people most let down were the young people “who have gone through the pain of detransitioning only to find out that the so-called reversible treatments they were offered are not, in fact, reversible”.

Heseltine asks government to justify former Labour Liverpool mayor’s 3-year wait for outcome of police inquiry

17:26

Lord Heseltine, the former Conservative deputy PM, has confronted the government on the police treatment of the former Labour mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, who has been left in limbo after his arrest three years ago, PA reports,

Anderson was arrested in December 2020 on suspicion to commit bribery and witness intimidation, as part of a wider corruption investigation. He was suspended from the Labour party and temporarily stepped down from duties, before announcing that he would not seek re-election in 2021.

Anderson has always denied wrongdoing and he is yet to be charged with any crime, but Merseyside police say investigations are ongoing.

In a rare intervention in the Lords, Heseltine said this afternoon:

The mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson, was arrested on serious charges, including fraud and bribery. That was three years, four months ago. He lost his job, his reputation and his income. No charge has been laid since then. Does the minister think that’s justice?

Home Office minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom replied:

An investigation involving Mr Anderson remains ongoing and it would, therefore, be inappropriate to comment while that remains the case. The police are rightly independent of government and decisions concerning investigations are operational ones for the respective police forces to make.

Anderson was leader of Liverpool city council in 2012 when it decided to award Heseltine the freedom of the city in recognition of the way he championed regeneration in Liverpool when he was a minister in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet.

Truss calls for abolition of supreme court, saying judiciary has become ‘self-perpetuating oligarchy’

17:15

Liz Truss, the former prime minister, has added the supreme court to her long list of establishment institutions (the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury etc) she wants to reform or abolish. In an interview with GB News, one of many she has been doing to publicise her new memoirs, she said

We should abolish it. Another important change, which I didn’t fully appreciate until I became lord chancellor, was the fact that previously the lord chancellor was appointed by the prime minister and was responsible for appointing senior judges. Now, who appoints the senior judges?

It’s a quango, it is the Judicial Appointments Commission and what de facto happens is the judiciary have become a self-perpetuating oligarchy because the current lord chief justice has a lot of say over who his or her successor is. So what we’ve done is created a system that has undermined the core of the British Constitution, which is parliamentary sovereignty.

Before the supreme court was set up by the last Labour government, final judicial appeals were decided by the law lords, senior judges appointed to the House of Lords.

17:08

A reader asks:

If after dire May locals the Tories decide to oust Sunak, is there anything to stop him calling a GE when he gets wind of it? I accept that then they would have to go out and campaign for ‘him’ as leader in the GE, so it is a can of worms, but I get the impression his fragile ego couldn’t accept being kicked out as leader so he would rather go down with the ship.

There is not much Tory MPs could do (except vote against the government in a motion of confidence, which would trigger a general election anyway). They could trigger a leadership election, but that normally takes a day or two to organise, and Rishi Sunak could trigger a general election at very short notice; all it takes is a call to the Palace.

The one person who could halt an election is King Charles. He would have to agree to one. There is no precedent in modern times for a monarch saying no, but when Boris Johnson was PM, and there were fears that he might call an election to avoid a leadership challenge, the cabinet secretary and the Queen’s private secretary discussed the possibility of stopping Johnson by not allowing the Queen to take his call.

At that point parliament had more than two years to run, and it was clear that the Conservative party would be able to choose a replacement capable of commanding a Commons majority.

In theory the king can also refuse a request of an election under the Lascelles principles, which says the monarch can say no if three conditions apply: that parliament is still functioning, that an election would harm the economy, and that another PM would be capable of running a government. But in the current circumstances arguably none of these conditions would apply and so, following constitutional convention, the king would almost certainly allow an election to go ahead.

‘Diplomatic premises should not be attacked’, says Starmer, in rebuke to Israel

16:38

George Galloway was wrong when he said that Keir Starmer had not condemnned the Israeli attack on the Iranian consultate in Syria. (See 4.17pm.) Starmer did allude to this in his response to Rishi Sunak, telling MPs:

We must proceed calmly, carefully and with restraint. Because if diplomacy takes centre stage, and it must, then we also need to be clear, diplomatic premises should not be targeted and attacked, that is a point of principle.

Given that Starmer has been reluctant to criticise Israel during the war, this is worth noting. Here’s a comment from Paul Waugh, the political commentator who came close to being selected as Labour’s candidate for Rochdale ahead of the recent byelection.

Significant. @Keir_Starmer on Iran/Israel: “If diplomacy takes centre stage, and it must, then we also need to be clear diplomatic premises should not be targeted and attacked. That is a point of principle.” Clear signal Israel was wrong to bomb Iranian. consulate in Damascus

16:23

Zarah Sultana (Lab) asks Sunak if Alicia Kearns, the Tory chair of the foreign affairs committee, was right when she said recently that the government has been told by its lawyers that Israel is in breach of international law.

Sunak says he is happy to address this directly. He says the UK’s position on arms export licences for Israel has not changed and that the current position (allowing exports) is in line with the latest legal assessment.

George Galloway criticises Sunak for not condemning Israeli attack on Iranian consulate in Syria

16:17

George Galloway, the Workers Party of Britain, criticises Sunak for not condemning the Israeli destruction of the Iranian embassy in Damascus in his statement. And he says Keir Starmer did not raise this point either. He says Kay Burley on Sky News is the only person to have raised this with a government minister. (See 12.07pm.)

Sunak criticises Galloway for not condeming the Iranian attack. And he says there is “no equivalence … whatsoever” between what Israel did and what Iran did and “to suggest otherwise it’s simply wrong”.

16:09

Ben Wallace, the Tory former defence secretary, says Ukraine is also being threatened by Iranian-made drones. He says Israel has refused to support Ukraine. Given that the RAF acted to support Israel, will the PM urge Israel to help Ukraine at its moment of need?

Sunak says he will pass on this point when he speaks to the Israeli PM.

16:05

Suella Braverman, the Tory former home secretary, said she visisted Israel two weeks ago. She says since 7 October Iranian-backed Hezbolla has fired 4,000 rockets into northern Israel. She asks why the government has not proscribed the IRGC.

Sunak says the government does not comment on potential proscription decisions. But the government does take the threat from Iran seriously, he says.

Sunak criticises SNP for saying Iran and Israel both guilty of using disproportionate levels of violence

16:00

Mhairi Black, the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster, starts by condemning the acts of violence perpetrated by Iran.

But she says if acts of violence by Iran are to be condemned, acts of violence by Israel should be condemned too. And she says that, if sending hundreds of missiles and drones was disproportionate as a response to “an isolated attack on an embassy”, then what is happening in Gaza is also disproportionate as a response to the Hamas attack of 7 October.

In response, Sunak said it was wrong to imply an “equivalence” between Iran and Israel.

15:52

Sunak is replying to Starmer.

On the point about the IRGC, he says he and other G7 leaders agreed yesterday to work on further measures to counter Iran and its agencies. He goes on:

It was agreed that we should coordinate those actions and that work is now underway, and obviously at the appropriate time I’ll will update the house.

15:50

Keir Starmer is responding to Sunak.

He says the Iranian attack against Israel left the world “a more dangerous place” and he backs Sunak’s call for restraint.

He asks what the government is doing to limit the power of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). (See 11.07am and 3.33pm.)

And he urges the government “to use every ounce of diplomatic leverage that we have” to increase the supply of aid to Gaza.

Sunak tells MPs ‘all sides must show restraint’ in conflict involving Israel and Iran

15:46

Rishi Sunak is making a statement to MPs on Iran and Israel.

Here is the short statement Sunak issued on Saturday.

He starts by saying the scale of the attack, and the fact it was directed at Israel, made it unprecedented.

But the attack did not succeed. He says the UK “joined a US-led international effort, along with France and partners in the region, which intercepted almost all of the missiles saving lives in Israel and its neighbours”.

British pilots “put themselves in harm’s way to protect the innocent” and to preserv peace, he says.

Sunak says the UK is urging Israel to show restraint.

We are working urgently with our allies to de escalate the situation and prevent further bloodshed. We want to see calmer heads prevail.

Sunak says he will be speaking to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to express solidarity and to discuss how we can prevent further escalation. He goes on: “All sides must show restraint.”

He says there are three priorities going ahead: upholding regional security, pursuing the two-state solution, and increasing the supply of aid to people in Gaza.

15:33

At Home Office questions Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has just urged the government to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group. She said she accepted that the current legislation relation to proscription was drawn up to deal with terrorist groups, not state-linked groups like the IRGC, but she said Labour is calling for legislation to address this so that proscription-style restrictions could be applied.

One reason why the government has not proscribed the IRGC is because it does not want to break off diplomatic relations with Iran. (See 11.07am.)

James Cleverly, the home secretary, said this was being constantly kept under review.

Vaughan Gething defends cuts putting 90 Museum Wales jobs at risk, saying prioritising NHS means ‘difficult choices’ elsewhere

15:13

Vaughan Gething, the new first minister of Wales, has defended funding cuts that could lead to the closure of Cardiff’s national museum and the loss of up to 90 jobs, PA Media reports.

Gething was speaking at his first press conference since becoming first minister, which was held at Coleg Gwent’s campus in Ebbw Vale on Monday. During a speech to engineers, Gething described how his priorities were the NHS, steelworkers and farming – issues he said needed “urgent attention”.

He said his cabinet would have a “relentless focus on a core set of priorities” that mattered to Welsh people, with the NHS at the top of the list.

During questioning from journalists, Gething was asked about comments by Jane Richardson, the chief executive of Museum Wales, who warned that the National Museum Cardiff could close and up to 90 jobs could be lost following cuts. He replied:

I think this neatly highlights when we’re talking about priorities and the reality of our budgets after more than a decade of austerity.

When we set out in our budget our priorities, that we’d prioritise health and social care, and local government, that meant there were much more difficult choices to make across the range of the government …

If the NHS really is our priority, and we’re going to invest in it, you can’t have that as a consequence free for every other area of public life.

We’ve set out that there would be reductions in some areas, and that’s painful and difficult. The museum is just one of those, there are many, many others.

I don’t celebrate having to make those choices but I can’t be honest with the people of Wales about having priorities if we aren’t prepared to make choices around those.

It really does highlight the need to have a different settlement at a UK level.

On Sunday, Richardson told BBC Radio Wales’ Sunday Supplement programme that Museum Wales is facing a £4.5m reduction in its budget. She said National Museum Cardiff – one of seven sites managed by the organisation – could be forced to close if more funding could not be secured.

As PA reports, Museum Wales has had a £3m reduction in its grant but has a year-on-year deficit of £1.5m, meaning a total deficit of £4.5m by the end of March.

14:23

Labour claims that Liz Truss not ruling out trying to become Tory leader again (see 12.34pm) is a sign of Rishi Sunak’s weakness. In a statement Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said:

The prospect of Liz Truss returning as Tory leader will send shivers down the spine of working people.

Homeowners are still reeling after the Conservatives crashed the economy and sent mortgages rocketing by hundreds of pounds every month.

Rishi Sunak is too weak to stand up to the reckless actions of Liz Truss and it’s working people that pay the price.

14:01

In interviews this morning David Cameron, the foreign secretary, says the UK’s main contribution to the defence of Israel from the Iranian mass missile and drone attack on Saturday night was to “backfill” for the Americans in the ongoing, joint operation against Islamic State, allowing the US air force to divert more airpower to helping the Israelis.

But the RAF did play a small role shooting down Iranian drones directly, Cameron said:

At the same time, we also agreed that if there were drones coming in through that area that we would shoot them down. And our planes did that. A small number of drones were shot down.

At the No 10 lobby briefing, asked about the legal basis for the UK’s operation, the PM’s spokesperson said there is already legal authorisation in place for Operation Shader, the operation against Islamic State. But the spokesperson also said pilots were given further permission at the weekend to intercept attacks origination from Iran or its proxies. He said this was justified because missiles flying at or past British aircraft were a threat. He also said the UK was acting “in the collective self defence of Israel and regional security”.

The spokesperson said there were no current plans to publish this legal advice.

No 10 says it wants Rwanda deportation flights to start ‘as soon as possible’ – but backs off saying it could happen in spring

13:43

Rishi Sunak has repeatedly said that, once the Rwanda bill becomes law, he expects the first deportation flights to the country to leave in the spring. But the Times this morning is reporting that the Home Office is now expecting the first flights to leave “by early June”, which most people would describe as summer, not spring.

At the No 10 lobby briefing this morning, when asked if the timetable was slipping, the prime minister’s spokesperson said:

Our commitment remains to get flights off as soon as possible, and that has not changed.

But the spokesperson declined invitations to say the flights could be leaving in the spring.

Government not planning further concessions to Lords on Rwanda bill, No 10 signals

13:28

MPs will vote tonight on the latest Lords amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill. If the first strike in the “ping pong” process comes when the Commons first votes to remove Lords amendemnts, and sends a bill back along the corridor to the upper chamber, tonight will be strike three. On 18 March MPs voted down the original 10 Lords amendments. On 20 March peers voted, in effect, to put seven of them back in.

Tonight MPs are expected to vote for government amendments removing six of them. For technical reasons, the government cannot just vote down the final one (exempting victims of modern slavery from deportation to Rwanda) without collapsing the bill under the double insistence rule, and instead it has tabled an alternative amendment proposing an annual report into how the Act affects modern slavery victims. In the Lords this is likely to be viewed as a very minimal, and largely cosmetic, concession.

The government does not seem minded to offer more, meaningful concessions to peers. At the No 10 lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson told journalists:

We’ve always been clear that the bill, as previously through the House of Commons, is the right bill to get flights off the ground.

Asked if Rishi Sunak had a message for peers, the spokesperson said:

This week parliament has the opportunity to pass a bill that will save the lives of those being exploited by people-smuggling gangs.

It is clear that we cannot continue with the status quo which is unfair and uncompassionate. Now is the time to change the equation against gangs and unite behind the bills.

After tonight the bill will return to the Lords tomorrow. It is expected that at that point peers will again vote down the government amendments, and vote again to insert a handful of extra safeguards into the legislation, but the “ping pong” process is expected to end on Wednesday, with peers ultimately accepting the will of the elected chamber, which is what almost always happens on these occasions.

12:49

The Commons authorities have confirmed that there will be two ministerial statements this afternoon.

3.30pm: Rishi Sunak on Iran and Israel.

After 4.30pm: Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, on the Cass review into gender identity support for young people.

Cameron says UK would not support retaliatory attack against Iran, but could offer further defensive military support to Israel

12:45

In his interviews this morning David Cameron, the foreign secretary, indicated that, if Israel retaliates against Iran for the attack on Saturday night, the UK won’t offer military support. He told the Today programme:

We are saying very clearly we don’t support a retaliatory strike. We don’t think they should make one.

But Cameron did not rule out Britain offering further defensive support to Israel in the event of retaliation leading to another attack by Iran. He said:

If they [the Israelis] come under attack, that’s a different issue.

But what we are saying very clearly to the Israelis is ‘we respect your right to take action, you are an independent, sovereign country, you’ve suffered what could have been a calamitous attack, you’ve bravely fought it off, you’ve had a success, Iran has had a failure, the right thing to do, the tough thing to do now is not to escalate further but to switch the focus back on to getting the hostages home’.

Liz Truss confirms she wants to see Trump win US presidential election

12:34

David Cameron ruled out trying to become PM again in an interview this morning. (See 9.30am.) But Liz Truss has not done so. In an interview with LBC’s Iain Dale, being broadcast tonight, she did not entirely dismiss the possibility. This is from LBC’s Henry Riley.

Truss is giving interviews to publicise her memoir which is out this week. According to extracts sent out in advance, she also confirmed in her LBC interview that she wanted to see Donald Trump win the US presidential election. She said:

I don’t think [Joe] Biden has been particularly supportive to the United Kingdom. I think he’s often on the side of the EU. And I certainly think I would like to see a new president in the White House …

The thing I would say about Donald Trump is, because I served as secretary of state under both Trump and Biden, and Trump’s policies were actually very effective. If you look at his economic policies, and I met his regulatory czar, I travelled around the United States looking at what he’d done. He cut regulation, he cut taxes, he liberated the US energy supply. And this is why the US has had significantly higher economic growth than Britain.

In foreign affairs, he was more effective at preventing aggressive regimes expanding and I think we’d be in a different position if he got re-elected in 2020.

David Cameron claims Tories deserve to win election and says recovery for party not impossible

12:20

Good morning. David Cameron, the foreign secretary and former prime minister, has been touring the studios this morning doing an interview round on behalf of No 10. When he made his surprise comeback to cabinet in November last year, there were suggestions that he might be doing quite a lot of this, as a general spokesperson for the government, because he is such a good communicator. But perhaps he’s a bit too good for No 10’s taste. Sunak’s team won’t have been happy about George Osborne, Cameron’s friend and former chancellor, describing him on his podcast recently as “acting like the British prime minister” on the world stage. According to Politico, this is the first time since his appointment Cameron has done a weekday morning broadcast round.

Cameron’s main message has been to urge Israel not to retaliate after the mass missile and drone attack from Iran on Saturday night was repulsed almost entirely. Israel should “take the win”, he said (using President Biden’s phrase). Cameron told Times Radio:

The best thing to do in the case of Israel is to recognise this has been a failure for Iran.

And so they should, as President Biden has said to them, as it were, take the win and then move on to focus on how to eradicate Hamas in Gaza and how to get those hostages free …

I think we have to be sensitive in the way we put this [to Israel], but to say ‘look, you have had a win because the Iran attack was such a failure and the smart thing to do as well as the tough thing to do now is actually not to escalate’.

But most of our coverage of that conflict is on our Middle East crisis live blog. Martin Belam is writing it this morning, and he has more on Cameron’s Israel/Iran words here.

Cameron confirmed that Rishi Sunak will make a statement to MPs about the Israel/Iran situation this afternoon. But he also had some upbeat words for Conservatives about their election prospects. When LBC’s Nick Ferrari put it to him that his record as an election winner made him the equivalent of Manchester United’s Alex Ferguson, and asked if he had any advice for Sunak, whom Ferrari described as the team’s Erik ten Hag, Cameron suggested a Tory recovery was possible.

I prefer to point to the example of Unai Emery for [Aston] Villa yesterday who looked like they were on a losing run against Arsenal and in the last few minutes slotted into two. So anything is possible in football as in politics.

And I will be doing everything I can to help Prime Minister Sunak. He’s a very good boss to have. He’s the brightest person in the room, a brain the size of a planet, works incredibly hard, doing good things for this country at a difficult time. Inflation is coming down, interest rates are falling, taxes are coming down. We’ve got a plan, the other lot haven’t, and I can’t wait to get on the campaign trail.

In a separate interview with Sky News, he refused to say when he thought the election should take place, saying Sunak should call it “whenever he thinks it’s right”.

He also ruled out trying to become prime minister again. Replacing Sunak with Cameron is one of the many improbable/implausible/bonkers ideas floated by Tories a possible survival strategy in recent weeks, but Cameron is not intererested. Asked by Sky’s Kay Burley, in what circumstances he would consider becoming PM again, Cameron replied:

None. I’m not applying for this job [being PM]. I’m very happy to be working as foreign secretary.

Here is the agenda for the day.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.30pm: James Cleverly, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

3.30pm: Sir Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary at the Home Office, gives evidence to the public accounts committee about the Rwanda scheme.

After 3.30pm: Rishi Sunak makes a statement to MPs about Israel and Iran.

Late afternoon: MPs debate the latest Lords amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

Also, Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, is formally announcing plans to eliminate rough sleeping in the capital.

If you want to contact me, do use the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often I find your questions very interesting, too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

Small boat arrival numbers reached 534 on Sunday, highest daily figure for 2024, figures show

12:17

Some 534 people were detected crossing the English Channel on small boats on Sunday, the highest number on a single day so far this year, according to provisional figures from the Home Office, PA Media reports. PA says:

The cumulative number of arrivals by small boats in 2024 now stands at a provisional total of 6,265.

This is 28% higher than the total at the equivalent point last year, which was 4,899, and 7% higher than the total at this stage in 2022, which was 5,828.

Some 10 boats were detected on Sunday, which suggests an average of around 53 people per boat.

There were 29,437 arrivals across the whole of 2023, down 36% on a record 45,774 arrivals in 2022.

12:13

David Cameron, the foreign secretary, posted this on X this morning after meeting Alexei Navalny’s widow Yulia this morning.

Alexei Navalny dedicated his life to exposing the corruption of Putin’s system and speaking up for the Russian people – @yulia_navalnaya is continuing his fight. I was honoured to meet her today.

Cameron urges Israel to be ‘smart’ by not escalating tensions with Iran

12:07

As Patrick Wintour, the Guardian’s diplomatic editor reports, David Cameron’s comment on Sky News this morning about how the UK would take “very strong action” against a country that attacked one of its embassies is getting favourable coverage on Iranian TV. Iran attacked Israel at the weekend as retaliation for an airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic building in Syria on 1 April that killed several Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards officers.

And here is Patrick’s story from Cameron’s interview round this morning.

11:46

The Foreign Office has announced sanctions on a bank and two companies supporting military groups involved in the civil war in Sudan. “These sanctions send a clear signal to the warring parties that they must end fighting and meaningfully engage in a peace process,” the Foreign Office said in its news release.

Rishi Sunak’s satisfaction rating with Tory members hits record low, survey suggests

11:42

Conservative party members are more dissatisfied than ever with Rishi Sunak, a survey for ConservativeHome suggests. In its latest monthly survey, ConHome found that Sunak had a net satisfaction rating of -27.7 (total satisfied with how he’s doing minus total dissatisfied). Only Michael Tomlinson, the illegal migration minister who attends cabinet, is doing worse.

Sunak’s previous worst score on this measure was in December 2023, when he was on -26.5. In early February he was on -18.4 and last month he was on -23.1.

The survey also found a record number of ministers are deemed to be underperforming by members. In its write-up ConHome says:

Last month, we saw an unhappy record broken in the history of the Cabinet League Table with 11 ministers in negative ratings. Well, turns out that record stood for only a month: this time it’s 12.

At the other end of the scale, Kemi Badenoch has returned to the top spot, from which she was briefly ousted last month by Penny Mordaunt. These two, along with Johnny Mercer, have been swapping places on the podium for five months; the last time anyone else broke into the top three was in our October survey, when James Cleverly topped the poll.

Although it is a survey, not a weighted poll, the results of ConHome surveys of Tory members have turned out to be a reasonably good guide to opinion in the party ahead of leadership elections.

Trump did not complain to Cameron when they met about his previous anti-Trump comments, Cameron says

11:41

Donald Trump did not complain to David Cameron about Cameron’s previous anti-Trump comments when they met in Florida last week, the foreign secretary said this morning.

In an interview on Sky News, Kay Burley reminded Cameron that in the past he had described Trump as “xenophobic, misogynistic. protectionist, stupid, wrong” at various points and he asked if Trump raised this.

Initially Cameron said that it was a private meeting and that he was not going to comment. But, when Burley said that implied Trump did raise this points, Cameron replied: “No, he didn’t, actually,”

Cameron went on:

Look, it was a good meeting.

As politicians, we will know there’s a track record of things we’ve said about each other. But, ultimately, Britain and America are important partners. We don’t know who will be president after November. It is not for us to get involved. It’s for the Americans to choose their president. We then work [together].

In a later interview with LBC, Cameron again claimed the meeting with Trump went well, and he rejected claims that on the same trip he was snubbed by Mike Johnson, the congressional speaker, who declined to meet him. Cameron said they had met on his last visit to Washington.

Cameron was trying to urge Trump and his ally Johnson, who controls business in the House of Representatives, to allow a vote on authorising military aid to Ukraine.

On LBC Cameron said Johnson and Trump held a meeting at the weekend. He went on:

Obviously it’s American politics, and one shouldn’t get too involved, but it sounded to me as if they are they’re thinking about how to turn that money from America to Ukraine that’s so vital, perhaps to turn it into a loan rather than a grant. And that, to me looked like good progress.

So we’ll keep pushing for that. Because in terms of helping Ukraine, there are lots of things they need, but actually nothing is more important, more important right now, than America doing what Europe have done, what we’ve done, which is providing that funding to keep them in the fight and push back against Russia, so over time they can be victorious and achieve a just peace.

Cameron plays down need for UK to proscribe Iran’s IRGC as terrorist group

11:07

Rishi Sunak is likely to face renewed calls in the Commons afternoon to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist group. Some Conservative MPs have been pushing for this for some time and only last week Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, made the case for this publicly again.

Last week I visited Israel’s northern border with Lebanon where Iran-backed Hezbollah fires daily rockets into Israel & threatens its people. Iran’s IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) also poses a daily risk to public safety & national security in the UK

That’s why the UK government must proscribe the IRGC-the world’s chief sponsor of terrorism – & take robust steps to protect the British people.

This is how we tackle extremism & the risk of terrorism in the UK.

I’ve called for this repeatedly.

It’s beyond time for action. 2/2

But, in his LBC interview this morning, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, played down the need for this. The IRGC is a state body and proscribing it as a terrorist group would probably lead to diplomatic relations being broken off. Cameron told LBC:

We recognise what a dangerous organisation it is. We have sanctioned it in its entirety. We put in place a whole sanctions regime before the end of last year to do more of this work.

I keep this under review. But the police and our intelligence services say they have the powers already to deal with IRGC action, either here or elsewhere.

And I’d make this additional point, which is I can’t pretend the diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran are in a very good state. Of course they aren’t. But, nonetheless, having those diplomatic relations means that we can deliver a direct message to the Iranians, as I’ve done speaking to the Iranian foreign minister twice in the last seven days.

I don’t have to ask my French counterpart or my German counterpart to pass a message on behalf of Britain. I think it’s in Britain’s interest, it makes Britain stronger and more able, if we’re able to have those direct conversations and direct messages to the Iranians. And I think we should keep it that way.

10:00

George Osborne rates David Cameron so highly that, as well as describing him as “acting like the British prime minister” on the world stage (see 9.30am), he even suggested in one recent edition of his Political Currency podcast that Keir Starmer should keep him on as foreign secretary.

A move like that would be unprecedented in recent UK politics, but it happens from time to time in the US. When Barack Obama became president, he retained Robert Gates as his defence secretary even though Gates had worked for his Republican predecessor, George W Bush.

In an interview on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ed Balls, who co-presents Political Currency, asked Cameron about Osborne’s proposal. Cameron ruled it out, saying:

There’s absolutely no prospect of that happening. I’m a Conservative and I’m proud to be working for a Conservative government.

I’m very happy to be serving under Rishi Sunak. I’m a Conservative. I work for Conservative governments. I did lead a coalition government, but that’s as far as I’m taking it.