Mike Tapp wrote unauthorised article saying new settlement rules should not cover overseas care workers

Shabana Mahmood is locked in an extraordinary standoff with Keir Starmer after Downing Street refused to immediately sack her junior minister for breaching the ministerial code.

The home secretary has demanded that Mike Tapp, the immigration minister, should be sacked for writing an unauthorised article calling for overseas care workers to be exempt from hardline immigration changes.

Human rights official says politicians are playing into the hands of the populist right as they seek to tackle migration

Keir Starmer and Europe’s hardline governments risk creating a “hierarchy of people” as they seek to address migration by curbing fundamental rights, Europe’s most senior human rights official has said.

Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said that “middle-of-the-road politicians” are playing into the hands of the populist right.