{"id":5025,"date":"2025-02-14T11:11:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T11:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=5025"},"modified":"2025-02-14T11:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T11:12:12","slug":"this-week-in-pmqs-immigration-loopholes-and-a-trade-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/?p=5025","title":{"rendered":"This Week in PMQs: Immigration Loopholes and a Trade War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Labour and the Tory party accidently agreed on immigration policy this week but still managed to argue that the other was wrong. Meanwhile, Trump\u2019s trade war reaches the UK, as the government hears questions on fighting back against the new President.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ukraine-Gaza Immigration Loophole<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Kemi Badenoch and Sir Keir Starmer agreed in Parliament when both criticising a loophole in the immigration system. A ruling to allow a Palestinian family to remain in the UK has received criticism across the house since the family applied through the Ukrainian Family Scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the Russo-Ukrainian War and the Israel-Palestine War have caused massive displacement. The British Government currently hosts\u00a0254,000 Ukrainian refugees<\/a> and estimates that\u00a012.7 million people are in need of humanitarian aid<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation in Palestine is still dire, even after the\u00a0ceasefire<\/a>. According to the UNRWA, \u201c1.5 million individuals, live in 58 recognized Palestine refugee camps<\/a>.\u201d Last week, on the subject of Trump\u2019s plan to take over Gaza and move the Palestinians elsewhere, Keir Starmer commented on the recent images of thousands of Palestinians \u201cliterally walking through the rubble to try to find their homes and their communities in Gaza<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One Palestinian family has used the\u00a0Ukraine Family Scheme Visa<\/a>\u00a0to remain in the UK. A judge ruled that the loophole could be used as there were \u201cexceptionally dangerous<\/a>\u201d circumstances. Kemi Badenoch, Leader of the Opposition, claimed that \u201cThis decision is completely wrong, and cannot be allowed to stand<\/a>.\u201d Starmer agreed with Badenoch: \u201cThe Leader of the Opposition is right that it is the wrong decision<\/a>.\u201d The Prime Minister assured the house that the Home Secretary was working on\u00a0closing the legal loophole<\/a>. Although they both agreed, this did not stop them arguing the point.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trump’s Tariffs and Retaliation <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Recently, President Donald Trump\u2019s actions have awakened serious concerns within Parliament. This week, Sir Ed Davey warned the Prime Minister that \u201cHis tariffs against steel and aluminium will hit Canada the hardest, but they will also hit jobs and the cost of living in our country<\/a>.\u201d Davey, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, has been critical of Trump since his inauguration,\u00a0reminding Parliament about the \u201cthreat to world trade posed by Trump\u2019s tariffs and trade wars.<\/a>\u201d Ed Davey has now proposed that the UK retaliate against Trump by\u00a0imposing tariffs onto the USA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tariff is \u201ca form of tax applied on imports from other countries<\/a>.\u201d Tariffs could be applied for many reasons: to\u00a0protect domestic business, raise revenue and protect consumers<\/a>. There is debate surrounding the\u00a0effectiveness of tariffs<\/a>\u00a0however, with so many different reasons that they may be applied it is difficult to point to one main point of failure.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Trump has\u00a0threatened tariffs on Mexico and Canada and increased existing tariffs against China<\/a>. Now, the President has declared that there will be a\u00a025% import tax on all steel and aluminium entering the US<\/a>. Less than a month in, UK is already beginning to feel the economic effects of Trump\u2019s presidency. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer did not commit to any retaliatory tariffs against the USA. Starmer said in response: \u201clevel-headed assessment of the implications is needed<\/a>\u201d but remained certain that he would put\u00a0national interests first<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Elizabeth Strassheim<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image:\u00a0Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle<\/a>, by House of Commons via Flickr \/\/\u00a0CC BY 2.0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Less than a month in, UK is already beginning to feel the economic effects of Trump\u2019s presidency. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":5028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,47,12,414,29],"tags":[444,149,199,54,81,443,436],"class_list":["post-5025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-british","category-editorialtab","category-latest","category-us-politics","category-world","tag-british-politics","tag-economy","tag-immigration","tag-labour-party","tag-politics","tag-trade","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewitnessexeter.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}