David Lammy’s repeated refusal to help a family of six leave Gaza and enter the UK was “flawed and cannot stand”, a High Court judge said yesterday. The foreign secretary was ordered to reconsider his denial of consular assistance to a couple and their four children whose right to join the father’s brother, a British citizen, was upheld by judges at the Upper Tribunal in January.
Despite not being named, the family became notorious on 12 February when the opposition leader Kemi Badenoch drew attention at prime minister’s questions to the fact that they had applied for entry using a form designed for the Ukrainian resettlement scheme.
Sir Keir Starmer agreed, saying that the home secretary was “already looking at the legal loophole that we need to close in this particular case”.
In fact, as Mr Justice Chamberlain confirmed yesterday, the family had not been trying to pass themselves off as Ukrainians. They used the Ukrainian form because there was no form that applied to them and a Home Office guidance document called Leave outside the Immigration Rules1 tells applicants to “apply on the application form for the route which most closely matches their circumstances”.
It’s now known that Yvette Cooper had decided not to appeal against the Upper Tribunal’s decision two weeks before the prime minister said Cooper was “looking at the legal loophole that we need to close in this particular case”.
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