risk the question is there now a risk that jihadis, or even those that committed atrocities under assad, could find a way into the united kingdom? how do we deal with it? the national insurance rise has left the hospices around this country really very, very worried about their future. is there an argument that hospices should be exempted from the national insurance? rise and storm dara destroys britain's biggest solar farm. do we need a rethink about this particular form of renewable energy? but before all of that, let's get the news with sophia wenzler. >> nigel. thank you. good evening. it's 7:00. your top story from the gb newsroom this houn story from the gb newsroom this hour. the uk and germany have reached a landmark deal to tackle migrant smuggling. germany has agreed to tighten laws making it easier to prosecute smugglers behind small boat crossings to the uk. the

deal also focuses on intelligence sharing and removing smuggling content from social media to disrupt criminal networks. home secretary yvette coopen networks. home secretary yvette cooper, speaking at a meeting with european leaders this morning, said the agreement will strengthen border security and save lives. >> gangs have been getting away with it for far too long. that's why today's meeting is so important. in recent weeks, we have already seen the important impact of a collaboration across our countries. the significant arrest of a major suspect involved in smuggling engines and boats, involving collaboration between the netherlands, belgium and the uk. the series of arrests that have taken place across germany, with the french led operations in the last week, now independent mp iqbal mohammed has spoken out against a proposed ban on first cousin marriages in the uk,

calling the move unnecessary and unenforceable. >> speaking in the commons, mr mohammed acknowledged the health risks but stressed the need for a cultural shift, not legislation, to address the issue. he did condemn forced marriages and virginity testing, highlighting the need to protect women's rights. however, the mp for dewsbury and batley argues that banning first cousin marriages would not solve the problem. in other news, billionaire nick candy has pledged a seven figure donation to reform uk after announcing he will become the party's new treasurer in the new year. the property tycoon, who resigned from the conservative party over what he called too many broken promises, will now help raise funds ahead of may's local elections , and the fathers of elections, and the fathers of two murdered policewomen have hailed the new elizabeth emblem as a fitting tribute to their daughters and others who have died in the line of duty. bryn hughes and paul bowen both

received the emblem from the king during the first presentation of the awards, following the deaths of their daughters. pcs nicola hughes and fiona bone, who were murdered after answering a 999 call. king charles spent an hour with the families of 38 public servants, chatting about the loved ones they lost and handing over the nation's gratitude in the form of the emblem. speaking to gb news today, pc fiona bone's father paul bone, spoke about what the award means. >> i think she'll be highly pleased to, if she was here today , to receive an award, but today, to receive an award, but she wasn't really into awards. she she liked a coronation medal, so i should imagine she would have been over the moon with this award. excellent. >> those are the latest gb news headlines. >> more in an hour for the very latest gb news direct to your

smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> well, the whole world has been stunned by the speed with which the assad regime has fallen in syria all over start to finish in less than three weeks. quite extraordinary. assad, who started off, i think for many with great hope, somebody who trained in london married a woman in london. we thought maybe western influences would come to syria. things would come to syria. things would change. actually, arguably it turned into a complete nightmare. and then we had the rebel forces, and it was always complicated to know . who are complicated to know. who are they? were they al—qaeda? were they? were they al—qaeda? were they isis? what are the current group of people i don't know. there's been great rejoicing that assad has gone, and it leaves a very, very big open question. yesterday we saw germany, austria, sweden and then slight france. then

slightly belatedly, the united kingdom say, right, we're halting all asylum applications. and i guess there were two reasons for that. one is you could say, well, now that assad is gone, it's a perfectly safe country. so why should anybody want to claim asylum here? but the second, and perhaps more sinister one is, does it mean that there'll be people now leaving syria, maybe those who committed murderous acts in the name of assad? does it mean those who fought for isis that have maybe been freed from some of these prisons that might start to come in our direction? maybe one very good example through which we can debate this is shamima begum. should she now be allowed to return, will she possibly be allowed to return? and remember, she has lost every court case in this country. tell me what you think. in the light of the fall of that regime, should she be allowed to come to the uk? farage @gbnews. com and it's a it's complicated. no one

quite knows how things will settle down in syria, but i'm joined in the studio, not for the first time . by tasnime the first time. by tasnime akunjee. shamima begum has famous family lawyers. you're not her lawyer. you're the family's lawyer. now, you've made these arguments over the years. you've lost court case after court case. and the answer is, we've said her citizenship is, we've said her citizenship is gone. she can't return to the country. but you think that things may have changed? >> well, the situation is that her case is now going to go to the european courts. but the court cases that have been lost have been about the decision that was originally made by a politician. sajid javid around an individual's status. now, we haven't had a jury trial with shamima begum, though evidence has been put of any wrongdoing to her in in uk law. but what the supreme court has actually decided was that parliament had given themselves such power that they felt that they couldn't question that. and that itself is an erosion of the idea of the

separation of powers. that is the fundamental basis of our society, which is that we don't have politicians making decisions about individuals. we allow that to for the courts. and lord anderson at the time criticising the whole rubric around stripping, suggested that around stripping, suggested that a better approach would have been for a home secretary to be able to refer to a judge, a request to have somebody's citizenship stripped, and then that checked in light of the law. >> why does the fall of the assad regime make you think it's more likely her case might get reconsidered? >> well, i think the issue there is, is what is the impact that's going to happen on her and all the other people who are in those sort of camps. and we don't know the answer to that at the moment. the camps are actually being run by the kurdish forces who who were previously against assad, but then were co—opted into his army. and they're currently being bombarded by or aerial assaulted by the turks at the moment. so there is a great degree of fluidity in the situation. however, this was not

completely unforeseeable. these arguments were made in the courts to say that those accounts were not likely to be permanent, and war was likely to overtake the situation there. now we're going to look at what 90 100,000 people who may bleed out of those camps into the hinterland, or a lot of people being killed in women and children. >> and, you know, her case aside, what worries me? we can go all the way back to 2015, when the boats first started crossing the mediterranean, when isis very, very boldly, publicly said they would send their operatives into europe. and of course, that means ultimately, in some cases , onto us. is the in some cases, onto us. is the home secretary not right and the foreign secretary not right to say that right now we should freeze all asylum applications? >> no, i agree with that. you do agree with that, because the situation in syria is so potentially toxic that we do not know who, and we will not know who's able to come over through

a relatively porous scheme. but shamima begum is not the case as, as the in a different case, it's a different case indeed. >> fine. i'm joined by charlie downes, political strategist and former content lead at the centre for migration control. and interestingly, joe phillips, former paddy ashdown press secretary. but more significantly, somebody that knows syria lived in syria, loved to share some