Priti Patel resumed her battle against “activist lawyers” last night as she celebrated the removal of more illegal migrants who arrived in the country by boat, despite continued frustration by some in the legal profession. While the stance inevitably drew criticism from the Bar Council, the doubling down by the Home Secretary reignites a war against her own department after last week’s row in which the Home Office published a video using the same attack line, only for it to be deleted and the permanent secretary saying it “should not have been used on an official government channel”. Priti once again finding herself in a fractious relationship with her civil servants…

The war of words comes as MPs were told yesterday France is “just as committed” as the UK to stopping migrants using the illegal crossing, having prevented 3,000 people crossing this year. Despite these assurances from the Home Office’s Channel threat commander France failed to prevent a record 416 migrants making the journey on Wednesday.

Migrant lawyers aren’t the only ones getting the blame this morning, as The Sun reports the National Crime Agency is now accusing WhatsApp of frustrating the battle and protecting criminal people smuggling gangs. The NCA say they referred over 1200 pages related to organised immigration crime to social media companies for closure in the first five months of the year. 485 were rejected as not breaching terms and conditions…