Excl: Employers should be barred from sponsoring overseas workers unless they can prove that they have invested in training British workers first, one of Labour’s biggest trade union backers has said. thetimes.com/article/b4ba1b8…

Excl: Ministers should consider proscribing a militant transgender activist group which has targeted the offices of MPs, the government’s former adviser on political violence has said. Writing in The Times, @LordWalney said the conduct of the group Bash Back “deserves far more serious attention than it has so far received” and that ministers should test it against the same threshold that led to the proscription of Palestine Action. The Times previously revealed that the group had produced a guide for members urging them to arm themselves and carry out repeated illegal attacks on MPs and organisations. It comes after a court heard this week that Ann Widdecombe was struck 21 times on the head with a hammer. Walney stressed that he made no suggestion about who was responsible while proceedings were active, but said it was “a fair observation” that Bash Back had withdrawn none of its material since her death. “Not one image of masked, hammer-wielding activists. Not the guide instructing supporters to select political targets and strike them until they desist,” he said. “An organisation genuinely committed to non-violence, watching the country absorb the killing of a public figure in her own home, would have paused. This one did not.” thetimes.com/article/92edc11…