Suella Braverman has been rebuked by the United Nations refugee agency after claiming that world leaders have failed to make wholesale reform of human rights laws because of fears of being branded “racist or illiberal”. The UNHCR on Tuesday issued a highly unusual statement defending the 1951 refugee convention and highlighting the UK’s record asylum claim backlog. It came after the home secretary refused to rule out leaving the convention and said that the international community had “collectively failed” to modernise international laws. Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, has issued a statement about Suella Braverman’s speech on X (Twitter) which is stronger than the statement about it she issued overnight, before we had seen the text. (See 10.13am.) She says it was “deeply divisive” and unworthy of Braverman’s office, adding: “Suella Braverman has so lost grip of Tory asylum chaos, she is targeting & scapegoating LGBT people. Deeply divisive, damaging political game playing – unworthy of her office. Instead of blaming people persecuted in places like Uganda for who they love, she shd sort chaos at home”. Suella Braverman’s speech would not be “out of place on a far-right conspiracy website”, the Green party has said. Commenting on the home secretary’s speech, the Green party co-leader Adrian Ramsay said: “This is a horrifying speech from a British home secretary that would not be out of place on a far-right conspiracy website. It is language straight out of the gutter that should have no place in a fair and compassionate society.” The UN’s refugee agency has hit back at Suella Braverman’s speech in Washington, in which she called for changes to the international refugee convention. In a statement published after Suella Braverman’s speech, the UNHCR said reform was not needed. The chair of an influential group of Conservative MPs including many from northern constituencies has signalled they may be open to a compromise that would mean the second phase of HS2 being delayed for several years. Amid continuing lobbying of Downing Street by opponents of the multimillion scheme and supporters fighting to preserve it, the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs appear willing to back a lengthy delay to the Birmingham-Manchester leg if a co-called “Charles line” connecting northern cities is preserved. Johnny Mercer received almost £8,000 in taxpayers’ cash after he was sacked by Liz Truss, it has emerged. The veterans minister was dismissed from his ministerial role as soon as Truss obtained the keys to No 10 last September. He appeared angry about Truss’s move saying he was “disappointed” but accepted that the prime minister was “entitled to reward her supporters”. Ed Davey has closed the Liberal Democrats’ conference with a pledge to guarantee in law that anyone referred for cancer treatment will be seen in two months, reinforcing his party’s focus on the NHS before the general election. In what was arguably the sole big policy announcement of the gathering in Bournemouth, Davey called for cross-party consensus over a proposed five-year plan to improve cancer survival rates. Debates sought by local Labour parties on issues like Brexit and electoral reform at the annual conference starting this weekend could be quashed by the leadership, after a series of rule changes passed on Tuesday. The national executive committee, Labour’s governing body, voted on Tuesday to approve a series of rule changes, including one that requires motions for debate at the conference in Liverpool to be deemed “contemporary”, it is understood. Prison officers in England and Wales could be allowed to use pepper spray to incapacitate children under plans to curb a sharp increase in violence at young offender institutions, the Guardian has learned. Dogs and stun grenades are used in some YOIs to defuse conflict among 15- to 18-year-olds, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has said. Two teenagers were burned in May by a grenade, a device designed to temporarily disorient not but physically harm. Thanks for following along. The UK politics live blog will be back in the morning. Goodnight.