Will Shabana Mahmood's asylum reforms work?

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced today the most significant change to UK asylum rules in a generation, saying the current asylum system is “out of control,” and “tearing our country apart”.

In a move calculated to seize back initiative for the government after months of false starts and plunging poll ratings, Mahmood unveiled proposals that will mean anyone granted refugee status will no longer have guaranteed housing and financial support, will face a 20-year wait before they can seek permanent residency, and could be returned to their home country in the meantime, if it is considered safe. She plans to narrow a refugee’s right to a family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, so it only applies to immediate family in the UK. And she has threatened visa bans on Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo unless they cooperate in taking back their citizens who are in Britain unlawfully.

These tough new measures have sparked outcry among progressives, including many in her own party. But Mahmood has warned that, if Labour does not do something now to tackle illegal immigration, the populist right will sweep to power and do something much, much worse. Or as The Atlantic’s David Frum once put it: “If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will.”

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What did the commentators say?

The UK’s new stance “draws inspiration” from Denmark “where refugee status is temporary, support is conditional and integration is expected”, said Laura Sharman and Christian Edwards at CNN. The Home Office has been impressed that “Denmark’s policies have reduced asylum claims there to a 40-year low and resulted in the removal of 95% of rejected applicants”.

The Danes’ tougher approach also helped nullify the threat from the far-right and secure re-election for the centre-left Social Democrat government last year. But it has also “drawn significant criticism, with rights groups saying the measures foster a hostile climate for migrants” and “leave asylum-seekers in prolonged uncertainty”.

Mahmood’s proposed visa bans “mirror measures introduced by Donald Trump during his first term”, said Matt Dathan and Ben Clatworthy in The Times. Those sanctions – on various African and eastern Asian nations – “have had varying success but the penalties imposed on the Gambia and Sierra Leone” did lead to “improved cooperation on returns”.

“Reducing ‘pull’ factors and making the UK less attractive to migrants is a massive long-term battle,” said the BBC’s Joe Pike. “Up against sophisticated people-smuggling gangs who have shown they can adapt fast”, the home secretary “will be hoping her ‘throw the kitchen sink at it’ approach gradually reduces arrivals and increases deportations”.

There’s no one “silver bullet” to deal with small boats, “and I think the government recognises that”, Dr Peter Walsh, a senior researcher Oxford University’s Migration Observatory told the BBC. That is why “it is taking a broader approach, focusing on enforcement and return deals. Will people know about restrictions enough to deter them? We will have to wait and see.”

What next?

The challenge now for the government is selling these changes to Labour MPs, especially those on the left of the party or facing a growing challenge to their seat from the Lib Dems and the Greens. There is also “significant unease among senior aides” and at least one minister is on “resignation watch”, said Jessica Elgot in The Guardian.

Both the Conservatives and Reform have sought to exploit these tensions. Kemi Badenoch has offered to work with Mahmood to get the changes through, and Nigel Farage has said the “Home Secretary sounds like a Reform supporter”.

Writing in The Guardian, Mahmood has said she knows “some of these measures will face opposition” but “this is a moral mission for me” and “unless we act, we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all”.

One government official put in starker terms to Politico’s Andrew McDonald: “We’ve got to restore order and control.” If we don’t do that, what will come after us “will be darker”.