Shabana Mahmood entered the Home Office with a clear brief: to “think the unthinkable” on immigration. Public concern over the issue has surged to the extent that it is now routinely named as the most important facing the country. Though net migration is plummeting – some estimates suggest it could reach David Cameron’s old “tens of thousands” target – illegal immigration has continued to rise. Unless Labour can convince voters that it has brought order to the system, Mahmood and No 10 both believe, it will face defeat to Reform.
The reforms the Home Secretary will announce today are described by her team as the most radical since the Second World War. Refugees will have temporary status and will be required to reapply to remain in Britain every two and a half years. If their home country is deemed safe, they could be deported. Those granted asylum will have to wait 20 years before they can apply for permanent settlement, rather than five years at present, a longer waiting period than any other European country.
Mahmood’s plans are modelled on the approach of Denmark, where Home Office officials were recently dispatched to study a Social Democratic government that reduced asylum claims to a 40-year low and was re-elected in 2022 with its best result in 20 years.
Public opinion is with the Home Secretary. “In both language and substance, Shabana Mahmood is much more in line with the median Brit than either the Labour left or Reform,” says Luke Tryl, the director of More in Common. But her team say she would be pursuing these plans regardlessly.
“This isn’t us tacking towards public opinion, we really believe it,” says one Mahmood ally, echoing Tony Blair’s old line about public service reform. As the child of migrant parents, they say, the Home Secretary has an authentic outrage over illegal migration. The establishment of new safe and legal routes is designed to preserve the UK’s status as “a country that gives sanctuary to those fleeing danger”, while restoring order and control and remaining inside the European Convention on Human Rights.
Some in Labour, where Mahmood is being assessed as an aspirant leader, are impressed. One minister hails “a policy package for the hardest issue of our time based on clear principles rather than a set of technocratic fixes”. Another influential MP describes it as “bold enough to actually have a practical impact and convince voters we are serious”.
But there are already signs of revolt. Tony Vaughan, the MP for Folkestone and Hythe – far from a traditional rebel – is one of 10 Labour backbenchers to speak out so far, condemning the reforms for promising “perpetual limbo and alienation” for refugees and encouraging “the same culture of divisiveness that sees racism and abuse growing in our communities”.
Mahmood’s team are confident of avoiding a welfare-level rebellion. “It won’t necessarily be loved but a lot of the PLP realise the necessity of this,” says one source.
And the Home Secretary has a warning for her critics: “If you don’t like this, you won’t like what follows me.” Without change, she believes, the UK will lose public consent for an asylum system at all, with the populist right poised to benefit. This echoes a line once used by the Atlantic’s David Frum: “If liberals won’t enforce borders, fascists will.”
In the US, avowed socialists such as Bernie Sanders now lament that Joe Biden’s failure to control the border paved the way for Donald Trump’s victory. Today, Mahmood believes, she is offering Britain’s centre left one last chance to avoid the same fate.
This piece first appeared in the Morning Call newsletter; receive it every morning by subscribing on Substack here
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