“This is headline chasing, not problem solving – a Government bowing to anti-immigrant, anti-rights politics.”
Charities and MPs have condemned Shabana Mahmood’s hardline plans to make it harder for asylum seekers and refugees to settle in the UK.
The proposals Mahmood set out yesterday include reviewing people’s refugee status every 30 months and forcing refugees to return to their home country if it becomes safe. The changes would mean those with asylum status would have to wait 20 years, rather than five, to become UK citizens.
Mahmood also said she would amend laws that guarantee housing and financial support to asylum seekers facing destitution.
The government also plans to make asylum seekers contribute to accommodation costs if they own a large number of “high-value” belongings.
In addition, the government will attempt to change how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is interpreted to stop asylum seekers using their rights to family life to avoid deportation.
Reform MP Danny Kruger invited Mahmood to join Reform UK, and far-right activist Tommy Robinson backed Mahmood’s reforms, sparking concerns among Labour backbenchers.
Amnesty International said that the proposals represent “a historic weakening of refugee protection” and warned that ministers are undermining the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) while claiming they want to remain within it.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, called the Home Secretary’s plans “cruel, divisive and fundamentally out of step with basic decency”.
He added: “This is headline chasing, not problem solving – a Government bowing to anti-immigrant, anti-rights politics instead of standing up for the basic principles that protect us all.
“The moment a Government decides that fundamental rights can be switched off for certain people, it crosses a dangerous line that should never be crossed. This is how universal protections begin to rot. Once you strip rights from one group, you hand the licence to whoever comes next to strip them from others.
“This headline-chasing cruelty will not fix the immigration system. It will only fuel fear, worsen instability and give legitimacy to the most divisive politics. Anyone who cares about universal human rights needs to act now, because if rights aren’t upheld for everyone – especially those who lack public sympathy – then they are not rights at all, but mere concessions that those in power may permit or withhold as they please.”
Andrea Vukovic, Co-Director of Women for Refugee Women, said: “The Home Secretary stated that ‘illegal migration is tearing the UK apart’. The only thing tearing the UK apart is a politics devoid of humanity, compassion and dignity. These plans – borrowed from hostile systems around the world – represent more cruelty, more uncertainty and more hostility for people seeking safety here. It tells those with refugee status in the UK – who have fled war, persecution, and violence – that their protection is temporary and that they will never be welcome here. This is a dangerous step in the wrong direction.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that Mahmood was “trying to appease the most ghastly right-wing forces all across Europe in undermining and walking away from the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Green Party MP, Carla Denyer, called the plans “a new low”, saying the government was “plumbing the depths of performative cruelty, in hopes that the public won’t notice they have no answers to the real issues facing communities across this country”.
“Confiscating the belongings of people fleeing war and violence, and trapping refugees in perpetual limbo, where even those who have been granted asylum would have the constant threat of deportation hanging over their heads, undermining integration and making it impossible to put down roots. These are extreme, inhumane proposals from a desperate and failing government.
“The only way to prevent people making dangerous crossings by small boats is to open safe and managed routes for people to claim asylum in the UK. There are hints Mahmood could introduce such schemes – a sensible government would focus on this workable policy rather than divisive gimmicks.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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