Shabana Mahmood announced that the qualifying period for settled status will be doubled from five to 10 years and that migrants’ right to permanent asylum will be scrapped. Under the new plans, help for migrants will become conditional from June, with support only given to those who genuinely need it and follow the law. Officials predicted that some 30,000 migrants could lose their support.
Labour outlined that migrants who commit crimes will be booted out of asylum accommodation and stripped of their cash handouts. Those who work in Britain’s black economy will be thrown out of taxpayer-funded accommodation, alongside foreign criminals and those refusing to leave the UK voluntarily. Shabana Mahmood will revoke European laws that automatically provide support to arrivals.
She unveiled plans for a pilot where families who have failed to have their asylum claims granted will be offered up to £40,000 to leave Britain, claiming this would represent a significant saving to the taxpayer if successful. Shabana Mahmood attempted to frame her policies as the pragmatic alternative to the fairy tales of the Greens and Reform UK's stricter proposals. She warned that if the Left does not secure borders, the hard-Right will be given the chance to try, and claimed that Nigel Farage's Reform UK would deport migrants to countries where they could be killed.
Shabana Mahmood said that when people see the scale of small boat crossings, they feel a loss of control, which breeds fear, and warned that failing to control the border would fuel the rise of ethno-nationalism and the hard Right. She claimed the hard Right would not be restrained and would pull up the drawbridge on immigration. In defending her plans, Shabana Mahmood said they are no invitation to the fairy tale of open borders as Zach Polanski's revolutionary green party demands, and neither are they the nightmare of Nigel Farage pulling up the drawbridge and shutting out the world, narrowing our proud patriotism into a crude ethno-nationalism.
She claimed that Britons are open, tolerant and generous, and said she has been told that Labour must be more Labour, agreeing with that sentiment. However, Shabana Mahmood is facing a major battle to push through her overhaul of the asylum system. Criticism has come from human rights groups, with Naomi McAuliffe saying this proposal is scapegoating and cruelty masquerading as strength, and Tim Naor Hilton stating it bullies refugees for a bump in the polls rather than trying to solve real problems like poverty and homelessness.