As a country we need to talk about the scale and speed of change in our communities. We need a conversation about integration and community cohesion. We need to discuss why too few young people in particular don’t have access to good enough jobs, why there seems to be such a squeeze on affordable housing and access to the NHS and good enough schools. We need to have these conversations. They’re long overdue. Progressives have avoided meaningful engagement with and policymaking on these issues for too long. This has come with a twofold cost: the debate has become angry, and we haven’t done the hard work of developing and arguing for our own alternative.
But the Government’s announcements on asylum policy reform last week are not the way to do any of this.
There are three questions we need to ask now: is what they’re doing right? Will it work? What will work better?
We can’t do justice to the whole asylum and immigration issue here, but it’s important that some fundamental points are set out.
Because this just feels wrong. The fundamental point about being a progressive political leader is that you make weather. We are not satisfied with the world as it is and are striving to make a better one. Yes, of course, you do this gradually and pragmatically over time to build the fundamentals of your argument and your forces. But the whole argument for these reforms from the Government is that, unless they are tough, someone else will be much tougher still. At best this just slows the descent to a hellish society. Progressives can never and should never try to out-Reform Reform. They will always demand more. All last week’s announcements do is move the Overton window of ‘acceptable debate’ further to the right. Both Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson were cheering Shabana Mahmood on. That really ought to trouble her.
And when a Labour Home Secretary talks about “the country being torn apart” by ‘illegal’ migration and that we provide asylum-seekers (who have the right to seek asylum) with a ‘golden ticket’ then this language just inflames the debate and feeds the anti-asylum mood in ways that are totally unacceptable. Labour should act as healing for good. The Prime Minister regretted his use of the phrase ‘an island of strangers’. He should regret his Home Secretary pushing the same kind of language.
The next question is: will it work? The short answer is no.
The reality is that we are an island with strong cultural, linguistic and imperial connections to parts of the world which are suffering from floods, fire, famine, oppression or wars. The idea that you can control your borders in some kind of Checkpoint Charlie way is just sowing impossible illusions and expectations. Of course we can’t have open borders but how, realistically, do we manage a southern coast line of 600+ miles (and just 20 miles from the continent) with thousands of people willing to risk their lives alongside cynical and resourceful human traffickers finding ever more dangerous ways to get them here.
First it was ‘smash the gangs’. That hasn’t worked. Then it was ‘one in one out’. Now it’s ‘act even tougher’. More short sighted, ill thought through measures designed to look tough more than they are designed to work. This will just sow more dissatisfaction in our political system while inflicting more misery on some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
There are massive concerns over our immigration infrastructure system’s ability to re-process asylum seekers every two-and-a-half years, as well as the obvious impact on integration and cohesion of keeping people in this insecure limbo space for so long. The moral cost of the kind of roots asylum/immigrants are likely to put down if they have no certainty or stability in their lives has been cast aside. The removal of a right to asylum support risks destitution for some. And while the promise of new safe and legal routes is welcome they need to be introduced now, not after these inhumane proposals take effect.
Nothing about this government approach is joined up. Earlier in the year the Government drastically cut its international aid budget, which is one way the country could reduce the flow of people from destabilised countries coming here. At COP30 in Brazil earlier this month the Prime Minister had little – if anything – to say about how we’re going to turn around the climate disaster which is forcing people to migrate. The Home Secretary repeatedly emphasises the importance of paid work as a route to settlement, castigating existing refugees for not working, yet refuses to countenance giving asylum seekers the right to work if their claim is not assessed within six months.
We will work with others to set out the framework and approach that will enable us to balance, as best we can, the lives, dreams and hopes of people already living in the UK, especially those who are insecure and struggling, with those who have been forced to seek asylum. But to get that balance right this needs to be a national conversation led by our Prime Minister, not simply a set of policies cooked up by one narrow faction of the Labour Party to look tough. There are better ways to develop safe routes, more effective processing and more support for integration. Councils should be given more voice and more say about what their areas and constituents need, not least in those places where our population is declining and ageing.
We have reached this point because of relentless and dogmatic propaganda from the right. We have reached this point because austerity has bitten too deeply, for too long, and wealth has gushed up without ever trickling down. And, yes, we have reached this point because some peoples’ communities have changed too far, too fast with no one asking them and no one supporting them. We need a government that is determined to more equally spread the wealth and assets of our already rich country – and in that context have a much more nuanced, compassionate but important debate about asylum immigration, integration and cohesion.
We expect the right in the Tories and Reform to be relentlessly hostile towards asylum seekers. But when it’s your own side that is refusing to challenge the terms of the debate set by the right, when what we need is a more honest and open debate and instead you go for the simple solution of cracking down hard, then it hurts even more because when they do extinguishes the notion of hope.
We simply cannot allow that to happen.
Brilliant description of where we are as a country
the new policy is shameful. Labour are trying to outReform Reform. I will not vote Labour again (would never vote Reform or Conservative)
We are ruled by the super-rich. We need to tax them enough to pay for the NHS, housing, basic income, good bus and train systems and good education. This will only come if we vote in people with integrity.
All politicians at present are sleepwalking in to Reforms arm’s ( i think they are being paid by farage!
Agree with all of it. Lack of housing is not the fault of asylum seekers; its because we don`t build enough of the right type of houses. Many are poor because a minority are rich (including developers, of course).
Good, cohesive statement!
We do need a balanced discussion and plan, with calm, non inflammatory language- a decent and fair strategy for the future of migrants and the future of communities all over Britain.
We need sound foundation infrastructures in every part of this process and within councils and communities, which have (Always) been sadly lacking!!
We cannot simply close the gates, cover our ears, eyes and shut our mouths to this issue… it requires care, but most of all it needs Humanity & Kindness
The overall content of this statement is perfectly correct, but we need to go further. Permanent residency must end for all non christians regardless of race or colour. Temporary residency for a maximum period of ten years should be allowed to give time for them to find a country with their culture and beliefs to move to.. after tenn years have elapsed immedeate expulsion will take place.
I’m sympathetic to these views and distinctly uncomfortable with the tone and content of the government’s proposals. Which I feel are expensive and probably largely impractical.
Fully agree, where’s the compassion
I do agree with what you are saying here.
As a Labour Party member I was ashamed when I heard this being announced; and what makes it worse is that it going to be applied retrospectively, like Yvette Cooper’s contribution to the asylum “ problem “.
This is pulling the rug out from under refugees who have been given leave to remain and are making a meaningful contribution to their adopted country.
I am on the point of resigning from the Labour Party!
This measuredand clear statement promoting a conversation strikes an important tone to encourage us all to have measured conversations, acknowleging the complexity of the challenges. I have recently been involved in a KONP rally on the essential role of migrants, involving many progressive speakers from divers backgrounds engaging with about 200 people live and on zoom. Go to the KONP website to see a recording of the event. Second, I have just watched ‘The Tank and the Olive Tree’ a very infornative film made in 2017 about the colonisation of Palestine. It should be cumpolsory watching for all in the Foreign Office and the basis of a debate.
A far more cost effective and kinder strategy would be to actively and directly support and enable refugees including economic migrants to arrive in the uk by ordinary transport routes instead of undertaking arduous and dangerous journeys. Enabling people to land with a level of dignity and facilitating their access to work and housing instead of treating them like criminals would achieve far better results both for individuals as well as existing communities being able to experience the positive skills and qualities that people bring, especially if they have not been so heavily impacted by traumatic journeys and treatment along the way
I agree that safe routes need to be provided before any crackdown and that it should be Local Authorities that find accommodation for Asylum Seekers, not Serco etc.
I think introducing identity cards would help reduce the black economy and one of the pull factors for migrants coming on small boats. It would make it easier to catch illegal employers, who are exploiting those without leave to remain.
However we should accept that the English language and family ties here are definite pull factors that we can’t do anything about. Migration from poor to rich countries is going to happen and we should accept and manage this.
It’s just cruel.
Until the super rich realise that their mega money dose not make them a better person and it is good for the soul to share and spread more evenly and realise that you do you need so much to exist and to be happy it an’t rocket science
I haven’t investigated the whole asylum provision but I did have a deep dive into the language stuff on Wikipedia. It appears that the new rules will be requiring immigrants to learn English to level B2 (up from B1) on the CEFR scale. This seems very reasonable as either this, or the higher C1 grade is equivalent to level 3 on the ILR language scale.
Level 3 on the ILR scale is the minimum standard for scholars to consider someone as being a speaker of a given language so to me this seems very reasonable and is the minimum standard to meet the long standing centre-right working class position on immigration that immigrants should “speak English”. This is something I support in general for new immigrants and is important for avoiding safeguarding risks and for integration with the wider population.
Of note level 5 on the ILR scale (which is higher) is “native or bilingual” so I find it difficult to believe that wouldn’t be equivalent to a C/4 in GCSE English, meaning the standard we will be requiring for immigrants to become British citizens is still going to be somewhat lower.
The other note is compared to other European countries that the French already require B2 standard and the Germans require the lower B1 standard.
Now clearly in terms of the rhetoric in this area it is clearly over the top and requiring an equivalent of A level English would obviously be completely unreasonable. I also am far from convinced it would even satisfy my Reform leaning carpet fitter as his main objection to mainstream politics is “all the lies”. Well this is another one in that camp unfortunately.
If we assume that this is true across the board (which would seem at first glance to be reasonable) then the rhetoric is clearly over the top but the actual provisions look much more reasonable once you get into the detail.
I do also think that in terms of keeping both left leaning and right leaning voters on board the better strategy would be honesty about what we are doing and not over egging it.
I also think being more honest about the provisions within it would also make it easier to get it through the House of Commons which is far from guaranteed.
The minister constantly states that legal migrants are strain on the benefits system. however fails to acknowledge that on our visas it clear states no resource to public funds. we are not eligible even for free child care. Only thing we can get is free NHS in reality its not free as we pay NI each month and immigration health surcharge in advance for the period we are on the work visa. 95% of the adult dependents of skilled and NHS works on visa are employed. the average household income of this group of 600k individual is around 65K significatly over the UK median income. this is there in the HMRC reprots published to the MAC. however the mister fails to acknolwedge this portaying legal immigrats on work visa as benifit leachers.
Tories was brining this sentiment out, labour promised to be fair and honest but as soon as they were voted in, and that too support by the 1.3M immigrants to power they have changed their tune.
if we are able to today have a mechanism to withdraw out support, as an example the 5000 immigrant family will do that resulting the MP losing their majority vote and confidence in them. it shows they are labour only in name and not manifesto.
Labour couldn’t have got this more wrong, they should be challenging the racist rhetoric on immigration and arguing the benefits that immigration brings. They cannot beat Reform at their own game and denigrates the core purpose of the Labour Party. We are losing too many skilled medics who are leaving the NHS to work abroad because of the growing racist abuse they receive. Policies such as this which demonises immigration gives racists and bigots greater licence to promote and voice their vile beliefs.
We must have the same legal rights as the UK citizens. This is normal.
Offering asylum is not just an international obligation and the right thing to do, but also essential to supporting democracy and those who challenge authoritarian rule and work towards a better world. Safe routes, by allowing asylum applications in other countries, would ensure that we know who is coming here, that they are genuine asylum cases, and that they can work and contribute to society as soon as they arrive. It undermines the trafficking and ends the deaths at sea as well as the trauma, inhumanity and costs of hotels, detention centres and isolated barracks. Yes, far-right forces do and have always stirred the race pot, but if you wanted to make immigration seem like a major issue, burden and threat, you could hardly design a more unsatisfactory chaos than we have at the moment.
Gary Lineker was right to compare the language used by the government regarding its asylum policy to that used in 1930s Germany. People can’t remember what soldiers died fighting for, despite remembrance Sunday.
People in powerful positions are using such vile, derogatory and inflammatory language without sufficient repercussion… if any.
Health workers now feel scared and intimidated to do home visits, on homes supporting the, “Operation Raise the Colours”. It’s an attack on none white people, non Northern European people.
In some instances it’s the terminally unemployed and the intergenerationaly impoverished, that are being especially targeted by the media. Made to feel as though this status has been forced upon them by immigrants and asylum seekers, who I have witnessed working long hours, less pay, saving and getting on the property ladder and making significant contribution to the UK economy.
Education is key, the west has had many a hand in destabilising the homelands of the people they’re trying to keep out. Be it via Climate Change or colonial rule. Why is this still not being told as a whole story and being seen as a mere fragment of a larger issue.
Thank you fir outlining these issues so clearly. I agree with your position.
I so agree about the film being made compulsory viewing.
We should be asking why people leave their homes in the first place.
There are many reasons and I do not need to enumerate them here.
However I’m convinced that how we conduct our relationships with others across the world, and how we tackle the social, economic, and environmental injustice that exists across the planet has to be the basis for all the other reasons that people flee their homes.
In my experience most people just want to live in peace and harmony with their neighbour. It’s a short life after all, and could be such an enjoyable one!
The current Labour Party brings new levels of political opportunism and ineptitude with their attempts to divide and distract the population. I am ashamed to have ever been a hard working Party member.
The attempts to be ‘tough ‘ on vulnerable people will destroy the Party but most significantly has made life dangerous for all people who appear to have overseas heritage.
Finally somebody talking about some of the real reasons people are seeking refuge. Well done.
This is a very welcome development. I would really urge a primary focus on answering the third question, and avoiding the temptation to get bogged down on answering the first two. It’s so easy to get side-tracked into explaining what’s going wrong. The tougher challenge is to explain convincingly how things could be done differently with far better outcomes for our whole society. If we can manage to do that Compass should find an enthusiastic audience.
I don’t feel it is right either. The worst bit to me is the insecurity of people who have been accepted here, have worked here have been educated here. The only logic about the government statement is that it wants to make this country unattractive. How can it be unattractive in relation to the place where people are coming from. I’m sure there are exceptions. There are economic migrants coming here who are not being oppressed where they are. But even calling them economic migrants indicates they are seeking a better life.
Very simplistic with little meat. What do we want? What did we really need? What are our legal & moral commitments? How do we rationally fulfil them? How do we do this against such a febrile debate?
Please can you ensure that any conversation includes residents and citizens who are themselves migrants and descendants of migrants?
Too often asylum seekers, refugees, and other people who have migrated to the UK are ‘talked about’, referred to as ‘them’, not ‘us’, and as a problem to be solved. Hey – we’re all human, we all bleed!
This charter is a good place to start:
https://sknb.org/resource/fair-immigration-reform-movement-charter-2/
This is the kind of measured and rational debate we urgently need now. There are no simple solutions and anyone who argues otherwise is either deluded or in bad faith. We must stop the hysteria and the scapegoating and look at the real roots of the problems, both those that we face at home, which have caused large sections of the population to be left behind and disenfranchised, and those that drive people to face perilous journeys to escape conflict and climate breakdown and seek a better life the UK. Problems can only be solved if we work together with compassion, understanding and wisdom: the far right is incapable of doing that and Labour is sinking to the same level by pushing these policies, which by the way will not solve anything so are an utter waste of time and political capital.
Instead of throwing so many millions at ineffective measures against small boats and treating asylum seekers like criminals, the government should use these wasted millions to improve and speed up the assessment procedures, take on more staff and streamline the whole asylum application process. Many of the asylum seekers are desperately trying to escape wars, conflicts, famine and drought and they are not deranged terrorists, as Reform would like us to believe. This government has done a U-turn on human rights and, in so doing, has lost its traditional electoral supporters. In desperation to cling onto power in future elections, the Labour party has abandoned its ethics, shifted to the political right and is sounding more and more like Reform and the hapless Conservative party.
Beautifully and compassionately written .
I agree with all of this well put together statement .
What a measured, clear response to the Government’s over the top response to immigration. You acknowledge the complexities of the situation and highlight that complex solutions are needed. The process of asylum is broken and needs a lot of work it needs to be linked to international aid and climate change
Our politicians need to better understand the dire situations that cause many people to seek asylum, then perhaps their ‘policies’ would be more humane. One of the first urgent changes should be to ‘allow’ asylum-seekers to work as soon as possible – this would increase tax yields (from their income tax) and also realistically show the cynical politicians just who was ‘worthy’ to be given the right to remain, thus providing a meaningful test for the benefit of Britain, as well as allowing for the removal of criminals or shirkers
This is the correct approach and narrative which should be publicised, promoted and argued in every forum and at every opportunity.
There’s one other important point. We are an aging society (witness the state pensions debacle) and we desperately need an influx of young people of working age to contribute to the economy. As a pensioner, I put it as “Someone has to work for our living” – pension payments, whether public or private, in the end depend on people working to deliver either the profits or the taxes from which these are paid. So we should increase, not cut, the availability of legal migration for those fleeing climate change, war, and economic disaster; we need their enterprise, their willingness and their abilities at all levels.
Very well argued position.
You say – ‘But to get that balance right this needs to be a national conversation led by our Prime Minister’ – but this conversation needs to involve a diverse range of citizens including politicians, with participants well informed and having an opportunity to learn from and deliberate with each other. In other words a range of properly run citizens’ assemblies. These need to be set up so that participation includes those who are more pro and less pro immigration. The outcome even if there is little consensus would be a learning point for politicians and citizens. Why not organise some?
Very good opening paragraph and we need the conversation. Where it will take us is not so clear. It’s a daunting situation
Thank you for this – absolutely agree! I am a Labour member and so frustrated with and ashamed at the pandering to the far right I’m on the point of quitting. The new policy is impractical and inhuman.
It runs so deep though – all the way back to Thatcher’s ‘there’s no such thing as society’, it seems we’ve become less compassionate and more and more self-obsessed, magnified by social media of course (and the wealthiest). So how to unpick all that and reverse the trajectory? I used to feel optimistic that change was gonna come, but then it didn’t. Will it? How will it?
Labour’s latest “ideas” on immigration controls are racist, cruel and also – if we’d like functioning health and care systems -fundamentally stupid.
I agree with the article and the comments – the way the whole ‘debate’ has been tilted to a ‘stop them coming’ bidding media war is bogglingly depressing.
My concern now though is that ‘what will work better’ needs fleshing out. I’m not sure we have the answer to ‘so what would you do?’
There are answers but we need to draw them together and ‘stress test’ them to ensure they stand up to attack in the current frenzied state. Is this a Compass initiative (realise you can only keep so many plates spinning at once…)?
I see many comments state party affiliation, so FYI I am a Liberal Democrat.
This asylum policy demonises refugees and contributes hugely to the right wing distractiona agenda of marginalisation and othering of all people of colour. It makes life less safe for all people of colour in the UK. I am disgusted at a Labour government adopting such policies.
Excellent statement! Labour is rolling the pitch for the arrival of a Reform government when (if it stands for anything) it has to challenge their narrative.
To extend the sporting metaphor, why is this Government all the time choosing to play on the opposition’s pitch, rather than at home? (It is The Government with a very big majority for Chris’sake!)
Why isn’t it ‘making the weather’ as the statement says?
Shameful Home Secretary. Shameful Government.
Citizens assemblies to discuss immigration gd idea.
Going for the super rich not as easy as it sounds . Praps needs to be an international agreement. Other wise they just move countries.
Yes it’s about time left progressives had a conversation about grappling with reality of immigration issue. Your statement is well intentioned but we wd need to get a move on framing a new system . Fast . Not easy .
Moral indignation and name calling has never been enough to to help people practically. Ever. Need to evaluate the possibilities.
I agree with all of this statement.
The demand and need for asylum, for the time being at least, is a bedded-in feature of the modern world. Its impact and the fear of its escalation is present in more or less every stable democracy. It is unlikely to go away any time soon.
Response to asylum-seeking is therefore best undertaken as a coalition of nations. I would prefer Compass to be urging Labour to show leadership in bringing together the needed international alliance and strategy. This would help reassure those who fear where it will end.
We should not be letting Reform set the British agenda by getting bogged down in opposing their undeliverable and immoral non-solutions – which are, after all, first and foremost a ploy for winning votes.
Asylum should be delivered via (broadly) internationally agreed interchangeable principles, that cover everything from care and integration of refugees to international policy that reduces the drivers of asylum-seeking in source countries.
There also needs to be wide public discussion of how, without young immigrants, countries with a past and present slump in birth rates and a bloated older demographic are going to function economically through the next 50 years. The public need to be shown the arithmetic of how poor they will be without immigration.
Meanwhile, the phenomenal amount being spent on making it difficult for legitimate asylum seekers to enter Britain, and on housing them while in limbo, is a chronic waste of money.
Like security or climate change, the lowest base at which the needed asylum arrangements can be effective is at the European level. The coalition must be open to non-EU countries like the UK, Switzerland and Norway. For matters so important, that’s perfectly possible.
I agree with this statement, articulates my thoughts very well. I welcome safe routes, this is what has been needed for a long time, but the rest of the announcement is awful.
I think a Citizen’s Assembly is needed where all the right voices (asylum seekers, charities, local authorities etc) are able to have the conversation and develop policy ideas.