A growing number of Labour backbenchers are preparing to revolt against the government’s proposed tightening on the UK asylum system.
In another fiery showdown between Keir Starmer’s government and emboldened backbenchers, home secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to spark tensions across Westminster with new announcements aimed at making the UK less attractive to people crossing the English Channel on small boats.
A tracker by the New Statesman magazine has listed at least 15 Labour MPs who have publicly criticised Mahmood’s plans, which include imposing visa bans on three countries who refused to take back illegal migrants.
Mahmood is also set to say that refugees will be immediately returned when countries are deemed to be safe while those who arrive illegally will have to wait longer to qualify for permanent residence.
Free accommodation and financial support for asylum seekers will also be revoked under new reforms.
Stella Creasy, the left-wing MP for Walthamstow who was part of the rebellion against the government’s welfare spending cuts, wrote in The Guardian: “It doesn’t have to be like this. There is a better way forward rooted in Labour values that also ensures control at our borders.”
“This is not just performatively cruel, it’s economically misjudged.”
Tony Vaughan, another backbencher, took to social media platforms to claim the reforms drive “the same culture of divisiveness that sees racism and abuse growing in our communities”.
The Labour MP for Stroud, Simon Opher, said: “We should push back on the racist agenda of Reform rather than echo it.”
Mother of the House and veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott has also signalled her opposition.
Labour offered help from opposition
The furious opposition to Mahmood’s plans, before they were even formally announced in the House of Commons at 3.30pm, draws out the underbelly of discontent in the Labour Party.
Political critics have blamed the majority government’s lack of unity on policymaking for a failure to push policies through.
Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch said the proposals were “similar” to their plans as she added that the Conservatives would offer their support to the government in light of backbenchers’ opposition.
“We can see that their Labour backbenchers don’t like this, so I have offered that we will support the government in going in the right direction,” Badenoch said.
A Number 10 spokesperson denied that Mahmood was “talking the language” of Nigel Farage’s party on immigration policy as deputy leader Richard Tice joked that Mahmood was “putting in an application” to join the party.
Tice went on to say that “The reality is, however well intentioned the Home Secretary is, a) she has not got the support and confidence of her own party, but b) while still being a member of the European Convention on Human Rights and still having the Human Rights Act in its current form, she just won’t be able to deliver what she is talking about.”