While some migrant families are removed each year, on Thursday the Home Office announced a new pilot scheme to target 150 families in the asylum system – primarily those whose claims have been refused – for expedited voluntary removals with enhanced cash payments of £10,000 a person up to £40,000 per family.
Families will have just seven days to decide whether or not to accept the offer. If they decline, enforced removal proceedings will begin. According to a new consultation document, proposals could include handcuffing children who resist being put on a plane and sent back to their home country.
Politics
Who in Labour doesn’t see Mahmood is a racist prick?
In a surprise to all, it appears that some Labour MPs still have a shred of their principles. A Whatsapp conversation has been leaked to the press, showing that even Shabana Mahmood’s fellow Commons members think her immigration policies are way over the line.
Back on 17 November, Labour published its proposed reforms to asylum seeker policy under home secretary Mahmood. Amongst its many abhorrent policies, some standouts were: removing the right to family reunion, removing the duty to support asylum seekers, and removing jewellery and valuables from asylum seekers.
Tripling down
Since then, the racist Labour government announced that it will stop issuing study visas to people from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
Likewise, Mahmood has also announced a plan to limit refugee stays to 30 months. Instead, she intends to force people to reapply for the right to remain every two and a half years.
Most recently, on 5 March, the home secretary used a speech to a left-leaning think tank as an opportunity to announce even further asylum restrictions. Namely, if an asylum seeker works illegally, or otherwise breaks the law, Labour plans to remove support payments and turn them out of their accommodation.
Worse, as the Guardian reported today, 6 March:
Labour: Please share the puff-piece
Given the downright inhumanity of these policies, it’s utterly unsurprising that people are voicing their objections. The only thing that’s surprised us is that some of the voices are coming from within Starmer’s Labour.
In a WhatsApp Labour MP group conversation seen by multiple press outlets, the Labour office shared Mahmood’s recent Guardian op-ed. In the article, the home secretary boasted that:
we will lift the qualifying period for settlement from five years to 10, and impose new conditions – a clean criminal record, sustained economic contribution and a good command of English. Those who contribute the most, such as doctors, nurses and high-earners, will have a faster path to settlement.
Those who contribute less will have to wait longer to apply. This includes those low-skilled workers, who arrived in recent years, who would otherwise be eligible to apply for welfare and social housing at an earlier stage.
That last line wasn’t actually written by Mahmood. In the home secretary’s original, she stated that low-skilled workers would “receive immediate access to welfare and social housing” unless Labour made them wait longer to apply for settlement. The Guardian amended the statement because it was, you know, a bald-faced lie.
MPs: No, it’s fucking awful
In response to the request to share the article, Labour received a swift series of ‘no’s. Sarah Owen replied:
No thanks. Will not be sharing this.
Kate Osborne gave a flat “Absolutely not”, and Vicky Foxcroft said “I won’t either”.
Birmingham’s scab-happy MP, Preet Kaur Gill, offered the opinion that we can offer sanctuary and control borders. She called this “what a fair and credible system looks like”. Owen, however, retorted that Labour’s policies are “fair, credible or sustainable”.
Stella Creasey then hit the nail on the head:
There’s no fairness in repeatedly spending money on asking victims of trafficking and civil war if they are still in that category, especially when we have already given them refugee status so confirmed that are at risk of harm – only a massive waste of money. Money that could have gone to the aid budget to help prevent the conflicts that cause people to run. Ukrainians, Iranians, Afghans alike will all now live in a perpetual state of limbo not able to plan any kind of life here or in their home nation because they can’t guarantee their status, making them easier to exploit too. I look forward to reading the NAO report and its inevitable Windrush style scandal coming that none of us stood on a manifesto to implement.
Our politicians constantly bang on about immigrants ‘failing to integrate’. However, Mahmood’s policies will render refugees as pseudo-citizens for decades, rendering them less able to find work.
This, in turn, means a greater reliance on state welfare – and greater public anger from the same racists Labour are trying to appease.
No sanctuary
Luke Myers trotted out the tired defence that Labour are turning far-right to stop the far-right:
We were elected on a central manifesto promise of strong borders. Around 48% of the public see this as important. We must deliver this. If we fail we will get a government that burns down the entire system, along with worker’s rights, child poverty prevention & our NHS along with it.
Fortunately, Creasy was ready for him too:
These people are already inside our borders. They are people we have said we would give sanctuary to and are now saying they would have to wait 20 years to get settled status. If you want to strengthen your borders spend the £1bn on more enforcement before you give someone refugee status or processing claims. There’s plenty of better ways to show you can manage an asylum system than spending money repeatedly asking someone if there’s still civil war in their country – and then inevitably agreeing there is so they can stay but making it more likely they will be dependant [sic] on welfare because without clear status it will be harder to get a job or a house or be self-sufficient. The public do want better border control – this isn’t it!
Again, pulling the rug out from underneath people who already have already started to build a life here isn’t about ‘controlling our borders’. It’s about making Labour look like it hates immigrants just as much as Reform and its voters.
It’s a despicable, low-down, rotten tactic. And it’s not even fucking working.
Not playing ball
Finally, Sheffield MP Abtisam Mohamed dropped the mic on the conversation:
This is anything but compassionate and can we stop selling it as such. Deterrance [sic] has never worked and here we are doing the same thing over again. Not Labour values at all. You should have engaged with us before coming up with such damaging policies.
Mahmood, Starmer and their cronies didn’t even talk to their party before drafting this hate-filled screed. Now, they have the gall to expect Labour MPs to get on board with outright immigrant bashing.
Fortunately, it seems like a few within Labour haven’t lost all of their principles quite yet. Looking at the shameless shower that is Labour party’s front bench, we wonder if they’re feeling lonely.
Featured image via the Canary