Will Keir Starmer’s new policy on asylum create a fair and just asylum system or will it make the position of asylum seekers and refugees just as precarious and uncertain as it was under the Tories? Labour’s latest policy is that if you arrive in a small boat across the Channel your asylum claim may be considered but, even if it is accepted and you get refugee status, you will never become a UK citizen. You will always be a “foreigner” in the eyes of the British state. This will be done, like the Tory policy before it, to punish, and to discourage others from taking the same journey, as if there were not enough punishments and discouragements already in crossing what Shakespeare called “the perilous narrow ocean” to safety. The migrants, however, keep coming.

What existed before under the Tories? When Priti Patel was home secretary, she created a two-tier refugee status: if you came by some recognised route, complete with passport and visa, and your asylum claim was accepted, you got first-tier refugee status and could eventually apply for citizenship. If you came in a small boat, and your asylum claim was accepted you got the second-tier status, which was temporary, under continuous review, you couldn’t bring any relatives here, and you were finally deported, either to another country that the government deemed to be “safe” or back to your own country when the government decided it was “safe” to go back to. Later, when Suella Braverman was home secretary, if you came by small boat you didn’t get your claim considered at all and you were earmarked for deportation.

Under Labour’s new scheme, if you come in a small boat it looks as if you may get your claim heard and even accepted — but you’ll never get citizenship. Starmer may want to convince us that it makes the system fairer to roll back from Braverman’s scheme to something like Patel’s (at least, he may argue, if you come in a small boat we will listen to your claim). But it doesn’t make it fairer at all: second-class status is second-class status whether because it’s temporary or because it can never lead to citizenship. Starmer’s new policy is a Tory policy. In any case all these versions of asylum policy break international law (the Refugee Convention in particular). They always did. But over the last several years we’ve learned that international law is often ineffective, unenforced (either by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, by the UN General Assembly or by the International Criminal Court.

Punishment and discouragement policies have never stopped people from making dangerous journeys. In the early 2010s, the EU (including the UK’s Tory government) withdrew its search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean, arguing that doing so would stop people from trying to get across (yes, you’ve guessed it) in small boats. It didn’t work, people kept trying to get across and many drowned. They made dangerous journeys out of necessity, just as you and I would. It seems that our politicians haven’t learned any lessons from that episode. They still want to enact ineffective policies that leave people to drown. Sometimes it looks as if drowning people is the aim.

What to do? Get regular emails from the Refugee Council and organisations like Refugee Action so you can keep up to date with what’s happening. Email your MP about the injustice of a system that targets and criminalises some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Write letters/emails to the local and national press, alerting them to what is happening and, if they support the government’s policy, protest in no uncertain terms. If you know any migrants or families of migrants, give them your support as they make their way through the system.

If you know a migrant who came in a small boat, perhaps someone who is staying with a relative while waiting for a decision on their case, make sure they have a solicitor to represent them, especially if they are going to court (no one should go to court without a solicitor to represent them — the law is complex and tricky and courtrooms can be dangerous places).

If you know someone whose relative is in detention, and they want to protest about it, you and the family can go to your MP’s surgery to protest, both about their detention and their treatment in detention — every week if necessary, until your MP takes action. Inform the local and national press about what you’re doing and publicise it on social media. Publicly supporting such detainees may positively affect the result. If there is a court hearing (whether it is a first hearing or a Court of Appeal hearing) go to it yourself and take as many friends as you can — it’s important that the judge or magistrate knows that the migrant has supporters and is not alone.

So the answer to my question is that Starmer’s new asylum policy is not new. It targets vulnerable people and deprives them of citizenship. It’s old Tory.