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No change from Labour, whatever the Observer says
The Observer article below welcomes Labour leader Keir Starmer’s statement on Labour’s approach to small boats, people smugglers, deportations and refugee policy generally. In contrast to the left’s view that there is little to “differentiate a possible future Labour government from the present Conservative one”, it claims to detect “a sharp dividing line between the government and Labour on asylum policy.” It says Labour is offering a humane, pragmatic and commonsense approach in contrast to the Tories’ populism and its “cruel, unworkable policy”.
The paper is right to say that the government has removed the right of all migrants who have arrived in small boats to claim asylum, when most of them would qualify for refugee status if they did; it is right to deplore the measures the government have introduced “to detain them until they can be deported to another country for their claim to be processed”; in the light of the government’s keenness to deport asylum seekers it deems to be “illegal”, the article is right to point out that no deportation deals have been achieved with any country except Rwanda (and the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the legality of that deal); it is also right to criticise the backlog the government has allowed to develop in the processing of asylum claims, so that “83% of claims made in 2018 had not been processed five years later”. The article is right to condemn the Tory policy package.
But the Observer is wrong to say that the “real difference” between Labour and the Tories is that Labour “would scrap the government’s unworkable and cruel detention and deportation policies, restoring the right of people to claim asylum in the UK.” It will do this, the Observer seems to believe, by investing in “1,000 extra case workers and a returns unit of 1,000 staff to process claims much more quickly and deport those whose claims are rejected.” This would work because Labour would come to a deal with the European Union (EU) “in which the UK would accept a quota of refugees in exchange for being able to return those who cross the Channel in small boats.” But even if such a deal could be reached, we would still be left, under Labour, with the same old “detention and deportation” policy. None of the refugees in small boats will have their claims considered here. If the Observer thinks that shunting vulnerable and desperate people around Europe as they wait for decisions on their future is what it calls “a far better approach”, so be it. The refugees may not agree. Moreover, in the same article, the Observer admits that “pan-European cooperation has never worked well in the bloc and has broken down further in recent years.” The Observer must know it’s clutching at straws.
But there is one thing Starmer has to do before we can believe in this tale of “differentiation” between Labour and the Tories on asylum. He has to commit the Labour Party to repealing the Illegal Migration Act 2022. While the Act remains, Tory policy remains unchanged. Unless it is repealed, there can be no “differentiation” between the parties. In its guidance to the Act, the government makes clear that
anyone arriving illegally in the United Kingdom will not have their asylum claim, human rights claim or modern slavery referral considered while they are in the UK, but they will instead be promptly removed either to their home country or to a safe third country to have their protection claims processed there. (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2023/37/notes/division/3/index.htm)
Obviously the Act must be repealed. But both Starmer and shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock have refused to commit to repealing it. While it stands, so does the policy.
The article begins by setting the “Observer view” in the context of Starmer’s political approach as a whole. Keir Starmer, it says,
has made clear that under his leadership a first-term Labour government would stick to tough fiscal rules, and has ruled out making any unfunded spending commitments in the run-up to the next election. That has fuelled criticism from some on the left of his party, who argue that this has limited the extent to which he has been able to differentiate a possible future Labour government from the present Conservative one.
It says Starmer’s asylum policy makes Labour different. It doesn’t.
What that means for our voting intentions next year is up to us all. But it puts a very big strain on mine.
No repeal, no vote
I’ve just noticed that this year marks a kind of grim anniversary, one that we might want to forget. Just a decade ago, in 2013, Home Secretary Theresa May devised what would become the Immigration Act 2014 and explained its purpose in the following way:
“Most people will say it can’t be fair for people who have no right to be here in the UK to continue to exist as everybody else does with bank accounts, with driving licences and with access to rented accommodation. We are going to be changing that because we don’t think that is fair.”
She wanted to “create a really hostile environment” for illegal migrants: “What we don’t want”, she said, “is a situation where people think that they can come here and overstay because they’re able to access everything they need.”
The Act reduced migrants’ rights, including rights of appeal against deportation. It introduced a “deport first, appeal later” policy for people regarded as being at “no risk of serious irreversible harm” if returned to their country of origin: such judgments, made by caseworkers or Secretaries of State, are notoriously unreliable and dangerous. May’s legislation and her language were in line with a long-standing and nasty Tory approach to asylum and immigration. Her comments were reminiscent of a previous Home Secretary’s remarks, which referred specifically to asylum seekers: in 1995 Michael Howard had declared that the UK was seen as
“a very attractive destination because of the ease with which people can get access to jobs and to benefits. And while, for instance, the number of asylum seekers for the rest of Europe are falling the number in this country are increasing [and] only a tiny proportion of them are genuine refugees.”
Likewise, Social Security Secretary Peter Lilley told the Tory Party Conference in the same year:
“Genuine political refugees are few. The trouble is our system almost invites people to claim asylum to gain British benefits. That can’t be right – and I’m going to stop it. Britain should be a safe haven, not a soft touch.”
The hostile environment led to the Windrush scandal, in which long-standing UK citizens were told they had no such status and were deported to countries they knew nothing about. Some died as a result of the treatment they received at the hands of the woman who now, bizarrely, claims to defend the rights of smuggled children against the provisions of the latest two bits of Tory legislation to abuse, detain and deport some of the most vulnerable and desperate people in the world.
The new laws that have now been brought in by the Sunak government (the Nationality & Borders Act and the Illegal Immigration Act) are harsher and more cruel than anything even Theresa May dreamt of. The rhetoric that goes with them is nastier and more dangerous. We need to find ways of supporting victims of these policies. And the least we can do is put pressure on Labour MPs and, later, candidates in the 2024 general election, to promise to repeal the Tory Acts if Labour wins the election. Tell them: No repeal, no vote.
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