On GB News with Martin Daubney last week, I was on air live as nearly 1,000 migrants in small boats landed in Dover. I said that what the country needed was leadership on this issue that broke away from orthodoxy.
Shabana Mahmood’s reported reforms today deliver exactly that. Should the leadership be worried about how her personal polling figures may compare to theirs because of it?
Shabana's plan: See it. Say it. Sort it.
Many have had their head in their hands about Labour’s response to the crisis since taking office. However, following the most recent reshuffle, in just 73 days, Shabana has done what previous administrations failed to achieve in over seven years.
Today’s announcements from the Home Secretary will finally address the long-overdue Reform needed to tackle our immigration woes, in an attempt to finally put a stop to the small-boats crisis at the heart of the division and dissatisfaction within Britain’s democracy.
The measures she will announce today will show the swift action needed to overhaul an asylum and immigration system that the Government admits is broken and overwhelming frontline communities.
I totally agree with her: this may be the last realistic chance for more moderate politics to solve this crisis before it is ceded entirely. She is right. The post-Brexit “Boris-wave” aside - most migration into Britain is legal, orderly and broadly good for our economy, and so it should be. Present your passport at the border and contribute to our society and economy.
That is not what’s pushing communities to breaking point. The real pressure point - the issue that corrodes trust and fuels resentment - is the illegal routes and the small-boats crisis.
This isn’t a Reform-v-Labour vote calculation; it’s a fairness question that speaks directly to those who respect our society and participate in it.
Small-boat arrivals remain a very small proportion of total immigration, but they drive a disproportionately high share of asylum claims, estimated at around 40 per cent in recent years.
A small slice of arrivals with an outsized impact on public services, social cohesion, and the sense that the rules no longer matter.
Shabana Mahmood's asylum crackdown just turned the leadership contest on its head - Stuart Fawcett
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These reforms confront this head-on. Temporary refugee status is reviewed every 30 months. Settlement is moving from a five-year track to a potential 20-year track. A faster decision system. A harder border. A clear end to the “pull factor” created by automatic indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
The principle is simple: asylum should be a shield for the persecuted - not a shortcut for those avoiding legal routes.
And that must be kept under review: I’ve heard of many cases where those on post-asylum or even pending ILR have returned to their home countries for a holiday, demonstrating clearly that our system must reflect an ever-changing global security situation.
Shabana has also recognised this. The world has changed dramatically since the ECHR was drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War. Today’s global displacement levels are vastly greater than in the 1950s. Trafficking is industrial. Entire regions have collapsed into conflict.
The system Britain is bound to was designed for a different century, under different pressures, for a different world. One where the burden was shared between us and other EU countries, prior to a botched Brexit deal that has seen this thrown out of the window.
In addition, issues like “the right to family life” (Article 8) can be untenable when applied to tenuous relationships or individuals with no lawful right to remain, and they’re being used to frustrate a legitimate system.
That is why the Government is right to consider a fundamental reset of our relationship with the ECHR. Reform is needed.
However, a post-Brexit UK can also consider something else -withdrawal. Not reckless withdrawal, but a serious, modern and sovereign replacement fit for the realities of 21st-century migration, decided by the UK Parliament.
I would want to see what that replacement looks like before giving it any support. But if the choice becomes a border we control or a framework that stops us from removing those with no right to be here, then the framework -not our borders - must give way. Because that’s what the British people understandably desire.
Communication must be as strong as the policy, though. Visa bans for non-cooperative nations are the start. But the real game-changer is international reception centres, in France or other safe nations, where people must present ID, undergo screening and have claims assessed away from British shores.
Those wanting to dodge checks, including foreign criminals, simply won’t pass muster and should then be returned on arrival. But securing such agreements will require strong leadership on the world stage.
Shabana’s announcement today will mark a step change in how senior members of this new Labour Government have chosen to lead.
To say firmly and squarely, “I have to do this for the good of the country and not for the immediate applause of the party”, shows true courage.
Questions are now being raised about a future leader of the Labour Party. If these reforms are delivered, we might be seeing a future leader of our country emerge at the dispatch box today.
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