Another 15 years of hostility - or will Labour change the tune?

Another 15 years of hostility - or will Labour change the tune?

Only two months before the Conservative government was swept aside in 2024, it passed the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act, paving the way for the deportation to Rwanda of those seeking asylum in the UK. 

Within days of taking power Labour scrapped the Rwanda policy, and also announced that it would stop the use of the Bibby Stockholm barge as accommodation for asylum seekers. 

Labour supporters welcomed the two swift actions — which it had demanded when in Opposition — as a step forward towards a more humane asylum and immigration system.

Subsequently, however, Labour has swivelled back towards more hostile policies and rhetoric on asylum and inward migration generally, partly perhaps as a knee-jerk response to growing support for the Reform party in opinion polls.

Within weeks, Labour announced an increase in immigration raids and deportations, and proposed an expansion of immigration detention places, despite a number of past reports showing the harm caused by detention and evidence of abuses in detention centres. A recent announcement said Labour had completed 19,000 deportations since the election, though roughly 14,000 of them were recorded as “voluntary”.

While the rhetoric has not yet reached the levels of toxicity seen under the previous government, including a former Home Secretary’s condemnation of a “hurricane of mass immigration”, there are worrying signs that Labour is far from ready to scrap the Hostile Environment policy initiated by the Conservative administration in 2012. 

The absurd, repeated claims by Prime Minister Keir Starmer that the Conservatives had an “open borders policy” on immigration risk fuelling xenophobic and racist attitudes in the wake of last summer’s riots. 

His comments have presented migration as a “threat” to the country, which further stokes anti-migrant hostility, with all the harm that engenders for individual migrants and the communities in which we live.

And it is not just the government’s words that are having an impact: Labour’s policies, too, are replicating the hostility to migrants conjured up under the last government. 

The proposed Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill formally seeks to repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act and parts of the Illegal Migration Act. But it continues the trend of legislation treating people seeking asylum as the enemy that must be deterred. 

It fails to address why people seek safety in the UK or set out how people can seek asylum in the UK without using irregular routes.

In September the government said it was open to emulating some Italian policies, including establishing asylum processing centres in Albania. Italy’s plan has since been found to be unlawful, yet we have continued to hear talk about the UK trying a similar approach. 

We no longer have the performative cruelty of the policy of the former Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick, to paint over murals in an asylum reception centre for children, yet this is a low bar to claim a change of direction. Instead, we have seen a policy pushed through  — as a “change in guidance”, thereby denying the ability for parliamentary debate — to deny some people who have been granted asylum the potential of ever receiving citizenship, based on how they came to the country. This policy is likely to face significant challenges because of its potential violation of parts of the Refugee Convention. 

We no longer have the performative cruelty of the policy of the former Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick, to paint over murals in an asylum reception centre for children, yet this is a low bar to claim a change of direction. Instead, we have seen a policy pushed through  — as a “change in guidance”, thereby denying the ability for parliamentary debate — to deny people who have been granted asylum the potential of ever receiving citizenship. This policy is likely to face significant challenges because of its potential violation of parts of the Refugee Convention. 

The “Stop the Boats” catchphrase has been replaced with “Smash the Gangs”, but as with the way the Conservatives’ Clandestine Channel Threat Commander has been swapped for an enhanced Border Security Force, the meaning and impact remains very much the same.

Only days after US President Donald Trump released footage of manacled migrants being forced onto deportation flights, the Labour government did the same. The move was roundly condemned, including by some who agree with deportations, with one Labour MP arguing that it “enables the mainstreaming of racism”. 

It is not just asylum seekers or undocumented workers who have come under fire. Both increases in visa fees and reductions in the list of jobs for which visas might be given have been floated as a means to “bring down net migration”, despite the harm of such policies on individuals and families as well as on the wider economy.

We are less than a year into a possible five-year term of Parliament, however. There is still time for Labour to change the narrative on immigration, to reverse course, rather than repeating the failed policies of the past; to be the party that sank the Bibby Stockholm, repealed the Rwanda Plan and extended the 28-day time-limit period for people who have been granted asylum to find accommodation.

The new government can be a force for change in how we speak about migration. It is time to discuss the realities and benefits of migration, not shouting out soundbites or selected statistics, but focussing on the people themselves, and the way migration benefits the whole country.

Photo credit: Lauren Hurley/Downing Street