Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has warned Labour MPs that “dark forces are stirring up anger” over migration, as she prepares to announce the most sweeping overhaul of refugee rights in a generation. The measures, due to be unveiled on Monday, include reassessing refugee status every 30 months, curbing asylum appeals, and toughening the application of European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) rights to family life.
Mahmood wrote in an article for the Guardian that anger about illegal migration could turn on second-generation immigrants like herself and rupture community relations. “I know that a country without secure borders is a less safe country for those who look like me,” she said. She acknowledged the changes would face opposition but argued that the alternative risked public support for all refugees collapsing.
However, the Guardian understands that the harshness of the plans has caused significant unease among senior Labour aides and ministers, with at least one on resignation watch. Two aides expressed particular concern about plans to ramp up deportations of refugee families, including those with children. Charities warned the changes risk “another Windrush scandal” and would leave refugees in near-permanent limbo, with children uprooted from schools and adults unable to build careers.
Mahmood will announce three new “modest” safe routes for refugees from war-torn countries such as Sudan, Palestine, and Eritrea, covering students, certain professions, and those sponsored by community organisations. However, even those refugees will not receive permanent settled status and will be liable to return if their home country is deemed safe. The government will also legislate to restrict asylum seekers to a single appeal, create a fast-track body for dangerous criminals, and seek reform of ECHR Article 3 rights to narrow the definition of torture risk.
On Sunday night, it emerged that Mahmood had threatened Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo with visa bans for refusing to take back people from the UK. She wrote to their embassies on Thursday, giving them a month to cooperate before sanctions are imposed. The measures are expected to be confirmed on Monday.
