Immigration is ‘dividing our country,’ insists Home Secretary ahead of UK asylum ‘overhaul’

Set to be fully unveiled on Monday, the Home Secretary vowed to bring “order and control back into our system” by creating new “safe” routes for people arriving in the UK.

She said the newly-created “safe” routes were a government mission to “fulfil our obligations to help people fleeing wars and conflict around the world.”

Speaking with LBC on Sunday, the Immigration and Citizenship Minister Mike Tapp said the Home Secretary’s “sweeping changes” to the UK’s asylum system come as Brits are “fed up” with being seen as a “soft touch”.

Branding immigration a “moral mission”, the Home Secretary’s overhaul of the UK immigration system is set to be based on the Danish asylum model – with asylum seekers who travel to the UK illegally set face a 20-year wait to gain settled status.

“Of course we must help people – it’s British values, to be fair. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be firm,” said Mr Tapp, speaking to LBC’s Iain Dale, in for Lewis Goodall on Sunday.

“We accept that the public are fed up. We’re fed up with the asylum shopping that’s going on across Europe,” he said.

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Speaking on what this means for those who might marry and have children with an English person, the Labour MP for Dover and Deal said there would be flexibility for those who “integrating”.

“Of course, after 20 years, and there’ll be a system where if you’re contributing and if you’re integrating, then that time can come down,” he said.

“It’s important that people that come here do contribute to society and that they integrate, because that has been a part of the problem.”

It comes as Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp told LBC that the measures don’t go far enough.

Ms Mahmood was also seen to reject claims that the new Labour policies were “racist” amid suggestions they are nothing more than an attempt to fight off the threat posed by Reform UK.

“I reject that entirely. I am the child of immigrants. My parents came to this country illegally, in the late 60s and early 70s,” she said on Sunday.

“I can see that illegal migration is creating division across our country. I can see that it is polarising communities across the country. I can see that it is dividing people and making them estranged from one another,” she continued.

Under the proposals, refugees will also be forced to return to their home countries as soon as it is deemed safe under the new reforms.

Shabana Mahmood pledged to end this “golden ticket” which the government said had seen asylum claims surge in the UK, drawing people across Europe, through safe countries and onto dangerous small boats.

Ms Mahmood will lay out a series of reforms to the system in the House of Commons on Monday aimed at making the UK a less attractive destination for illegal migrants, and making it easier to remove them.

According to the Home Office, this overhaul of asylum policy – the largest in modern times – will mean the UK is no longer an international outlier.

It described Britain’s current offer to asylum seekers as more generous than those of its near neighbours on the European continent, where controls are being bolstered.

Ms Mahmood is set to revoke the statutory legal duty to provide asylum-seeker support, introduced in 2005 via EU law.

However, the policies set out by Labour have led to pushback from the Tories, with Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp insisting it’s “complete nonsense” that the Tories can’t be tougher than Labour on immigration.

“We have a policy of completely refusing to even hear asylum claims from illegal immigrants. She does propose to hear them and give them a path to citizenship, albeit after 20 years.”

This means housing and weekly allowances will no longer be guaranteed for asylum seekers, in a bid to lessen the incentive for migrants crossing the English Channel to claim refuge in the UK.

Those who have a right to work in the UK and can support themselves, but do not, could also be denied housing and benefits because of the change.

Law-breaking asylum seekers could also have such support removed.

‘Immense pressure’

The Home Secretary said: “This country has a proud tradition of welcoming those fleeing danger, but our generosity is drawing illegal migrants across the channel.

“The pace and scale of migration is placing immense pressure on communities.

“This week, I will set out the most sweeping changes to our asylum system in a generation. We will restore order and control to our borders.”

Ministers have learned lessons from the strict asylum approach taken by Denmark, where a government of the same political stripe as Labour has managed to remove incentives drawing people to the country, and has increased deportations of illegal migrants.

Senior Home Office officials were dispatched to Copenhagen, the Danish capital, to learn about the country’s asylum policy earlier this year.

The country has reduced the number of asylum applications to the lowest number in 40 years and successfully removed 95% of rejected asylum seekers.

At the same time, Denmark remains a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, an international treaty which has drawn the ire of some on the right of politics, who say it hampers efforts to deport illegal migrants.

Denmark’s tighter rules on family reunions are also being looked at.

Elsewhere in her statement, the Home Secretary is set to announce that refugee status will become temporary and subject to regular review under the planned changes.

Refugees will be removed as soon as their home countries are deemed safe.

Under current rules, those granted refugee status have it for five years and can then apply for indefinite leave to remain and get on a route to citizenship.

Other changes expected to be announced on Monday include requiring judges to prioritise public safety over migrants’ rights to a family life, or the risk that they will face “inhuman” treatment if returned to their home country, the Daily Telegraph newspaper has reported.

Ms Mahmood has insisted, over recent days, that Labour has spearheaded “record levels” of immigration raids and arrests, and that nearly 50,000 people with no right to be in the UK had been returned.

But, at the same time, more migrants have crossed the Channel in small boats.

Some 39,075 people have arrived in the UK after making the journey so far this year, according to the latest Home Office figures.

The arrivals have already passed the number for the whole of 2024 (36,816) and 2023 (29,437), but the number is still below the total at this point in 2022 (39,929).

Meanwhile, the Government’s pilot scheme with France aimed at deterring people from making the dangerous crossing, has removed 113 people to the continent since it was introduced in August, while 92 have arrived in the UK under the deal’s approved safe route.