Mahmood v Hermer

Immigration reforms are dead on arrival.

LAURA PERRINS

After the omnishambles pre – budget Labour have come out swinging on immigration. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood MP is in no mood to compromise. She is going to introduce reforms to the House of Commons in an attempt to shut down the out of control immigration numbers, by introducing a system close to Denmark.

Mahmood found her inner Farage, “I can see — and I know my colleagues can — that illegal migration is tearing our country apart. It’s our job as a Labour government to unite our country and if we don’t sort this out, I think our country becomes much more divided.”

Even in her constituency of Birmingham Ladywood, one of the most diverse areas of the country, Mahmood said that migration was causing problems. “I think that people rightly feel that the pace and the scale of what we’ve seen is out of control. It’s putting a huge amount of pressure on communities,” she said. “My patch is 70 percent non-white, but immigration is something that’s causing just as much concern here as it does all across other parts of the country.”

The changes Mahmood wants to introduce are significant. They include increasing the time an asylum seeker must be in the country before claiming indefinite leave to remain from about 5 to 20 years. The new 20-year qualifying period will apply to those who arrive illegally, such as in small boats or in lorries and claim asylum, or those who overstay their visas and then claim. It will be the longest route to settlement in Europe; Denmark is second, with an eight-year pathway.

The 20 year time period can be reduced if you enter specific work or study routes, which seems like a good way to undermine the entire system if you ask me.

“Mahmood will also revoke the statutory duty to provide support for asylum seekers. The government intends to use legislation to repeal a European Union directive that underpins the requirement.

Housing and weekly allowances will be removed from those who have a right to work and can support themselves but choose not to. Those who break the law will also face having their support withdrawn.”

I find it amazing that there is still an EU directive on the books that imposes a statutory duty to provide benefits to asylum seekers. So you break into Britain on the back of lorry and the EU says you have to be given benefits and accommodation. Isn’t this kind of stuff the reason why the whole country was torn apart over Brexit? That directive should have been revoked the minute Brexit was finalised by the Tories.

Mahmood will also announce reforms to the application of key elements of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), including article 8, the right to a family life. She is expected to raise the need for international reform of article 3, covering torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. Both have been blamed for hindering Britain’s ability to remove illegal migrants and failed asylum seekers.

Mahmood is loving Denmark right now. Labour have decided to try to make Britain a hostile environment for asylum seekers, which is fine by me. But then they probably should not have dumped the Rwanda scheme at a cost of at least £700 million and the huge amount of Parliamentary time used up to get the damn thing passed.

Now two years after dumping Rwanda, Britain is to make like Denmark. Denmark, although much smaller, is a good example of how illegal immigration can be reduced when there is a will.

In the year to June, a total of 111,000 people claimed asylum in the UK. In the year ending March, 172,798 people were granted Indefinite Leave to Remain.

In contrast, in Denmark (population of 6 million) from Jan to September there were only 1490 applications for alyssum. Last year Denmark granted asylum in only 860 cases. (860!)

We can also compare this to Ireland (population of the Republic is 5.4 million) according to me who took it from the Sunday Times a while ago.

The Sunday Times: “Last year 18,555 people came here seeking international protection, after more than 13,000 applied for asylum in each of the two previous years.” For clarity.

2024 – 18,555 claimed international protection in Ireland.

2023 – 13,000 claimed international protection in Ireland.

2022 – also 13,000 came (which seems a bit off to me.)

Now before you all get super-duper excited, remember these new Mahmood rules will only apply going forward. So the 30,000 lovely Afghanis that were actually flown into Blighty will stay.

In Ireland we are only at the ‘let’s have a heated debate’ part of the debate. Tánaiste Simon Harris has been kite flying for the last two weeks saying immigration numbers are too high which as you can imagine triggered a lot of pushback. Some even called it “dog whistling.”

Dog whistling is that handy phrase you deploy to call something racist even though there is not evidence of it being racist. You cannot point to anything explicitly racist about the policy. There are people who, despite not being racist themselves, will say that what other people say is racist because they have special powers of understanding.

Simon Harris is ‘dog whistling’ using his powers of telepathy or pigeon carrier or white smoke to all the raging racists out there that he’s about to get a whole lot more racist. Racist up to his eyes is Simon (Simon Harris who doesn’t believe in anything ever, other than power. Everyone knows that.)

The lefty can sense this, he understands this magical signal from the politician in question. Lefty understands the racist undertones in what politicians are saying, even though he himself is not a racist. Sure.

Where was I? Mahamood has gone full Trump by also announcing a “Trump-style visa ban on three countries Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo” if they do not start taking back more illegal migrants and criminals. Great stuff, fabulous keep going. Now I am always one to take the win when it comes but this has a long way to go before it becomes an actual legislative win.

The Home Secretary Mahmood will now have to deal with all the ‘pushback’ from the media and those in her party. The airwaves will be filled with those who think this is racist, the Refugee Council telling us long stories of woe about whatever Afghani male of 22 who broke into the back of the lorry. For some reason we are supposed to care about him over and above all the other people who care about. I don’t, so dry your eyes.

I do care about the 33 year old woman who was allegedly raped on a beach in Brighton by “two Egyptian citizens and an Iranian, who all arrived in Britain via small boats.” Of course they did.

Radio 4 will get on some charity worker to tell us why we should prioritise the safety of military aged men such as Karin al-Danasurt, 20 and Ibrahim Alshafe, 25, both Egyptian citizens and Abdulla Ahmadi, 25, an Iranian living in Crewe. They were each charged with two counts of rape.

On and on and on it will go. Then there are Labour’s own left wing MPs who will try to sink this legislation like they did welfare reform. It has got to get through the government lawyers led by Attorney General Lord Hermer KC, past the first, second and third reading of the House of Commons, past the House of Lords, all the way to the desk of the King for Royal Assent.

And then, should this thing get through all that without amendments designed to kill it, it must survive the attempt by the army of human rights lawyers trying to bring it down by judicial review on the other side.

In fact you can bet your bottom pound that this will end up Strasbourg as Lord Sumption explained on radio 4, “Now, if we pass an act in the UK that tells judges to interpret the convention in a particular way and the Strasbourg court says it should be interpreted in a different way, then the Strasbourg court will hold us to have violated the convention, we will then have a direct conflict between our international obligations under the convention and our domestic legislation.”

International obligations? Remind me again what AG Lord Hermer KC said about international law – oh that the UK would always abide by their international obligations. Britain must uphold international law and that this was a fight with the Tories he was willing to have.

Hermer: “I’m not really sure what they’re driving at. If they are criticising the government because it wants to comply with international law, if they want to pick a fight with the government because it says international law is important and that we want to uphold international law, then that’s a fight I’d quite look forward to.”

The reality is Mahmood’s proposed reforms are very unlikely to get past AG Lord Hermer KC. Here he is in 2023 podcast discussing how to bring down the Rwanda Bill. He says at the end of the podcast that he hopes there will be pushback both before and after the bill is passed. It was the first thing Labour dumped when they got into power.

Lord Hermer KC is now the Attorney General and will be advising the government on the legality of Mahmood’s reforms including their compliance with international law which Hermer views as absolutely fundamental.

Sorry, but these proposed reforms are dead of arrival despite the headlines.

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This article (Mahmood v Hermer) was created and published by Laura Perrins and is republished here under “Fair Use”

Ten reasons to be sceptical about Mahmood’s migrant measures

BRUCE NEWSOME

LAST week Home Office officials started telling their friends in the press that we were about to see ‘the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in modern times’.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood released her policy paper on Monday. The plans are rife with vagaries and contradictions, despite explicitly studying Denmark’s radical reforms (since 2016) and the failures of the Conservative governments (since 2010).

Here are the ten justifiable promises and their unjustifiable contradictions.

1. Reduce asylum hotels, but increase asylum homes

Accommodating asylum claimants in hotels is clearly unpopular, as this summer’s protests illustrate. Previously the Starmer administration has said it wants to expand the use of privately rented apartments and houses. This policy hardly ameliorates public outrage at the privilege of free housing. Nor does private accommodation protect the public from crime by asylum claimants, or prevent claimants from absconding if their claims are denied.

Mahmood’s policy paper promises ‘the use of large sites, including military sites’ in place of hotels. This language is meant to suggest to Britons that claimants will be detained, but does not commit to do so. The language suggests to me increased use of the family homes that were built for military personnel.

Denmark created ‘departure centres’ to incentivise voluntary return of those refused asylum. The British government does not support those either.

2. Send illegals to a third country, but not where Britain has already funded a processing centre.

As long as the government refuses to detain illegal migrants in Britain, the only safe and lawful alternative for processing their claims is a third country.

Both Denmark and Britain proposed but failed to process them in Rwanda. Denmark’s plan was scuppered by legal challenges and was suspended January 2023 without sending anyone to Rwanda.

Rishi Sunak’s administration tried the same thing, without protecting itself from the legal challenges (i.e., without repudiating the European Court of Human Rights). The first planned flight in June 2022 was halted by an injunction from the EHCR. In November 2023, the Supreme Court found that Rwanda is unsafe, and thus the plan is unlawful. Parliament passed the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act in April 2024, declaring Rwanda a safe country. But legal challenges were immediate.

Sunak lost the election in July, and Keir Starmer’s administration campaigned against the plan. Mahmood’s policy paper condemns the plan for costing £700 million for the return of only four volunteers.

Yet the policy paper contains this intriguing but inadequate paragraph: ‘We will continue to explore the use of “return hubs” which are safe third countries that failed asylum seekers can be sent to instead of their country of origin. Negotiations with a number of countries are ongoing.’

Presumably Rwanda is not one of those countries, lest Starmer’s administration should be accused of a U-turn.

3. The government will allow and benefit migrants who work, but wants to stop economic migrants

The policy paper states that ‘the government expects those who are arriving or returning to the UK to seek work.’ The government currently prohibits asylum claimants from working, but tolerates asylum claimants who work (while paying them an income and accommodating them in hotels, from which they work), and wants to stop economic migration. You would think that the policy paper clarifies a way out of the triple hypocrisy, but no. It promises that in 2026 the government will research and consult on ways to ‘change…taxpayer-funded benefits to prioritise access for those who are making an economic contribution to the UK.’

To add confusion, in a subsequent paragraph, Mahmood says ‘we will deny support to those who have the right to work and could therefore support themselves’.

Here, she appears to be denying ‘support’ for asylum seekers who don’t work when they can, but allowing ‘benefits’ for working migrants.

Meanwhile, the same paper promises more enforcement of the prohibition against work by asylum-claimants. The government claims it has cracked down on illegal work, and counts 1,000 foreigners deported after being ‘encountered’ in this crack down. Big deal! That’s 62 removals per month of Labour rule, when more than 3,100 illegals are arriving every month (50 times more).

This triple-contradictory policy paper seems to be the outcome of attempts to appear to be cracking down on illegal immigration and work, while still accommodating radical leftists.

4. Deny ‘support’ to workers and the self-destitute, but give them ‘benefits’

The paper promises to ‘deny support to’ migrants ‘with permission to work before claiming asylum, or those granted permission to work where their claim has been outstanding for more than 12 months,’ and ‘those who have deliberately made themselves destitute.’

But as noted above, working claimants will get access to the same benefits as British citizens, which will compensate for the loss of ‘support’.

And how on earth is the government going to prove that any claimant ‘made themselves destitute,’ when it doesn’t enforce this rule for British welfare-dependants?

5. Deny support to foreign criminals and non-compliants, without detaining them

The policy paper promises to make ‘support conditional on asylum seekers complying with UK law,’ with orders ‘to relocate to a different accommodation site,’ and with rules inside their ‘accommodation’.

Yet, with no plans for detention centres, the government would be letting criminal or non-compliant claimants, further upset by loss of ‘support,’ to run free, unless they are jailed for a crime.

6. Slower permanent residency, except for workers and students

Currently, asylum claimants are given five years of residency, before they can claim indefinite leave to remain. Last week, Mahmood had indicated that refugees would need to reapply to remain in Britain every 30 months, and so the paper confirms.ButDenmark had already reduced temporary residency periods to either 12 months or 24 months, depending on the claim.

Currently, asylum claimants can apply for permanent residency after 5 years. This threshold will increase to 20. This will make a difference only if the Home Office uses the period to remove residents whose country of origin becomes safe or who commit crime or otherwise violate their conditions. (See the final item.)

Another part of the policy paper allows for claimants to speed up their permanent residency, and their families’ residency, ‘if they obtain employment or commence study at an appropriate level and pay a fee.’ Any ‘employment’? Including acting as couriers, which asylum-claimants already do, illegally, within hours of reaching their government-provided hotel?

7. Reinterpret family rights, but don’t repudiate European human rights

Mahmood says the Home Office will instruct judges to reinterpret Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to a family life, ‘in favour of the British people’s expectations.’ She says the government will legislate to make clear that family means a parent or child. (Historically the government has granted immigration to anybody the claimant declares a cousin, without checking.) But that doesn’t stop the trafficking of children that immigrants claim to be their own, before returning the children to traffickers, for re-trafficking, as is common on America’s southern border.

But ‘guiding’ judges towards different interpretation is an unreliable solution, when the judiciary is already woke and unaccountable. Short of purging the woke judges and making the rest accountable (a long process), the government should just repudiate the European Convention.

8.  Expect claimants, but not countries of origin, to reimburse Britain for their support

The policy paper promises to ‘require individuals to contribute towards the cost of their asylum support where they have some assets or income’.

However, most immigrants deny assets abroad and don’t bring assets into Britain. Britain cannot seize private assets abroad, unless applying some counter-terrorist or counter-fraud power, in cooperation with a compliant foreign government.

As for seizing income, this is only possible if the claimant is working in ways declared to government. The policy paper admits ‘it is far too easy for people without the right to work to disappear into the UK’s illegal economy,’ although it promises to crack down on illegal work.

Of course, the government should disallow support to immigrants who have paid thousands of dollars to criminals to get here.

9. Persuade countries to accept returnees, but not with tariffs or aid

Last week, Mahmood trailed a plan to refuse visas for visitors from countries that do not accept their nationals who fail to gain asylum or commit crimes in Britain. This plan has been executed by Donald Trump already, although nobody in Starmer’s administration is admitting as much.

Last week, Mahmood specified three African countries – Angola, Namibia, Congo – for blocking 4,000 nationals from return. However, none is in the top 20 countries that the British government reports for illegal migrant arrivals in 2024. They are included under ‘other countries,’ with only 1,487 arrivals between them.

I suspect that Mahmood mentions Angola, Namibia, and Congo because she thinks her office is already negotiating successfully with these countries.

The policy paper promises to ‘work bilaterally with countries on returns . . . In August 2025, we signed a new agreement with Iraq to establish formal processes to swiftly return those with no legal right to be in the UK. In October 2025, we announced a new agreement with Vietnam that will streamline our returns processes and reduce redocumentation timescales.’

This is good work. Vietnamese are the fourth top nationality for illegal boat entries. Iraqis are the fourth top nationality for detections inside Britain (in 2024).

But Mahmood isn’t mentioning Afghanis (top nationality for illegal boat entries), Syrians (second), Iranians (top for under-documented arrival by air), Albanians (top for detections at ports), or Sudanese (top for detections inside the country).

And why isn’t the government promising to impose tariffs on, or stop aid to, uncooperative countries, as Trump has done? Afghanistan received £353million in British aid last year, but took back only 13 per cent of its failed asylum seekers.

10. Increase the rate of deportation, but without leverage over countries of origin

The paper complains that in this government’s time, more than 50,000 persons were ordered removed, but only a fifth have been removed. It blames legacy arrangements.

The paper does not inspire optimism, given its vague promises to renegotiate with countries, without specifying any leverage (not even tariffs or denial of aid).

Mahmood says that Article 3 (which prohibits inhumane treatment) should be tightened up in British interpretation (presumably to stop, for instance, Sudanese claiming that military conscription is inhumane). But she does not specify any way to incentivise the currently listed ‘unsafe’ countries to become safe for Britain’s deportees.

All the paper’s promises of cracking down on illegal work, deterring economic migration, and reviewing the legitimacy of asylum-claims are useless without an effective practice of return.

Ironically, Denmark (the Home Office’s sudden exemplar) proves the problem. In 2022, Denmark deemed Syria ‘safe,’ and revoked the residency of more than 1,200 Syrian refugees. But Denmark had not instituted a means to deport them involuntarily, so those that refused to volunteer stayed at Danish return centres, with all sustenance provided. Denmark had hoped that the revocation would deter new immigrants from Syria, but 25 percent more Syrians arrived in 2023 than 2022.

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This article (Ten reasons to be sceptical about Mahmood’s migrant measures) was created and published by Conservative Woman and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Bruce Newsome

Featured image: Wikimedia Commons 

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