Keir Starmer is facing another major challenge to his authority as angry Labour MPs vowed to force changes to new hardline migration measures that would bring an escalation in the deportations of children and families.
The policies – which include the possibility of confiscating assets from asylum seekers to contribute to costs – have caused significant divisions inside the party, with some MPs accusing their colleagues of not taking seriously public anger about illegal migration and asylum.
The Conservatives have said they could support the government to pass the tough new laws in the event of a major Labour rebellion.
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has outlined a number of radical measures, including how the government will attempt to change the way the European convention on human rights (ECHR) is interpreted by UK judges in an attempt to stop asylum seekers using their rights to a family life to avoid deportation.
Policies include consulting on enforcing the removal of families, including children, who have been refused the right to settle in the UK and have refused payments encouraging them to leave.
“We will launch a consultation on the process for enforcing the removal of families, including children,” a policy document released on Monday said.
Starmer defended the government’s asylum plans, which have been met with alarm by many Labour MPs.
“We inherited a broken asylum system just as we inherited a broken economy, broken public services, a broken NHS. So we have got to pick it up and fix it,” he told the Daily Mirror.
“We need to make sure there’s a consensus on this, that people have confidence in our asylum system, and the truth is that we need to stop people arriving who shouldn’t be here, and we need to return those who are found not to be genuine refugees.”
At least 20 MPs have publicly expressed concern about the policies including the Folkestone MP and former human rights barrister, Tony Vaughan, the select committee chair Sarah Owen and 2024 intake MPs including Simon Opher, Abitsam Mohamed and Neil Duncan-Jordan.
The chair of the housing and communities select committee, Florence Eshalomi, asked Mahmood in the Commons if she was certain there would not be “unintended consequences” from the policies.
Speaking in the Commons, Mahmood rebuked MPs for suggesting she was using divisive language. She mentioned the crude racial slur she said was “regularly” used against her by people telling her to “go back home”.
“I know through my own experience and the experience of my constituents just how divisive asylum has become in our country,” she said.
A government source said there would be a “huge amount of engagement” with worried Labour MPs and stressed there would be no deportations of unaccompanied children.
“The crisis at our borders is an existential issue for mainstream parties. If we don’t solve the crisis at our border, dark forces will follow,” they said. “Politics is about making arguments for things you think are right. That is what the home secretary is doing today.”
But MPs said there were in particular widespread concerns about “morally bankrupt” moves to ramp up the deportation of families – which in practice would mean increased detention of children before removal.
“I didn’t fight an election as a Labour MP to bundle distressed children on to deportation flights,” one MP said. Another MP in a Green-facing seat said they were facing an enormous backlash on social media. “It’s all terrible. Straight out of the far-right playbook. Lots of colleagues feel the same,” said a third.
Opher said the government “should stop the boats because it’s dangerous, and we should stop the scapegoating of immigrants because it’s wrong and cruel … Measures that create bureaucracy and insecurity do not offer clarity or strengthen control – they cost money, waste time and weaken the system.”
Owen, one of the key organisers against the government’s welfare cuts, said: “A strong immigration system doesn’t need to be a cruel one. It shouldn’t need saying – but refugees and asylum seekers are real people, fleeing war and persecution.”
Duncan-Jordan said: “My taxi driver this morning told me that after 20 years living in this country he no longer felt welcome, despite paying his taxes and making a contribution to the local community.
“British values extend beyond running a raffle or cutting the half-time orange. We are compassionate, tolerant and generous. Kicking out recognised asylum seekers doesn’t speak to any of our values. It hardens us as a nation and portrays Britain as a country like its weather – cold and uninviting.”
Several Labour aides also expressed their own discomfort and expressed scepticism that the government would be able to pass the proposals without a climbdown on some measures, including the seizures of assets and the rights of refugee families to reach permanent settlement sooner than the proposed 20 years.
The government has already been forced to clarify that it did not intend to proactively seize jewellery from refugees.
“I think what the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] will try and do first is seek to dilute these proposals,” one said. Another MP said they saw it as an “opening offer … I’m sure that they will want to try and hear concerns because we know what happens when they don’t.”
One MP in a marginal seat said they were particularly disturbed by the rhetoric that Britain is the “destination of choice” for refugees, which they said was straightforwardly untrue given the UK was the 14th most popular in the recent data.
But another MP said they did not think it would mean immediate rebellions or resignations: “We want to read the proposals and then hear from other interested parties and get expert advice.
“That is what happened with welfare and then the picture became clearer. No one doubts that there is a necessity to tackle illegal immigration but there are parts of this that do not strike me as an obvious deterrent and which will extend people’s suffering.”
However, a significant number of MPs said they were convinced of the need to undertake “the unthinkable” when it came to the asylum system, given the threat of Reform and the even more draconian measures that could come under a Nigel Farage government.
“People need to get real,” one minister said. “The public are moving a lot faster than colleagues on this because they recognise the stereotype of the deserving refugee has changed dramatically over the last decade because of the scale of people on the move.”
Refugee status will be made temporary and reviewed every 30 months, the Home Office’s asylum policy document reads.
The government also plans to weaken asylum seekers’ rights under article 8 of the ECHR, which provides for the “right to respect for family and private life”.
The policy document said this was being used by illegal migrants to “stop” their removal. It proposes “strengthening” the public interest in interfering with article 8 and limiting it to “immediate family”.
The UK will also lobby to “evolve” article 3 of the ECHR, which prohibits torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, to counteract how it has “been expanded over time”, with it now being used to allow criminals to stay.
A new appeals body would be formed in an attempt to accelerate removals, the Home Office’s blueprint states. This would be staffed by “professionally trained adjudicators” and its aim would be to “expand the capacity of the appeals system”.
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of Refugee Council, said: “What’s being forgotten here is that behind these proposals are men, women and children who have survived war, persecution and unimaginable loss, and who arrive in the UK with almost nothing.
“These reforms sound tough, but they won’t fix the real problems in the asylum system. Instead, they risk creating more delays, more stress and more inhumane treatment for the very people the system is meant to protect.”
