Joe Tetlow is a former Special Adviser at the Home Office focussed on Immigration and Borders policy
Stopping the boats is not supposed to be one of Labour’s five missions for government, as it was one of Sunak’s five pledges. But just a few months in, tackling illegal migration and cutting small boat numbers has quite clearly become a central mission of this government.
Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, has recently warned Labour MPs that they must be prepared to talk about immigration – and that they mustn’t shy away from the debate in order to keep their seats in 2029. And the early signs are that a significant amount of attention is being placed on immigration within the new government, despite it not being a pre-election ‘mission’.
It has taken a chunk of the Prime Minister’s time, at the meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) at Blenheim Palace in July, in Italy with Georgia Meloni in September, and again at the EPC in Hungary in November. And at COP this week, the Prime Minister spoke to the media of his ‘two priorities’: economic growth and border security. It follows reports that Downing Street is being reorganised to reflect those two new priorities and focus attention.
Perhaps heeding the lessons of the US election, it’s the economy and immigration stupid!
Over at 2 Marsham Street, the Home Secretary has not been short of work. As one of the busiest Ministers in the first 100 days of this new Labour Government, she has cancelled the Rwanda scheme, repealed the retrospective effect of the Illegal Migration Act in order to process a backlog of asylum seekers previously banned, and appointed a new Border Security Commander (the ex-police chief, Martin Hewitt).
Meanwhile Home Office officials have been preparing new primary legislation (The Border Security, Immigration and Asylum Bill) which is apparently mired in difficulty, not least because it won’t work outside the UK. Whilst this is all going on, boat crossings are up on last year and asylum hotels are reopening, with large asylum accommodation sites like the Bibby Stockholm and Scampton now closed or cancelled.
Labour have been desperate to demonstrate grip on illegal migration, attempting to land the political punch on the cost of Rwanda and trash the record of the previous Government. But very soon, this administration will be unable to blame the previous Conservative government’s policies and will be judged on their own record and decisions, and the costs those have incurred.
Labour’s pledge to “smash the gangs” sounded tough during the election, but as we have heard from Home Office insiders, there is little confidence it will work. It’s not as though drugs or firearms gangs have been successfully smashed, despite decades of efforts. And the reality is that the previous Government was already pouring resource into smashing the gangs – so the rhetoric will simply fall flat if small boat numbers continue to go up and asylum hotels remain open.
The “smash the gangs” policy, and the slogan, surely has a sell-by date. Labour strategists must know that Starmer can’t go to the country in 2029 saying he has smashed the gangs, because he won’t have.
Soon Labour will need a narrative and metric by which they can defend themselves and by which the public can judge them. How Labour replaces the salience of Rwanda politically and how they measure and communicate success remains an open question.
There aren’t silver bullets.
Labour has, however, latched onto low-hanging fruit in the form of greater investment in detentions and returns. But the argument that faster processing and more returns equals a greater deterrent than a policy like Rwanda is unlikely to be the panacea they hoped.
Inflating the number of returns to have any impact on numbers is an uphill battle.
On entering government, Labour will have been frustrated by two constraining factors: a slowness to build detention capacity (we only have around 2,200 detention beds for failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders combined) and a traffic jam in the courts that sees asylum appeals taking an average of 12 months to be heard.
Until those practical problems are solved, the Government will not be able to return failed asylum seekers at any rate worthy of a deterrent. And that’s before you get to countries with whom we have no returns agreement. Afghanistan (43.4m), Iraq (46.2m), Syria (24.6m), Sudan (50.8m) and Eritrea (3.5m) have populations which together total 168.5m.
Each of these countries has a UK asylum grant rate of 99%, which means if you cross on a small boat from these countries, you will get to stay. For a country like Iran, with a lower 82% asylum grant rate, because there is no agreement or working arrangement in place to return failed asylum seekers – they get to stay anyway. This is why the Rwanda policy essentially existed. And it’s a problem to which Labour still has no answer.
A return to Rwanda seems like an impossible U-turn, but Labour do still have a binding Treaty under which failed asylum seekers (including the 4 volunteers currently in Rwanda) can be relocated.
It’s worth looking at again.
And whilst the volunteers have been ridiculed, voluntary returns are actually a bigger share of the returns numbers than enforced returns.
Paying people more to return than the £3,000 currently handed out might be an easy way to drive up returns and save money on hotels and legal fees. There are of course other options, including offshore processing (similar to the Italy-Albania deal, though that appears to be snarled up in the courts), safe and legal routes (stopping visible crossings by flying asylum seekers in), a returns deal with Europe (most likely a quota system they said they wouldn’t join), and greater cooperation with the French to prevent launches from their shores. But none of these are likely to shift the dial significantly on numbers anytime soon.
Public perception is not on the government’s side, and though we are at the start of Labour’s term, neither is time. Government is frustratingly slow, which means they can’t be complacent about the choices they make now. And they know at some point, the numbers will simply begin to speak for themselves.
If Labour loses the next election, there is every chance it will be down to their perceived failure on migration. And with local council elections approaching in May, pressure is mounting. Labour needs to show they have a robust plan to cut small boat crossings and manage the asylum system better if they are to prevent a Conservative comeback and stem the rise of Reform (who are second place to Labour in 89 parliamentary constituencies).
You can already see Nigel Farage saying, “you tried the Conservatives, you tried Labour, why not try us”. The issue is not going away and has to be dealt with.
In recent focus groups run by Public First, immigration was consistently raised as the country’s biggest issue.
Participants talked of problems with the NHS, housing and schools, but immigration – and the lack of action taken by the Government – was still the most front of mind issue for the majority of the group. They repeatedly referenced the housing of asylum seekers in hotels as indicative of wider failings in the immigration system.
This collective mood was apparently demonstrated when one participant, to the nodding agreement of the rest of the group, explained that Starmer had “talked about it, but had done nothing” on immigration.
This is a big political problem for the Prime Minister and an open door for the Conservatives – and Reform – to walk through if Labour don’t address it fast.
Joe Tetlow is a former Special Adviser at the Home Office focussed on Immigration and Borders policy
Stopping the boats is not supposed to be one of Labour’s five missions for government, as it was one of Sunak’s five pledges. But just a few months in, tackling illegal migration and cutting small boat numbers has quite clearly become a central mission of this government.
Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, has recently warned Labour MPs that they must be prepared to talk about immigration – and that they mustn’t shy away from the debate in order to keep their seats in 2029. And the early signs are that a significant amount of attention is being placed on immigration within the new government, despite it not being a pre-election ‘mission’.
It has taken a chunk of the Prime Minister’s time, at the meeting of the European Political Community (EPC) at Blenheim Palace in July, in Italy with Georgia Meloni in September, and again at the EPC in Hungary in November. And at COP this week, the Prime Minister spoke to the media of his ‘two priorities’: economic growth and border security. It follows reports that Downing Street is being reorganised to reflect those two new priorities and focus attention.
Perhaps heeding the lessons of the US election, it’s the economy and immigration stupid!
Over at 2 Marsham Street, the Home Secretary has not been short of work. As one of the busiest Ministers in the first 100 days of this new Labour Government, she has cancelled the Rwanda scheme, repealed the retrospective effect of the Illegal Migration Act in order to process a backlog of asylum seekers previously banned, and appointed a new Border Security Commander (the ex-police chief, Martin Hewitt).
Meanwhile Home Office officials have been preparing new primary legislation (The Border Security, Immigration and Asylum Bill) which is apparently mired in difficulty, not least because it won’t work outside the UK. Whilst this is all going on, boat crossings are up on last year and asylum hotels are reopening, with large asylum accommodation sites like the Bibby Stockholm and Scampton now closed or cancelled.
Labour have been desperate to demonstrate grip on illegal migration, attempting to land the political punch on the cost of Rwanda and trash the record of the previous Government. But very soon, this administration will be unable to blame the previous Conservative government’s policies and will be judged on their own record and decisions, and the costs those have incurred.
Labour’s pledge to “smash the gangs” sounded tough during the election, but as we have heard from Home Office insiders, there is little confidence it will work. It’s not as though drugs or firearms gangs have been successfully smashed, despite decades of efforts. And the reality is that the previous Government was already pouring resource into smashing the gangs – so the rhetoric will simply fall flat if small boat numbers continue to go up and asylum hotels remain open.
The “smash the gangs” policy, and the slogan, surely has a sell-by date. Labour strategists must know that Starmer can’t go to the country in 2029 saying he has smashed the gangs, because he won’t have.
Soon Labour will need a narrative and metric by which they can defend themselves and by which the public can judge them. How Labour replaces the salience of Rwanda politically and how they measure and communicate success remains an open question.
There aren’t silver bullets.
Labour has, however, latched onto low-hanging fruit in the form of greater investment in detentions and returns. But the argument that faster processing and more returns equals a greater deterrent than a policy like Rwanda is unlikely to be the panacea they hoped.
Inflating the number of returns to have any impact on numbers is an uphill battle.
On entering government, Labour will have been frustrated by two constraining factors: a slowness to build detention capacity (we only have around 2,200 detention beds for failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders combined) and a traffic jam in the courts that sees asylum appeals taking an average of 12 months to be heard.
Until those practical problems are solved, the Government will not be able to return failed asylum seekers at any rate worthy of a deterrent. And that’s before you get to countries with whom we have no returns agreement. Afghanistan (43.4m), Iraq (46.2m), Syria (24.6m), Sudan (50.8m) and Eritrea (3.5m) have populations which together total 168.5m.
Each of these countries has a UK asylum grant rate of 99%, which means if you cross on a small boat from these countries, you will get to stay. For a country like Iran, with a lower 82% asylum grant rate, because there is no agreement or working arrangement in place to return failed asylum seekers – they get to stay anyway. This is why the Rwanda policy essentially existed. And it’s a problem to which Labour still has no answer.
A return to Rwanda seems like an impossible U-turn, but Labour do still have a binding Treaty under which failed asylum seekers (including the 4 volunteers currently in Rwanda) can be relocated.
It’s worth looking at again.
And whilst the volunteers have been ridiculed, voluntary returns are actually a bigger share of the returns numbers than enforced returns.
Paying people more to return than the £3,000 currently handed out might be an easy way to drive up returns and save money on hotels and legal fees. There are of course other options, including offshore processing (similar to the Italy-Albania deal, though that appears to be snarled up in the courts), safe and legal routes (stopping visible crossings by flying asylum seekers in), a returns deal with Europe (most likely a quota system they said they wouldn’t join), and greater cooperation with the French to prevent launches from their shores. But none of these are likely to shift the dial significantly on numbers anytime soon.
Public perception is not on the government’s side, and though we are at the start of Labour’s term, neither is time. Government is frustratingly slow, which means they can’t be complacent about the choices they make now. And they know at some point, the numbers will simply begin to speak for themselves.
If Labour loses the next election, there is every chance it will be down to their perceived failure on migration. And with local council elections approaching in May, pressure is mounting. Labour needs to show they have a robust plan to cut small boat crossings and manage the asylum system better if they are to prevent a Conservative comeback and stem the rise of Reform (who are second place to Labour in 89 parliamentary constituencies).
You can already see Nigel Farage saying, “you tried the Conservatives, you tried Labour, why not try us”. The issue is not going away and has to be dealt with.
In recent focus groups run by Public First, immigration was consistently raised as the country’s biggest issue.
Participants talked of problems with the NHS, housing and schools, but immigration – and the lack of action taken by the Government – was still the most front of mind issue for the majority of the group. They repeatedly referenced the housing of asylum seekers in hotels as indicative of wider failings in the immigration system.
This collective mood was apparently demonstrated when one participant, to the nodding agreement of the rest of the group, explained that Starmer had “talked about it, but had done nothing” on immigration.
This is a big political problem for the Prime Minister and an open door for the Conservatives – and Reform – to walk through if Labour don’t address it fast.