Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Letting down carers
They say that the independent review of carer’s allowance benefit overpayments identified “systemic issues” at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and said carers could not be blamed for falling foul of unclear and confusing benefit rules:
The review was triggered after a Guardian investigation revealed how carers had been hit with draconian penalties of as much as £20,000 after unwittingly and unfairly running up overpayments of the carer’s allowance.
Liz Sayce, a disability rights expert and the author of the review, said problems with carer’s allowance led to injustice and poor use of public money and had affected carers’ health, finances and careers. She blamed repeated failures by top DWP officials over a decade to fix the problems.
“Overpayments over many years at this scale and impact, with missed opportunities to resolve them, are entirely unacceptable. They are an inappropriate use of taxpayers’ money, which has involved using public money for a purpose not intended, and then incurring further cost to attempt to recover it,” she wrote.
She added: “The prevalence of overpayment related to earnings has been caused not by widespread individual error by carers in reporting their earnings but by systemic issues preventing them from fulfilling their responsibility to report.”
Ministers have announced hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers who ran up overpayments as a result of unsafe decisions will have their cases reassessed and in many cases their debts cancelled or reduced. It described the scandal as a “mess inherited from the previous government”.
But there is disappointment from many carers that the review did not recommend compensation for those whose lives were turned upside down and health destroyed after being penalised for massive overpayments they were unaware they had incurred.
The review highlighted the stress, shame and humiliation experienced by carers caught up in the system, and treatment at the hands of DWP staff that “made them feel degraded, like a criminal or cheat trying to game the system”.
Sayce added: “This shame is experienced as the polar opposite of the recognition carer’s allowance aims to offer to unpaid carers who are regularly described by the government as ‘unsung heroes’.”
The review also highlighted how the flawed “cliff edge” design of carer’s allowance penalties resulted in carers rapidly and unwittingly building up big overpayments. Sayce urged “quick, imaginative and fair solutions” to the problem.
Unpaid carers who look after loved ones for at least 35 hours a week are entitled to £83.30 a week carer’s allowance, as long as their weekly earnings from part-time jobs do not exceed £196. But if they exceed this limit, even by as little as 1p, they must repay that entire week’s carer’s allowance.
Under the “cliff edge” earnings rules, this means someone who oversteps the threshold by as little as 1p a week for a year must repay not 52p but £4,331.60, plus a £50 civil penalty.
Top officials and previous government ministers were criticised in the report for a failure to “grip” the problem of overpayments. “The … DWP has failed to demonstrate the ministerial and senior focus needed to resolve these persistent injustices and reform carer’s allowance to implement its core purposes in the modern world,” it said.
Problems with changes introduced by DWP in 2020 to modify the way carers were allowed to average their earnings from part-time jobs to avoid overpayments were also highlighted. These changes, ostensibly to make the system clear for claimants, were in effect unlawful and resulted in more carers falling foul of the system.
While carers were expected by the DWP to report changes to their circumstances, such as if they earned more than earnings limits, confusing rules meant they “have no way of knowing exactly what they need to report and when”, the review found.
This is a complete mess and it is carers who are being left to suffer. The government needs to put in place a compensation process for the victims of this fiasco.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
The past comes back to haunt Farage
The Guardian says that they have spoken to 20 of Farage's contemporaries while at Dulwich College in south London who tell them that these accusations are true, more than half of them on the record, and they outline the testimony of all twenty in some detail here.
Now, Farage is facing calls to explain why he repeatedly aired tropes and conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism during interviews.
Now, Farage is facing calls to explain why he repeatedly aired tropes and conspiracy theories associated with antisemitism during interviews.
The Guardian says that in appearances on US TV shows and podcasts earlier in his political career, Farage discussed supposed plots by bankers to create a global government, citing Goldman Sachs, the Bilderberg group and the financier George Soros as threats to democracy:
These included six guest slots on the web TV show of the disgraced far-right US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones was successfully sued by bereaved parents after claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was faked.
During one interview with Jones in 2018, Farage argued that “globalists” were trying to engineer a war with Russia “as an argument for us all to surrender our national sovereignty and give it up to a higher global level”.
Farage also appeared six times on the web radio show of Rick Wiles, a far-right, antisemitic American pastor. Here, topics included whether central bankers would soon start to appoint leaders of the UK and US – an idea Farage did not challenge.
When the Guardian first reported these discussions in 2019, groups including the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust, a charity providing support to the Jewish community in the UK, called on Farage to repudiate such ideas, many of which are associated with far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
However, Farage never commented. The only response came from a spokesperson for the Brexit party, which Farage led at the time, calling the criticisms “manufactured” and “pathetic”.
In the wake of testimony from 20 people who claim they either witnessed or were victims of abusive or racist behaviour by Farage at Dulwich college in the late 1970s and early 1980s, MPs and others have called on Farage to explain his subsequent statements, which date from 2009 to 2018.
School contemporaries of Farage said he used racist terms of abuse, made comments such as like “Hitler was right”, and “Gas them”, and sang racist songs.
Spokespeople for Farage and Reform rejected the claims as completely untrue, saying the passage of time made accurate recollections impossible, and questioned why people were making the allegations now.
The Liberal Democrats vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, Christine Jardine, is absolutely right when she says that Farage has aspirations for high office, and therefore it is simply not good enough that he fails to explain his past choice of words, especially when the allegations that have surfaced this week only serve to underline concerns about his outlook.
It is time for Farage to come clean about his past behaviour so that everybody knows what they would be supporting if they gave their vote to Reform.
These included six guest slots on the web TV show of the disgraced far-right US conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. Jones was successfully sued by bereaved parents after claiming the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre was faked.
During one interview with Jones in 2018, Farage argued that “globalists” were trying to engineer a war with Russia “as an argument for us all to surrender our national sovereignty and give it up to a higher global level”.
Farage also appeared six times on the web radio show of Rick Wiles, a far-right, antisemitic American pastor. Here, topics included whether central bankers would soon start to appoint leaders of the UK and US – an idea Farage did not challenge.
When the Guardian first reported these discussions in 2019, groups including the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust, a charity providing support to the Jewish community in the UK, called on Farage to repudiate such ideas, many of which are associated with far-right and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
However, Farage never commented. The only response came from a spokesperson for the Brexit party, which Farage led at the time, calling the criticisms “manufactured” and “pathetic”.
In the wake of testimony from 20 people who claim they either witnessed or were victims of abusive or racist behaviour by Farage at Dulwich college in the late 1970s and early 1980s, MPs and others have called on Farage to explain his subsequent statements, which date from 2009 to 2018.
School contemporaries of Farage said he used racist terms of abuse, made comments such as like “Hitler was right”, and “Gas them”, and sang racist songs.
Spokespeople for Farage and Reform rejected the claims as completely untrue, saying the passage of time made accurate recollections impossible, and questioned why people were making the allegations now.
The Liberal Democrats vice chair of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, Christine Jardine, is absolutely right when she says that Farage has aspirations for high office, and therefore it is simply not good enough that he fails to explain his past choice of words, especially when the allegations that have surfaced this week only serve to underline concerns about his outlook.
It is time for Farage to come clean about his past behaviour so that everybody knows what they would be supporting if they gave their vote to Reform.
Monday, November 24, 2025
Is the proscription of Palestine Action undermining government anti-terrorism programmes?
The paper reports the official as saying that there is already confusion among counter-terrorism police, officials and in schools and hospitals as a result of the proscription of the direct action group, which makes being a member of, or showing support for it, a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act:
They expressed concern about people involved in Palestine advocacy but not supportive of Palestine Action being wrongly labelled as extremist and people who have expressed support for Palestine Action being referred to Prevent when they do not pose any threat.
The homeland security official, who works closely with Prevent, and requested anonymity as they are not allowed to speak to the press, said: “I’m concerned about a surge in referrals to the Prevent system that might have a link to Palestine advocacy in light of the fact that this very high profile group is now proscribed, and the confusion there might be on the frontline in schools and healthcare settings and all the other places that are expected to make Prevent referrals.
“I’ve heard senior counter-terrorism police people say that they are already seeing on the frontline concerns about this come up and I’m aware of testimonies from Prevent leads at local authorities where they are also concerned about the impact of this on their area and confusion about whether certain cases should be referred to Prevent or not.”
The Prevent duty requires specified authorities such as education, health, and local authorities to report concerns about a person being vulnerable to radicalisation.
Figures published earlier this month showed the number of referrals to the anti-terrorism programme were up by 27% in the year to March 2025 compared with the previous 12 months and was the highest since records began.
The homeland security group official said that while it was early days in the proscription of Palestine Action (the ban took effect on 5 July) they feared Prevent could be “overwhelmed” when it was already under “unprecedented” pressure after the Southport attacks and the concerns they raised about people who are obsessed with violence but without a clear terrorist ideology.
“We have already seen police officers, let alone frontline Prevent practitioners, mistakenly arrest or interfere with people for supporting Palestine, not supporting Palestine Action.
“There is a risk that what’s now the crime of support for Palestine Action might lead to the Prevent system becoming an unwitting sort of gateway for people to mistakenly be criminalised, especially young people who don’t know the law and they don’t know the consequences of expressing what might sound like – or may actually be – support for a group that, overnight, has become proscribed.”
In similar comments, in a pre-proscription debate in the House of Lords discussing the proposals to ban Palestine Action, the independent Prevent reviewer, David Anderson KC said it would mean “anyone who is young and foolish enough to say that its heart is in the right place, or that the government should listen to it, is committing a very serious offence for which they could be prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned as a terrorist”.
The official who spoke to the Guardian said he worried that the ban had harmed the credibility of vital counter-terrorism work.
“The proscription has damaged trust in the government more widely and Prevent specifically – so potentially eroding Prevent’s effectiveness to tackle the real issues even further,” they said.
This is actually very serious. The last thing that those charged with identifying threats need is for the government to create confusion amongst the public, agencies and law officers that is going to hamper their work.
Surely it is time for ministers to properly justify the proscription of Palestine Action and to clarify what exactly that involves or to rethink the decision to ban supporting the organisation altogether.
Sunday, November 23, 2025
The Russian connection
On the Nation Cymru website, Martin Shipton discusses the significance of former Welsh UKIP leader, Nathan Gill's imprisonment and its implication for Reform at the Senedd elections next year.
His view that, while those who are enraptured by what they see as Nigel Farage’s charisma are likely to remain loyal to his personality cult, more level-headed voters will pause to consider the implications of Gill’s criminality, is certainly one that is worth exploring. My concern though, is that it will be mostly be old news by the time people come to vote in six months time.
He writes that, despite Reform’s hierarchy seeking to downplay Gill's significance in their movement, it can’t be denied. He points out that the latest iteration of Farage's party is part of a continuum running from the Europhobic Tendency of the Conservative Party in the time of John Major, through to UKIP when it had success in European Parliament elections. The Brexit Party, formed in the wake of Leave’s victory in the 2016 referendum to “Get Brexit Done”, is the most extreme variant of these cults, and Gill was a member and as close to Farage as it was possible to be:
He was not just an uber-sycophant in ideological terms, happy to do Farage’s bidding without question, but also often physically adjacent to his master like the most obedient of puppies, as many photographs taken when they were MEPs together attest.
I first met Gill in 2011 when I participated in a BBC TV debate broadcast from Aberystwyth during the often overlooked referendum to grant what are now the Senedd primary lawmaking powers. My book on the first 10 years of the National Assembly had just been published and I’d been invited to go on the panel as someone in favour of letting the institution make its own laws.
Gill was on the other side, partnered – and he won’t thank me for mentioning this – by Cardiff Labour councillor Russell Goodway.
Gill’s contribution to the debate was unimpressive. He seemed more interested in re-running old arguments about whether the then National Assembly should exist at all rather than addressing the issue of now that it was in existence whether it should be able to make its own laws or not. His response to questions was robotic, as if he couldn’t or wouldn’t deviate from a script.
Three years later he was elected as a UKIP MEP for Wales – a position he could not have attained without the patronage of Farage. Farage has a notorious tendency to fall out with people he’s working with who don’t follow his line in all respects, but there was never a hint of that with Gill.
He couldn’t be described as bright, although he was good at exploiting the European Parliament’s expenses system, driving all the way from Anglesey to Strasbourg when the Parliament was sitting there to take advantage of the exceptionally generous mileage allowance available to MEPs.
Farage appreciated his puppy-like devotion and was happy to keep him in close proximity as a kind of mascot. Later, for the same reasons, he appointed Gill Reform UK’s leader in Wales.
Guilt by association is not a way of judging people that I normally subscribe to, but in the case of Gill and Farage I can understand the attraction of the concept.
I am not of course suggesting that Farage is guilty of crimes akin to those of Gill. But given the nature of Gill’s relationship with Farage and dependence on him in his role as an MEP it seems inconceivable that Oleg Voloshyn, the pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who corrupted Gill made merely a random and isolated connection with him.
As long ago as 2014, the Guardian published an article that began: “Nigel Farage’s near monthly appearances on state-owned Russia Today have come under scrutiny after his expression of admiration for Vladimir Putin this week.
“In one of his 17 appearances on the channel seen by the Guardian and transmitted since December 2010, he claims Europe is governed not by elected democracies but instead ‘by the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945’.
“The UKIP leader has appeared so frequently that he is cited in literature for the TV station Russia Today as one of their special and ‘endlessly quotable’ British guests. ‘He has been known far longer to the RT audience than most of the British electorate,’ Russia Today claims.
“The UKIP leader did not issue a word of criticism of Russian democracy in any of the Russia Today interviews viewed by the Guardian.”
From Farage and Reform’s point of view, it is certainly an unfortunate perception that Farage’s past association with Russia Today (later RT) indicated a sympathy towards Russia that Gill took in a criminal direction.
Gill's imprisonment is significant in Wales because, as Martin Shipton says, Reform will be a major player in the 2026 Senedd election. Had Gill not been found out, prosecuted and jailed, it is more than likely that he would have been heading back to the Senedd next May. Instead, other Reform candidates will be doing so, most likely in large numbers.
However, we have no idea at the moment who those candidates are, how they will be selected or what their history is. Martin Shipton is most probably right when he says they will not be selected in Wales. That will be organised at party headquarters in London. And with all the delays that have happened, it’s looking doubtful that any candidates will be announced before Christmas.
Are these selections being left so late to prevent Reform's opponents and journalists having time to find dirt on those who do get chosen? Given the party and its predecessor's issues with vetting candidates in the past, it would be hardly surprising if they don't want too much scrutiny.
Saturday, November 22, 2025
An unlikely connection
The plaque is located on the promenade wall near the Hole in the Wall Café — a spot the philosopher is believed to have walked past many times during his visits to the area.
Born in Vienna in 1889, Wittgenstein is widely regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of the modern era.
During these years, Wittgenstein often stayed at guest houses in Langland and Uplands, spending time walking the Gower coastline and developing ideas that would shape his later work.
It’s believed these summers spent in Swansea had a profound influence on Wittgenstein’s thinking.
Wittgenstein is best-known for his work in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of the mind, and the philosophy of language.
Sometimes, we come across the most unlikely connections.
Update: Wiigenstein was of course immortalised in Monty Python's Bruces' Philosophers Song, sung by The Bruces, stereotypical "ocker" Australians of the period. The Bruces are kitted out in khakis, slouch hats and a cork hat, and are faculty members of the Philosophy Department at the fictional University of Woolamaloo (Woolloomooloo is an inner suburb of Sydney, although there is no university there):
Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Freidrich Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel
There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Friday, November 21, 2025
Trial by jury should remain a fundamental right
The Guardian reports that the courts minister has promised to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election, because, she says that criminals are“gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing.
According to the paper, Sarah Sackman claims that drug dealers and career criminals are “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial. She believes that that inaction will be a road to “chaos and ruin”:
Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the justice system in England and Wales in generations – promising the changes will significantly shrink the court backlog by 2029.
The Ministry of Justice is braced for a backlash from barristers and the judiciary as it presses ahead with the measures to tackle a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases, which will create a proposed new judge-only division of the crown court to hear some cases.
Sackman said the “stakes are incredibly high” as she prepared to announce early next month that vast numbers of cases will now be heard by judges and magistrates rather than juries, a response to recommendations in a review by Sir Brian Leveson.
Speaking at Wood Green crown court, Sackman said victims of severe sexual assault were routinely told it could take four years for their cases to come to court.
However, the paper adds that changes to jury trials are opposed by 90% of the Criminal Bar Association, which has warned that ending the right would be an unacceptable price to pay and undermine what is a fundamental principle for British justice. They argue that the British public have a deep faith in the jury system and that changes risk a loss of trust.
Racial equality groups have also expressed concern at the reforms, and at the unrepresentative nature of the judiciary against juries:
Judicial diversity statistics show that ethnic minorities make up 12% of judges in England and Wales, while the representation of black judges has remained unchanged at 1% for a decade. Criminal justice charities have said they expect a reduction in jury trials to lead to more convictions and potential miscarriages of justice.
The Institute for Government’s Cassia Rowland said in a recent report the government and Leveson’s report had thus far failed to make the case for the changes and that many of the issues identified by Leveson would be solved by increased court productivity – fewer trials are being scheduled, but more are being cancelled at the last minute.
Labour's authoritarian tendencies are once more in evidence in these proposals. They would rather remove fundamental rights than put in place the investment that is needed to try and fix the system.
According to the paper, Sarah Sackman claims that drug dealers and career criminals are “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial. She believes that that inaction will be a road to “chaos and ruin”:
Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the justice system in England and Wales in generations – promising the changes will significantly shrink the court backlog by 2029.
The Ministry of Justice is braced for a backlash from barristers and the judiciary as it presses ahead with the measures to tackle a backlog of nearly 80,000 cases, which will create a proposed new judge-only division of the crown court to hear some cases.
Sackman said the “stakes are incredibly high” as she prepared to announce early next month that vast numbers of cases will now be heard by judges and magistrates rather than juries, a response to recommendations in a review by Sir Brian Leveson.
Speaking at Wood Green crown court, Sackman said victims of severe sexual assault were routinely told it could take four years for their cases to come to court.
However, the paper adds that changes to jury trials are opposed by 90% of the Criminal Bar Association, which has warned that ending the right would be an unacceptable price to pay and undermine what is a fundamental principle for British justice. They argue that the British public have a deep faith in the jury system and that changes risk a loss of trust.
Racial equality groups have also expressed concern at the reforms, and at the unrepresentative nature of the judiciary against juries:
Judicial diversity statistics show that ethnic minorities make up 12% of judges in England and Wales, while the representation of black judges has remained unchanged at 1% for a decade. Criminal justice charities have said they expect a reduction in jury trials to lead to more convictions and potential miscarriages of justice.
The Institute for Government’s Cassia Rowland said in a recent report the government and Leveson’s report had thus far failed to make the case for the changes and that many of the issues identified by Leveson would be solved by increased court productivity – fewer trials are being scheduled, but more are being cancelled at the last minute.
Labour's authoritarian tendencies are once more in evidence in these proposals. They would rather remove fundamental rights than put in place the investment that is needed to try and fix the system.
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Is digital ID in trouble?
The paper says that MPs were told that the Government's the policy has been so badly botched that it is now "irrecoverable, warning that "no one really believes" the controversial roll-out is designed to tackle illegal working:
Supporters claim this will be essential in tackling small boats - and say Britain has fallen behind other nations. But Silki Carlo, director of pressure group Big Brother Watch, told the cross-party Home Affairs Select Committee: "I don't think anyone in this room genuinely believes that the mandatory digital ID is about illegal working. Which begs the question, what is it really about, and what will the other uses be?"
And she continued: "I think that, it's likely that the way that this announcement has been managed makes it irrecoverable for this government and potentially for the next five to 10 years."
A petition calling for the proposal to be scrapped has been signed by over 2.9million people. Ms Carlo told the committee: "Your constituents are up in arms about it and I think it is because of the way that it's been introduced, the fact that no one really believes it's about immigration, that it might be about something else."
Keir Starmer has vowed to plough ahead with the proposals, saying it will make the UK's borders more secure and make it easier to prove your identity. MPs were told system - which would be free for users - would "put citizens in control of their own data".
But critics warned about the possibility of abuse and data leaks. James Baker, program manager at Open Rights Group, said: "Imagine the person you disagree with most in politics...
"Imagine what they could do with this type of system if you didn't have the right safeguards in place." And he continued: "This is what worries me about introducing this in a country like the UK is we we don't have a written constitution that has privacy protections."
This policy is going to be hard to sell and it is unlikely that Starmer has the political capital to see it through.
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Labour are seeking “to use children as a weapon”
The paper says that Dubbs, who arrived in the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, described Shabana Mahmood’s proposals as “a shabby thing”:
Mahmood faced a backlash from Labour MPs and refugee charities on Monday as she set out plans for the biggest shake-up of asylum laws in 40 years.
The Home Office said it would consult on measures to allow the removal of financial support from families with children under the age of 18 if they had been refused asylum. Ministers argue that the current system incentivises asylum seekers to subject their children to dangerous crossings.
A policy document published by the department on Monday said: “Our hesitancy around returning families creates particularly perverse incentives. To some the personal benefit of placing a child on a dangerous small boat outweighs the considerable risks of doing so.
“Once in the UK, asylum seekers are able to exploit the fact that they have had children and put down roots in order to thwart removal, even if their claim has been legally refused.”
In response, Lord Dubs told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is a proper case for children, there is a proper case for family reunion when there are children who are on their own,” and he said that “to use children as a weapon as the home secretary is doing I think is a shabby thing”.
Mahmood’s proposals include scrapping permanent refugee status and requiring those arriving in the UK as asylum seekers to stay for 20 years – up from five – before they are eligible to settle permanently.
Dubs said he was “depressed” by the government’s “hard line” and said: “On the whole I think we’re going in the wrong direction.”
He said: “What it will do is to increase tensions in local communities and will make this country less welcome than we have traditionally been to welcome people who come here fleeing for safety. What we need is a bit of compassion in our politics.”
Dubs argued that the changes would cause bigger problems with community cohesion because there would be no incentive for communities to welcome asylum seekers who were here only temporarily. He also said it was wrong to remove children who were born and raised in the UK.
“My particular fear is integration in local communities: if people are here temporarily, and people know they’re here temporarily, then the danger is that local people say, well, you’re only here for a bit, why should we help you to integrate? Why should your kids go to local schools? And so on,” he said, adding that refugees “want to make a contribution to our country, that’s their overwhelming wish”.
The more I see of these proposals the more they appear badly thought through and unworkable.
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
The futile attempt to out-Farage Farage
The paper says that the home secretary’s flurry of proposals are designed to signal purpose, but constitute a wishlist of demands that her department can’t deliver:
Currently, those fleeing persecution are given a five-year right to stay in the country and can apply for settled status after that. Ms Mahmood wants refugees to stay in the country initially only for a 30-month period, and then review their status to see whether they will be allowed to remain in the country for another 30 months. After two decades in Britain, they could apply to stay here permanently.
Denmark is held up as the model. A decade ago a centre-left government there was under pressure, with a surging populist right and immigration dominating voters’ concerns. Danish Social Democrats claimed that getting tough on refugees helped them win the election. However, the reality was messier. Copenhagen stripped Syrians of protection, yet could not remove them, leaving people stuck in “deportation centres”, unable to work or live normally. The result was a permanently marginalised population in enforced limbo.
The British government now proposes to repeat this error, only at vastly greater scale. Ms Mahmood’s Home Office aims to reassess tens of thousands of refugees every two and a half years. With around 100,000 asylum claims annually – and many from countries that have a high grant rate – the system would soon need to conduct around 70,000 reviews each year. The Refugee Council says that the Home Office would need to review the status of 1.4 million people by 2035 at a cost of £872m. Yet this is the same state that cannot currently process the 50,000 appeals already in the queue, where waits hover around a year and tribunal judges are in short supply. Building a new bureaucracy to adjudicate applicants’ status is not bold politics, but magical thinking.
Ms Mahmood indicates that she wants to change the European convention on human rights, not abandon it. It is the Conservatives and Reform UK that talk of going it alone. But meaningful change cannot be made unilaterally. Any solo attempt would be self-defeating, risking Northern Ireland’s peace and undermining the post-Brexit deal with the EU.
Labour could achieve something substantial that voters care about and close the asylum hotels. Not by 2029, but by next year. The Refugee Council says the maths is simple: 40% of hotel residents come from five countries – Sudan, Eritrea, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria – from where between 60% and 98% are granted asylum. A one-off scheme to give permission to stay for a limited period, subject to security checks, would empty hotels rapidly. Rishi Sunak did just this 2023. There would be no need to engage with a damaging arms race with the far right, which would see Labour lose progressive support. It would, however, solve the single asylum-related issue that the public cares most about.
The Labour government is attempting to out-Farage Farage. As the paper says, copying Reform UK’s cruelty on asylum lets their leader own the issue, outbid Labour and drive the debate rightward at no cost. Worse, It gifts rightwingers the advantage, while setting itself up to look cruel and incompetent.
Monday, November 17, 2025
Labour's lazy narrative
Their rationale apparently, is that protecting animals such as dormice, badgers, hedgehogs, otters and nightingales, and rare habitats such as wetlands and ancient woodlands from developers is harming growth.
However, one House of Commons committee has carried out an inquiry that has come to a contrary conclusion.
The Guardian reports that the inquiry has conccluded that nature is not a blocker to housing growth, a view in direct conflict with claims made by ministers:
Toby Perkins, the Labour chair of the environmental audit committee, said nature was being scapegoated, and that rather than being a block to growth, it was necessary for building resilient towns and neighbourhoods.
In its report on environmental sustainability and housing growth, the cross-party committee challenged the “lazy narrative”, which has been promoted by UK government ministers, that nature was a blocker or an inconvenience to delivering housing.
The report said severe skills shortages in ecology, planning and construction would be what made it impossible for the government to deliver on its housebuilding ambitions.
Perkins said: “The government’s target to build 1.5m homes by the end of this parliament is incredibly ambitious. Achieving it alongside our existing targets on climate and sustainability – which are set in law – will require effort on a scale not seen before.
“That certainly will not be achieved by scapegoating nature, claiming that it is a ‘blocker’ to housing delivery. We are clear in our report: a healthy environment is essential to building resilient towns and cities. It must not be sidelined.”
Experts say the planning and infrastructure bill – in its final stages before being passed into law – rolls back environmental law to allow developers to sidestep the need for surveys and mitigation on the site of any environmental damage by paying into a central nature recovery fund for improvements to be made elsewhere.
The paper adds that the committee had concerns that the legislation as drafted would mean the government would miss its legally defined target to halt the decline of nature by 2030 and reverse it by 2042:
The report found that local planning authorities were severely underresourced in ecological skills. It heard evidence that staff at Natural England were “stretched to their limits”, that the skills needed to deliver the ecological aspects of planning reforms “simply do not exist at the scale, quality or capacity that is needed”.
Labour's commitment to the environment has never been weaker.
