Thursday, February 13, 2025
The nasty party?
The Guardian reports that the Home Office has been accused of quietly blocking thousands of refugees from applying for citizenship if they arrived in the UK by small boats or hidden in vehicles.
The paper says that guidance for staff assessing people who have applied for naturalisation says that, since Monday, applicants who have “made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship”:
The Refugee Council said that the move will potentially bar 71,000 people who have successfully applied for asylum from claiming UK citizenship. A leading immigration barrister has claimed that it is a breach of international law.
The development will be seen as the latest evidence that Keir Starmer’s government has adopted a hardline “hostile environment” stance on asylum to fight off a poll surge by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Senior Tories claim that the government’s new border security bill, which passed its second reading on Monday, will repeal parts of the Illegal Migration Act, which would stop irregular arrivals from becoming British citizens.
One Labour MP has joined charities in calling for the government to reverse the guidance with immediate effect.
Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow, wrote on X: “This should be changed asap. If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them [a] route to become a British citizen.”
The changes, first disclosed by the Free Movement blog, were introduced to guidance for visa and immigration staff on Monday.
Described as a “clarification” to case worker guidance when assessing if a claimant is of “good character’, it says: “Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally will normally be refused, regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place.”
In another new entry to the same guidance, it says: “A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship.
“A dangerous journey includes, but is not limited to, travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance.”
Most people who enter the UK on small boats are eventually granted refugee status. A majority of those granted refugee status eventually claim British citizenship. Seeking UK citizenship costs £1,630 an application, and there is no right of appeal against a refusal.
Colin Yeo, an immigration barrister and editor of the blog, wrote on Bluesky: “This is bad, full stop. It creates a class of person who are forever excluded from civic life no matter how long they live here. It’s also a clear breach of the refugee convention.”
Article 31 of the UN refugee convention says: “The contracting states shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees.”
Enver Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said the move “flies in the face of reason. The British public want refugees who have been given safety in our country to integrate into and contribute to their new communities.
“So many refugees over many generations have become proud hard-working British citizens as doctors, entrepreneurs and other professionals. Becoming a British citizen has helped them give back to their communities and this should be celebrated, not prevented.”
These changes go even further than the conservatives ever did, and leave the Labour Party open to charges that they are the new nasty party.
As this article in the Independent says even one of Nigel Farage’s long-term and loyal allies, Gawain Towler, has expressed shock at the way Labour are managing immigration and has suggested that Keir Starmer’s party is being “nasty” by publishing videos of migrant raids.
The paper says that Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness, adding that even before this new wave of anti-migrant policies was properly unleashed in November Labour peer Ann Mallalieu was warning Starmer that he was turning them into the “nasty party”:
Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government.
But that is as far as it goes.
Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”.
One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”
This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales.
Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime.
Whether these tactics will impact on Reform's support has to be seen, but it appears that Labour has decided that selling its soul is part of the solution to its current problems with the polls.
The paper says that Towler is not alone in calling out the nastiness, adding that even before this new wave of anti-migrant policies was properly unleashed in November Labour peer Ann Mallalieu was warning Starmer that he was turning them into the “nasty party”:
Labour MPs are publicly and privately pleased that some of the more egregious Tory policies, like Rwanda deportations and detention of children, have been dropped by this government.
But that is as far as it goes.
Privately a number of them are complaining that the government under Starmer is “deeply unlikable” and “behaving too much like Reform-lite”.
One new MP even said: “We look like the nasty party now.”
This is playing badly in the polls and in core areas like Scotland and Wales.
Diane Abbott, writing over the weekend for The Independent, is one of the few to publicly say Labour is becoming Reform-lite, but others are privately pondering whether there may need to be a change of leader sometime.
Whether these tactics will impact on Reform's support has to be seen, but it appears that Labour has decided that selling its soul is part of the solution to its current problems with the polls.
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Why is anyone surprised about Labour's attitude to immigration and refugees/asylum seekers? Labour has form on this going way back. One of the Liberal Party's finest hours was opposing Labour's bill to deny entry to the UK to Asian Commonwealth citizens in Uganda fleeing oppression. Labour in government has always kowtowed to the racists on these matters. SDtarmer is merely following a despicable tradition.
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