When Labour took office in July 2024, I was hopeful that a more compassionate approach to migration might replace the hostile environment which characterised the Conservatives. The cancellation of the Rwanda scheme was a good start.
However, to say I’ve been disappointed since then is an understatement. Labour’s description of the Rwanda project as an “expensive gimmick” was perhaps a clue. There was not one word expressing an empathetic response to these inhumane plans. And this lack of compassion exemplifies what has followed.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has made it his “personal mission to smash the people smuggling gangs”. As chief executive of the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, pointed out, there is little difference between Sunak’s “stop the boats” and Starmer’s “smash the gangs”. Of course, the people smugglers need to be challenged and undermined. But neither slogan expresses any understanding of what makes desperate people take to small boats in the first place.
Starmer clearly wants to appear to be tough on migration, but this approach smacks of desperation to appease Reform, Farage and the far-right, rather than a coherent set of policies that might actually address some of the underlying causes of asylum-seeking. At least Tony Blair emphasised that being tough on the causes of crime was equally important.
Dehumanising deportation videos
What’s shocked me the most recently is the filming of refugees being rounded up and deported. I was abroad when the images were released and I couldn’t believe that the footage was from the UK – it’s straight out of the Trump playbook.
When Theresa May was Home Secretary, ‘Go Home’ vans were a controversial campaign to encourage illegal migrants to “go home or face arrest”. But the public sharing of videos of migrants being deported is actually worse than anything the Tories did.
Unsurprisingly, this cruel gimmick – the government’s answer to Rwanda? – has been met with condemnation, both from within Labour’s own ranks and from charities. NGO Detention Action called it “an act of performative cruelty”, while Labour MP Clive Lewis said the Home Office was “mainstreaming racism”.
Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer commented: “Those involved should be searching their consciences to ask if such breath-taking cruelty is really worth it all for the sake of aping the rhetoric of Reform.”
This heartless “Deportation TV” is all within months of the terrible riots, when refugees were nearly burnt alive in a hotel after racists and right-wing agitators stirred up hatred on social media.
Denying citizenship to small boat refugees
Another draconian measure being introduced by Labour is to refuse citizenship for anyone arriving in small boats. The Refugee Council estimates that this would affect 71,000 people who have already been granted asylum in the UK.
The BBC reported on a Syrian refugee who has been granted asylum after a dangerous journey to the UK, but under new rules can never become a citizen, despite working, paying rent and tax. He and others would be left in perpetual limbo.
The new Home Office guidance has met with huge opposition from Labour members, MPs and trade unions. In a joint statement to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, they argue that this measure would “breach Britain’s international obligations to respect the right to asylum and guarantee safe routes”.
Charities and faith leaders have warned that this vicious policy will “breed division and distrust” and “risks playing into a toxic politics that pits ‘us vs them’” rather than trying to integrate refugees into British life.
Cutting overseas aid to increase defence spending is a false economy
In addition, Keir Starmer’s decision to slash the foreign aid budget by around £6bn per year in order to increase spending on defence, just days before meeting Donald Trump, has also met with fierce criticism, including by Cabinet ministers. Starmer has been accused of pandering to Trump, who had just cut USAID, as well as Reform supporters.
Anneliese Dodds resigned as international development minister as a result, arguing: “Ultimately, these cuts will remove food and healthcare from desperate people – deeply harming the UK’s reputation.”
Locally, Brighton Labour councillor Bruno De Oliveira has resigned from the party in protest against cuts to the aid budget. He said:
“The decision to slash its aid budget is not just an economic recalibration, it’s a humanitarian backslide with serious consequences for the health and wellbeing of people fleeing war.”
Starmer’s rash announcement breaks Labour’s manifesto commitment to “rebuild Britain’s reputation on international development”. While there may be a good reason to increase defence spending at the moment, this could have been funded by higher taxes for the rich or using some of the confiscated Russian assets.
It’s also a false economy to cut aid to countries from where refugees are currently fleeing if the aim is to prevent more people arriving in small boats. As a Welsh Labour MP, speaking anonymously, commented:
“Cutting this financial lifeline will lead to the world becoming a more unsafe place as people in crisis, whether through poverty, persecution or war, will feel obliged to leave their home country to seek a better life.”
With Labour’s deplorable U-turns and back-tracking on international aid, green investment, support for WASPI women and other key election promises, there seems little left of their core policies. Despite widespread support for Starmer’s stance on Ukraine, proposed cuts to disability and other benefits will add to the increasing disquiet among Labour MPs, party members and the general public about issues closer to home.
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