Labour will make sweeping changes to human rights law and the asylum appeal system in a bid to solve the small boats crisis, the Home Secretary is vowing.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said restricting the ability of illegal migrants and foreign criminals to claim the right to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was needed to “restore order” to Britain’s borders.
In a slew of changes which will be set out in Parliament on Monday, the Home Secretary will promise new legislation to reform the application of the ECHR, overhaul the asylum appeals process, and update the Modern Slavery Act to stop illegal migrants making “bogus” claims to avoid deportation.
Also among the new rules will be that asylum seekers who arrive illegally but successfully apply to stay will have to wait 20 years before they can settle permanently.
Refugee status is to be treated as temporary and checks will be made every 30 months. If a home country is considered safe in that time, the migrant will be returned.
It comes amid public anger at successive governments’ inability to stop small boats crossing the Channel, with more than 39,000 migrants having crossed so far this year.
Further signs of the level of public anger surfaced yesterday as hundreds of people marched in Crowborough, Sussex, to protest against plans to house asylum seekers at a former military base on the outskirts of the town.
The disused army camp is one of the bases selected to house migrants rather than send them to hotels, such as the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, which earlier this year saw several protests after one of the residents was accused of sexual assault.
Illegal immigration has fed support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK – which has led in every major poll for seven months – and Labour insiders believe addressing the issue is crucial to their party retaining power at the next election.
Mahmood said on Sunday that illegal migration was “tearing our country apart” and that wholesale reform was needed “if we are to retain public consent for having an asylum system at all”. She said she sees tackling illegal immigration as a “moral mission”.
Under the changes announced on Monday, she will promise to legislate to reform how Article 8 of the ECHR is interpreted by UK courts.
The Home Office said Article 8 – the right to family and private life – is often used by illegal migrants and foreign criminals to “game the system” to prevent their removal.
The department said its legislation would rebalance “public interest tests in favour of the British people’s expectations”, asserting the public’s right to be safe as more important than a criminal’s right to family life in the UK.
The legislation will also state that a family connection under the article relates to “immediate family”, such as a parent or child, which the Home Office said would block migrants from using “dubious connections to stay in the UK”.
Another Home Office criticism of Article 8 is the claim that migrants can accrue ever more rights the longer they delay their removal from Britain.
To address this, the department said that if a person does not leave the country, “any further private or family rights accrued after that date” will not override the public interest in favour of their removal, “other than in the most exceptional cases”.
Article 3, which protects against inhuman and degrading treatment, is also being targeted by Mahmood. The Government argues it has “expanded beyond what is reasonable”, with some criminals blocking deportation through the courts on the basis that they will lose access to NHS healthcare.
The Home Office said it would resolve this by working with other European countries to “address the over-expansive application of Article 3”.
Under the changes, migrants will be restricted to a single appeal against a refusal to let them stay. All grounds for appeal will have to be made on the first occasion rather than making repeated challenges over an extended period.
An independent body inspired by the Danish asylum system will be set up to fast-track the deportation of dangerous criminals and “cases with little prospect of success”.
And Mahmood will also threaten Trump-style visa bans on Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo if they do not start taking back more illegal migrants and criminals, The Times reports.
Legislation to amend the Modern Slavery Act is proposed amid claims it is being misused to block deportations.
Unveiling the changes, Mahmood said the “pace and scale” of change caused by migration had “destabilised communities” and was “making our country a more divided place”.
“The public rightly expect that we can determine who enters this country, and who must leave,” she said.
“To maintain the generosity that allows us to provide sanctuary, we must restore order and control.”
Sir Keir Starmer said: “Britain has always been a fair, tolerant and compassionate country – and this government will always defend those values.
“But in a more volatile world, people need to know our borders are secure and rules are enforced.”
The policies will be controversial with some Labour MPs on the left of the party. Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central, told The i Paper: “The dehumanisation of people in desperation is the antithesis of what the Labour Party is about.”
But a Labour MP in a constituency facing a strong Reform challenge welcomed the changes, saying: “This is one of the top three issues on the doorstep and one that needs resolving to neuter the risk of the extreme right.”
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Ministers have promised three new “safe and legal” routes for refugees “once the Government has restored control of Britain’s borders”.
The i Paper understands that the Government plans to open these routes during the current parliament, which could run until 2029.
However, the routes will initially be subject to tight numbers caps, which will only be scaled up if sufficient progress has been made in reducing small boat crossings.
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