Shabana Mahmood will be forced to water down her rhetoric on hardline migration reforms because it no longer makes political sense for Labour to try and “out-Reform Reform”, some of her supporters believe.
The Home Secretary is on Thursday expected to deliver a major speech in which she will make a progressive case to Labour MPs and potential voters for her hardline asylum and immigration reforms amid threats of a backbench revolt.
Downing Street on Wednesday refused to deny suggestions No 10 had asked Mahmood to tone down her tough rhetoric but insisted there would be no shift on the policies on asylum and immigration she announced last year.
A Home Office source insisted there would be “no softening of policy” but acknowledged “we are making the Labour argument now”, in a sign that Mahmood’s rhetoric would change.
But some senior Labour figures, who count themselves as allies of the Home Secretary but are not working with her directly, believe Mahmood will have to go further and soften some of the hardest edges of her policies.
Shabana ‘risks losing people we need’
One senior party insider said that after coming third in the Gorton and Denton by-election behind victors the Greens and Nigel Farage’s Reform that it now no longer makes sense to continue with the strategy promoted by Starmer’s former No 10 chief aide, Morgan McSweeney, of trying to persuade centre-right voters to back Labour.
Sir Keir Starmer’s political hopes now instead rest on uniting progressives behind Labour as the “anti-Reform” party of choice, instead of seeing the centre-left vote split with the Greens and Liberal Democrats, they said.
“The one thing you can’t do to attract the anti-Reform vote is to convince them that you are going to be stronger than Farage on the things Farage campaigns on, you can’t out-Reform Reform,” the insider said.
“Shabana is very clever at knowing where the public is at but I think that what our politicians and a lot of our strategy people have not got their heads round is, you can only go so far in keeping those people happy without showing too much leg and losing too much of your base.
“That’s the risk that Shabana has got – losing the people that we need and chasing people we can never get.”
Asked if Mahmood would need to make concessions on her plans, the insider said: “I think so, I think she’s going to have to.
“It’s such a dangerous and difficult moment to come forward with something that’s going to sound like you are pandering to Reform when in the same breath your best electoral chance is to coalesce the anti-Reform voters.”
Policy plans may also have to be softened
A senior Labour MP, who is also a supporter of Mahmood, said the Home Secretary may have to soften her plans to make it harder for immigrants to get settled status in the UK.
Mahmood last year announced plans to double the default period of time immigrants must live in the UK before receiving indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years, and apply the changes retrospectively to migrants who arrived in the country from 2021, to deal with concerns about the so-called “Boriswave”.
The qualifying period will be shortened or lengthened depending on a number of criteria depending on, for example, how much tax people are paying or whether they are in a high-skilled or public service role like doctors and nurses, or a low-skilled job.
But the MP said the new system will need “flexibility” as Labour backbenchers are concerned about the changes being unfair to those who are contributing and have built lives here.
“Where people will struggle in the party is on the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) routes because she is going back to 2021 in retrospect,” the MP said.
“She has got to be clear who it doesn’t apply to – we have got to be clear it doesn’t apply to skilled migration, it’s not about those care workers.”
The MP added that there would need to be “flexibility” to ensure people are not unfairly penalised.
“So if your five years is nearly up and you’ve got three months left, are you going to be penalised [when the period extends to 10 years]? That would be crazy.”
The Prime Minister’s political spokesman told reporters on Wednesday Mahmood is in “full agreement” with Starmer that “this is an open, tolerant and generous country, and that she’s proud of the fact that we’ve always offered sanctuary to those fleeing peril”.
But the spokesman insisted the policy would not change: “Those policies are government policies and are the policies that have been set”. policies that have been set.”
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