Keir Starmer addressed members of the Labor Party at the conference in Liverpool on 30 September to invite them to fight “for the soul of the country”, against the enemy represented by the reformist far right, led by Nigel Farage. He then announced decisions “with which MPs would not always feel comfortable”, in reference to the issue that is currently tearing apart the British left: the control of irregular immigration. That day alone, another 531 people arrived on English shores after crossing the Channel.
The new raft of measures announced last week by the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has brought a serious dose of unease for many Labor MPs. It proposes, among other things, to increase the period required to obtain permanent residence in the United Kingdom from five to twenty years; a review every 30 months of the situation of each asylum seeker, with the possibility of sending them back to their country of origin if the Government understands that the risk situation has already disappeared; and the decision to deport minors born in British territory together with their parents.
Up to 20 deputies rebelled, with harsh criticism, terms such as “cruelty” or “disgust”, and accusations that the government was imitating the fascist rhetoric of the far right.
“I find it disappointing and depressing that the government takes such a hard line, especially when children could be among its victims. And I don’t think it is necessary. We will not defeat the reforms by trying to be as tough as them. They will always outdo us. What we must do is remain faithful to some fundamental principles such as the Geneva Convention or the European Convention on Human Rights”, complains Alf Dubs (Lord Dubs), the Labor politician who today belongs to the House of Lords, in a conversation with EL PAÍS. He was one of many Jewish children who arrived in the UK, from then Czechoslovakia, in that operation called Kindertransport who managed to save them from the Nazi threat. Dubs has dedicated much of his life to advocacy and helping refugees.
“Spain has shown that there is a way to move forward on this issue without having to end up falling into all these hysterical policies. Far right parties across Europe are exploiting the refugee issue to gain votes. We see it in Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Germany or France. And now it has arrived in the UK. Of course we have to be tough when it comes to fighting mafias that traffic immigrants, but we have to adhere to fundamental legal principles. The idea that people can be deported” in this country for almost 20 years and belong to another era. How do you integrate communities? What do we do with the children who are born here? Do we deport them together with their parents? All these dilemmas are unacceptable,” Dubs laments.
Minister Mahmood is Pakistani and Muslim. His parents were also undocumented immigrants when they arrived in the UK and settled in Birmingham. The Starmer government believes that its history and its firm and powerful oratory can serve as a shield to stop domestic criticism of its heavy-handedness against irregular immigration. She herself, who has received more than one racist insult during her life, presented the new measures as her and the Labor Party’s “moral mission” to stop the current division in the country.
“Is this an issue that divides the country? If you look at all the polls, the answer has to be yes. Immigration is the issue of most concern, and opinions on it are quite polarized. And it’s something that’s not going to disappear from public debate overnight, so in that sense, it was inevitable that the Labor government would try to articulate an answer,” explains Minhea Cuibus, an analyst and researcher at the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, a one of the most reliable and rigorous in analyzing and providing statistics on the phenomenon in the United Kingdom.
“When we look at the restrictions imposed on asylum seekers or their families, some of them are certainly severe. They could be described as far-right. But other aspects are more progressive in nature, such as developing safer rules to facilitate legal entry into the country. The Labor government is trying to demonstrate that there is a middle way to deal with this problem, a way that can combat uncontrolled immigration and at the same time welcome those entering the country through formal channels. Will this approach work? I’m not sure,” he admits.
The unrest within the Labor Party is evident. The immigration breakthrough comes on top of the social cuts proposed by the Starmer government, which had to be corrected to quell a rebellion in the parliamentary group. No one disputes the need to control irregular immigration. What worries many on the British left is the populist rhetoric with which it is proposed, and the excessive cruelty in some of the proposed measures.
“The Labor Party is currently terrified by Reform’s lead in all the polls. As things stand, the left would be completely wiped out in a general election. And the Starmer government is convinced that issues such as immigration are of concern to all those voters of the so-called ‘red wall’ (in the Midlands and the north of England), who are socially conservative, but who have traditionally supported Labour. And who today are attracted to Nigel Farage,” explains Rohan McWilliam, professor of history at Anglia Ruskin. University, specializing in the history of the British left and the Labor Party.
“This is a truly extraordinary moment, a unique crossroads in the history of this very recent government. It is comparable to the internal rebellion of the parliamentary group that has already suffered when it tried to impose social cuts in support for work-related disabilities. The proposals on immigration have sparked widespread rejection, and not only among the more left wing of the Labor Party, but also among the moderate MPs of the current majority”, says McWilliam, who does not rule out that internal pressures will once again lead to the rectification of the Starmer government.
In the first half of the 1990s, when the first Gulf War, the break-up of Yugoslavia and the civil war in Somalia broke out, the United Kingdom accepted 40,000 asylum requests in five years. In 2023 alone, 50,000 people obtained it. Today, more than 100,000 people are in the middle of this process, waiting for an answer. Many live in hotels that have now become a constant target of attacks by the far right.
Of all the sources consulted by EL PAÍS, it is striking that it was Michael Heseltine, the historic conservative politician, ally and rival of Margaret Thatcher, who at 92 years of age dared more than anyone else to put his finger on the problem and call things by their name.
“Do you see this?” he says, holding up his cell phone with his hand raised. “They are accessible in every corner of the world and anyone can see through them the standard of living of countries like France, Spain, Italy or the United Kingdom. If you are a young person who sees all this from another part of the world, you will say to yourself: ‘I want to be part of this, I want my family to share it too and I will take the risk necessary to get there. These are the people who come to our countries and who today play an essential role in our economies and our well-being,’ explains Heseltine.
She turns out to be, among all the British voices, the only one to remember that there was a time when the United Kingdom understood that it could not respond to global challenges alone, an idea that the current governing Labor Party has put on the back burner.
“You are too young to remember how the Americans launched, at the end of the Second World War, the Marshall Plan, to rebuild a devastated Europe. I think that today we should do the same, combine all European aid programs into one and design policies aimed at supporting the economies of the countries from which immigrants come. To offer hope and opportunities, and convince them to stay there and not make such a risky journey”, suggests the old British politician. Heseltine is one of the few who today has no problem calling Farage a fascist and comparing his xenophobic message to that of historical figures that his generation suffered, such as Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Union of Fascists, or Enoch Powell, the politician who poisoned the public debate in the United Kingdom with that famous speech called “Rivers of Blood”.
