Farrukh Dhondy | UK Is Trying New Ways to Halt Rise in Immigration, Asylum-Seekers

“No, nothing can bring back the hour

No apologies, retractions or tears

The seasons rot the brightest flaming flower

Obliterate even wonderful past years

The splendour in the grass will fade

And every glorious petal fall

The happy times that you degrade

Denying all you can recall.”

From The Divine Tragedy, by Bachchoo

The world is what it is… and today it’s almost everywhere in a sorry state.

Wars and persecution have driven millions from their homes and native lands to seek peace, safety, freedom from starvation or persecution and even a decent, if barely substantial, standard of living.

This has become an age of mass migrations of populations fleeing war-torn countries or cruel regimes – Afghanistan, Sudan… the list overwhelms the word count of this column.

In Britain, undoubtedly fuelled by right-wing bigotry and racist ideology, the largest looming political controversy is about “immigration”. The propaganda and opportunism around it have caused nationwide controversies. In the words of the UK’s home secretary for the last 80 days, Shabana Mahmood, these “are tearing the UK apart”!

Her governing Labour Party faces a real challenge from the newly formed Reform Party under the leadership of veteran Brexiteer Nigel Farage, an outfit that can justifiably be described as neo-fascist. The public that, according to every popular poll, supports Reform does so because of its extremist stance on “immigration”.

I put quote marks around the word, because it means so many different things.

The foremost in the public eye is the growing number of “asylum seekers” who arrive on the shores of Britain, mainly from France, by crossing the English Channel in overcrowded rubber dinghies and are then picked up and given shelter in various forms of accommodation till their claims to remain in the country are laboriously processed.

Thousands of these asylum-seekers, most of them fleeing from death and disaster and some of them manifestly here to get away from abject poverty and live in a relatively prosperous environment, are of course housed and fed at the British taxpayers’ expense.

Ms Mahmood, who was promoted to her ministerial position as an answer to Reform’s anti-immigration perspective and programme, is already talking tough on the issue. She says she’ll stop asylum seekers being housed in hotels.

She will hasten the vetting process and those who are refused permission to remain will be packed off to their countries of origin. If these countries refuse to accept their returned citizens, then Britain will not grant entry visas to any of their citizens.

All those whose application to stay is approved will not get permanent residence but their status will be reviewed every thirty months, and if their country of origin is deemed to be “safe” once again, they will be offered financial incentives to leave, and if they refuse, they will be forcibly deported.

This policy of refusing visas to citizens of countries that won’t accept its repatriated citizens already applies to Angola, the Congo and Namibia.

Ms Mahmood also quoted a list of countries, including India, which are deemed “safe” to send illegal immigrants back to.

She has also specified that permanent residence will not be granted to immigrants allowed to remain after the present “temporary” period of five years. This period of assimilation and granting of permanent residence will be extended to twenty years.

Ms Mahmood has also proposed that in discussion with other signatories to the European Court of Human Rights, she will attempt to modify the rules governing the right of immigrants to bring their relatives as residents when they are granted leave to remain. She has said that if specific and humane modifications are made to this right, it will deter illegal immigrants from bringing their children across on the hazardous Channel boats.

This year 36,000 people crossed the Channel illegally, a larger number than in 2024, but 900 fewer than in 2022 under Hedgie Sunak’s Tory government.

Ms Mahmood’s legislative plans, designed to undermine Reform’s appeal to voters and to bring about unity in what she says is a deeply divided country, are not popular with all Labour MPs. Several have expressed deep misgivings, and some have accused her of adopting inhumane Tory policies. Danny Kruger, a Tory MP who defected to Reform, publicly says he welcomes her plans and invites her to follow him and join Reform. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory Leader of the Opposition, says she supports the plans and will get her party to see the measures are passed by Parliament.

The anti-asylum-seeker lobby slides into and is regularly confounded with a general unthinking racism. Robert Jenrick, a Tory MP who fancies himself, and is widely tipped as the MP who will oust Kemi Badenoch from the leadership of the Tories, made a strange announcement after a visit to Handsworth, a district of Birmingham. He said he was walking its streets and didn’t see even one white face. What did he mean? Of course, black and Asian people all over the country have congregated together and formed communities for diverse reasons: some for that distinct feeling of belonging to a communal neighbourhood, some because the housing stock is within range for low-income earners, some because the shopping and entertainment are part of their culture…

If Mr Jenrick ventures to Stamford Hill in north London, he will certainly see some white faces, but most with orthodox Jewish uniforms and men with locks and women with wigs? Would he be appalled?