Labour MPs and supporters ‘outraged’ by slew of harsh anti-immigration measures
On 10 February, the Home Office released the first-ever footage of people boarding a charter jet for deportation from the UK.
They are led off a bus and up the stairway to the jet by Border Force staff in high-vis vests. Their faces are blurred. One of the men is in shackles.
The videos and images of this previously secretive process are part of a flurry of anti-immigration measures introduced by the Labour government in recent weeks. The week before, the party placed a series of adverts on social media with Reform-style branding, vaunting its deportation figures.
The shift in messaging has been partly attributed to Labour Together, a think tank founded by Morgan McSweeney, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, who has made it his top priority to combat the rise of the hard-right Reform party.
The think tank released a migration policy paper in January that called for the government to adopt a strict Australian-style migration plan and set caps on immigration figures.
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However, the campaign prompted a fierce backlash, with MPs and rights groups accusing the government of using “performative” stunts to attract Reform voters following a surge in support for Nigel Farage's party.
Rights groups have warned that the move could inflame tensions in communities and see a resurgence of last summer’s anti-immigration riots.
Several Labour MPs have also said that the messaging is unlikely to lure Reform voters. Diane Abbott described Labour’s attempt to style themselves as “Reform-lite” a “big mistake", and Clive Lewis warned that the Home Office was “enabling the mainstreaming of racism”.
A letter signed by nearly 1,000 MPs and trade unionists decried the measures and accused the government of “copying the performative cruelty of failed Tory governments”.
“There is a totally mistaken idea that if you feed Reform’s narratives, somehow they’ll go away,” a spokesperson for the Labour Campaign for Free Movement (LCFM), a migrants’ rights network of Labour members and supporters, told MEE.
“The only way to really defeat Reform and defeat the politics it represents is to deliver for people, to make people's lives better, and that means a certain amount of economic radicalism.”
According to LCFM, the Labour leadership’s anti-immigration drive has galvanised people across the party.
“It's not just on the left of the party, right across the party, people are totally astonished and outraged by the policy of performative cruelty,” the spokesperson said.
“There is a real feeling that there needs to be concerted pushback, and we will aim to be a part of that."
Not just posturing
But Labour’s increasingly hostile stance on migration is not just posturing. The government is funnelling up to £329m into its deportation drive and has made changes to its citizenship application guidance to exclude people who arrive in the UK irregularly.
On 10 February, Free Movement, a blog that provides information to people affected by immigeration control, revealed that the Home Office had quietly altered guidance for visa and immigration staff for citizenship applications to preclude anyone who arrived in the UK via a “dangerous route”.
Described as a “clarification”, the amendment to the “good character” guidance - a requirement relating to criminal convictions that adults and children over the age of 10 must meet in British citizenship applications - states: “A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey, will normally be refused citizenship."
“A dangerous journey includes, but is not limited to, travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance,” it clarifies.
While the guidance previously stated that irregular entry that occurred more than 10 years ago could not be grounds for refusal, the amendment states that an applicant who arrived via such a route will be rejected “regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place”.
On 12 February, Lord Hanson, a minister of state at the Home Office, stated that individuals who entered the UK irregularly can still apply for citizenship and mitigating factors will be considered.
But Shanaz Ali, a solicitor at the law firm Bindmans, says the rules are still unclear.
“There is a presumption that, hopefully, the Home Office will take into account factors, and there might be some discretion, but it's just not as clear as it was in previous guidance,” Ali told MEE.
“The addition is a really short paragraph that says applications submitted [from] 10 February onwards where someone has entered illegally will normally be refused, so it doesn't really tell you what sort of mitigating factors that the Home Office will take into account or expressly that they will at all.”
Lack of clarity
Ali said that, since the change, Bindmans has been contacted by multiple people concerned about their future in the UK.
“So many people have been here for more than 10 years and are now at the point of applying for citizenship and are now worried to apply,” Ali said.
She added that the lack of clarity will deter many from applying, as the application fee - coming to £1500 - is non-refundable.
“The government continues to say that individuals and families need to travel to the UK legally and come through safe routes, but there are no available safe routes for so many people,” Ali said.
“Instead of making these policy changes, the government needs to make safe routes for people who are fleeing from terrible situations.”
Xuan, who wished to use a pseudonym, told MEE that his wife had been preparing to apply for indefinite leave to remain when they heard about the change in guidance.
She had been trafficked to the UK from Vietnam in 2009 and forced into sex work. She did this for a number of years, and suffered physical abuse.
“She’s been waiting for over 16 years now,” Xuan said. “She’s been suffering from poor mental health since she was trafficked, and now this new law has made it even worse."
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