There’s no win for Labour in playing the government’s game on asylum seekers

Appearing on Good Morning Britain yesterday, Angela Rayner was asked whether she supported the GPS tagging of asylum seekers, which was introduced in its current form by the government last year. In response, the deputy Labour leader said she supported such an approach in some circumstances: “We should know where people are, and we should support them.” This position is in line with what Keir Starmer said when asked about the issue in December last year (the Labour leader said there is an argument for it in some cases “whilst the [asylum] claim is being processed”). It is not, however, in line with the recommendations of a recent report put out by charities Medical Justice, Bail for Immigration Detainees and the Public Law Project, which termed the measure a form of “psychological torture”.

Rayner was being asked about this following the formation of a violent mob outside a hotel housing asylum seekers in Knowlsey, Merseyside, on Saturday night. Rayner seemed more confident condemning the “violence and thuggery” that had been on show than she was confirming her support for GPS tagging. Hope Not Hate stressed that this took place “in a context of swelling anti-migrant hatred” and that far-right groups Patriotic Alternative and Britain First had also been targeting the hotel. This violence followed the firebombing of a migrant centre in Dover last October.

Immigration – particularly asylum claims by people who have arrived in small boats – is something the government wants to talk about. Rishi Sunak madestopping small boats one of his core five pledges. Suella Braverman has spoken about the Rwanda deportation plan as her “dream” and “obsession”. Two weeks ago, the Home Secretary told the Telegraph that she viewed stopping small boats as essential to winning the next election, saying: “I believe my reputation and the reputation of the Conservative Party is on the line.” Braverman has been criticised for spurring anti-migrant sentiment by warning of an “invasion”. The Conservatives talk about civil liberties-busting migration strategies like Labour talk about the NHS: with real passion.

Engaging in a register that you are not certain of, and that your opponents are, is one of the surest routes to political failure. You are likely to get the tone wrong, to over- or under- commit, and end up as the political equivalent of a speech-to-text programme that has no idea how normal human conversation sounds (consider Owen Smith’s attempt, when running against Jeremy Corbyn, to do leftist foreign policy by asserting that he would hold talks with ISIS). There’s no win in playing the government’s hard (and often illegal) game on this issue, and it seems implausible that former human rights lawyer Starmer has a particular desire (or is possessed of the right political vocabulary) to do the kind of New Labour-era authoritarianism that saw tagging as a condition of immigration bail, first brought in under Tony Blair in 2004. Nonetheless, it seems likely we will continue to see Labour figures saying, as Rayner did yesterday, things that they don’t look entirely happy saying. Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.