‘Mahmood offers voters what they want – order, fairness and comptence’

For much of Britain’s commentariat, the immigration issue has become a litmus test for virtue, not a subject for governance. Any anxiety about borders is waved away as bigotry, while calls for enforcement, even from politicians from immigrant backgrounds, are treated as evidence of bad faith. 

This isn’t moral clarity. It’s avoidance. And it shatters the moment it encounters the question voters are actually asking – ‘who can end the chaos?’

Immigration ranks consistently as Britain’s top issue. It’s obvious why polling from YouGov, Politico and Electoral Calculus puts Reform UK close to 30%. Having captured Britons’ unease about irregular migration, it has pushed the issue beyond debates on the NHS or the cost of living, convincing many that unless Labour stops the small boats, it cannot be trusted with anything else.

READ MORE: Asylum debate: Labour divisions laid bare as Mahmood stands her ground

The response to the problem has been feeble. The rise in crossings makes that plain to voters throughout the country, which is why the London columnists who reduce public concern to prejudice alone sound so hopelessly out of touch. Branding every border worry as racist doesn’t persuade; it dodges the question. Persist with this, and we will simply replay a decade of empty Tory promises. And it does real damage: dismissing legitimate concerns not only angers long-settled immigrant communities, who feel patronised and spoken for, but deepens the resentment that populists feed upon. 

The Home Secretary grasped this when she proposed tougher migration and asylum rules that extend the path to settlement while also strengthening enforcement against failed applicants. The resulting anger feels strangely removed from the country beyond its capital city, where the measures polled well. 

Most objections sound humane but fall apart when examined. Critics claim a 20-year settlement route is a uniquely British harshness, yet Canada, Germany, Australia and New Zealand all review protection status on similar or longer timelines, and UNHCR guidance supports regular reassessment. Besides, the current five-year pathway is a fiction. A ten-year route has existed since 2012 for some family visas, and about one in eight people who achieve Indefinite Leave to Remain take a decade or more to do so. Many wait longer because failure has replaced clear timelines.

The Government’s own presentation made matters worse. By gesturing toward Denmark, Labour handed critics an easy, misleading comparison. Denmark’s “ghetto” package allows the state to uproot families, bulldoze homes and dictate where non-Western residents may live. It has also been seized by the far right to justify calls for the deportation of thousands of Danish-born children– a policy I condemn unequivocally. Invoking Denmark blurred the distinction between Mahmood’s reforms and a far harsher alternative. Yet the substance of her plan is nothing like this.  It simply recognises trade-offs, and the truth that you cannot import a policy model without the social and legal conditions to make it work. 

In fact, there is a danger in these reflexive calls to humanity. The idea that deterrence fails because people are desperate sentimentalises a crisis that has long since become an industrialised criminal market. Smugglers depend on British dysfunction, selling the prospect of long-term accommodation, years of appeals and a state too stretched to carry out removals. The result is a criminal industry worth billions, scaled to exploit Britain’s failure to enforce its own rules. 

True, 75% of Channel arrivals are genuine refugees, but that does not absolve the Government of its responsibility to police the border. Refugees deserve safe, navigable legal paths. Instead, they face a wealth-gated lottery – and there is nothing ethical about leaving protection to a smuggler’s dinghy.

Subscribe here to our daily newsletter roundup of Labour news, analysis and comment– and follow us on Bluesky, WhatsApp, X and Facebook.

Nor is it humane to fling the gates open in the name of safe routes, as some commentators pretend. When Afghanistan fell, the Tory government attempted precisely that – a legal path for refugees. It rapidly collapsed. Applications outstripped places by 15 to one, thousands were stuck in third countries and smugglers cashed in on the same desperation safe routes were meant to relieve. The ARAP and ACRS backlogs make the point brutally clear. The later leak of 19,000 applicants’ data showed how easily an overmatched system can endanger the very people it aims to protect.

What troubles me about many critics is that their moral certainty blocks real progress, dismissing Mahmood’s reforms as pandering to voters flirting with Reform UK. But that misreads the public mood; they want competence, not cruelty: a government that enforces rules, processes claims, and sets clear limits. If Labour cannot provide that, Reform UK will congeal into a durable anti-system bloc.

None of this changes how enforcement alone will not cleanse the immigration debate. The asylum system is buckling under a decade of social and economic strain;  housing shortages; NHS pressure; insecure work; and the slow collapse of towns. 

Labour is addressing those pressures. By tackling the foundations – the homes, services and local support that give migration legitimacy – it is doing what its predecessors avoided. That is why its moves on planning reform, NHS recruitment and stronger worker protections belong in this debate. They show that border control and fairness are not rival instincts but mutually reinforcing ones, and that a functioning asylum system depends on rebuilding the state around it.

Refusing enforcement is not compassion. It is the same denial that let the backlog explode, hotel bills spiral, and the small boats become a national crisis. Mahmood is doing the hard, unglamorous work of preventing this debate from being surrendered to the far right. 

If Labour wants to balance negative perceptions of its asylum reforms, it must keep stressing the link between order and fairness – fair, enforceable rules; fair access to safe routes for those with the strongest claims; and fair treatment of the communities that feel the pressures most sharply. 

Immigration only works when people can see that the state works – that claims are processed, exploitation is punished and legal routes are managed with clarity. And with these proposals, Britain is one step closer to achieving that. 

Share your thoughts. Contribute on this story or tell your own by writing to our Editor. The best letters every week will be published on the site. Find out how to get your letter published.

• • SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour– contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected].
  • SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning.
  • DONATE: If you value our work, please chip in a few pounds a week and become one of our supporters, helping sustain and expand our coverage.
  • PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or projects, email [email protected].
  • ADVERTISE: If your organisation would like to advertise or run sponsored pieces on LabourList‘s daily newsletter or website, contact our exclusive ad partners Total Politics at [email protected].