The U.K.’s Labour government shifted further right on Monday after it announced a raft of changes to the country’s asylum laws. The changes will mean, among other things, that U.K. asylum policy will follow Denmark’s example, where refugees are offered protection on a temporary, not long-term or permanent, basis. The policy will also mean refugees will need to wait 20 years, rather than five, for residency, and that asylum seekers’ assets could be seized to pay for their accommodation.
The announcement has deepened rifts in the Labour Party. These cracks had already manifested after MPs revolted against welfare cuts earlier this year. It remains to be seen if the significantly tougher line on asylum will pay off for Labour electorally.
The announcement has also revealed how online rhetoric by what was once the far right is having policy impacts in Westminster and shifting the political centre to the right, mainstreaming ideas that the centre and centre-left were hesitant to go near, let alone own.
This week, some two dozen colleagues of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood criticised the government’s asylum plans. One MP, Stella Creasy, called it “performative cruelty”, and another, Tony Vaughun, said the rhetoric accompanying the reforms encouraged divisiveness and racism. Some of Ms. Mahmood’s party colleagues welcomed the changes, as did some Conservatives.
Ms. Mahmood has argued that the asylum system is “broken” and in need of fixing, and that it was “destabilising communities”. She has pointed to both the years of Conservative rule before July 2024, leading to high numbers and the gaming of the asylum system by some migrants leading to the current state of affairs.
Asylum claims in the U.K. were up 18% in 2024 compared to 13% in the rest of Europe, as per official figures. Many, close to 40% so far this year, have arrived illegally on small boats across the English Channel rather than approaching the U.K. via a legal route to ask for asylum.
Divided country
“Illegal migration is making this country a more divided place. It is the job of a government to unite the country,” Ms. Mahmood said. It has been argued that rather than migration itself causing the divisions, the whipping up of hate online, around this issue, especially by far-right figures, including X owner Elon Musk, is leading to divisions in British society.
Mr. Musk and far-right leader Tommy Robinson (real name: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) have stoked divisions online and on the streets. Mr. Musk delivered a video message at a far-right London rally in September, calling for a change in government and saying that people would have no choice but to resort to violence.
“Although his rhetoric is less openly extreme, [Reform U.K. party leader Nigel] Farage absorbs this energy, and he has taken up Robinson’s framing of immigrant as ‘fighting aged males,’ which suggest that they pose a potentially violent threat,” said Robert Topinka, a professor at Birkbeck, the University of London, who specialises in race, reactionary politics and digital culture.
Add to this the fact that the Starmer government faces a challenge to its power from both within the Labour Party and from outside, against a backdrop of migration remaining a top voter issue.
Mr. Starmer’s popularity has taken a beating since he led Labour to a landslide victory in July 2024. Some 23% of Labour voters think Mr. Starmer should step down now, while 34% think he should continue to lead until the next election, as per a poll of 2,100 people conducted by YouGov for The Times last week.
Outside Westminster, Reform, which is anti-immigration, has overtaken Labour in the polls. Polling from Ipsos in September showed a voting intention of 34% for Reform — a 12-point lead over Labour. Some Labour and Conservative voters are moving to Reform, while a greater number of Labour voters are moving in the opposite direction — to the Greens or Liberal Democrats. This bi-directional movement away from Labour is evident from multiple polls. The party will be tested in local elections in 2026.
The Home Secretary has appeared keen not just to change asylum and immigration policy but also to own that policy space. On Tuesday, she pushed back against other parties associating themselves with government policy.
Reform party chief Nigel Farage said Ms Mahmood was auditioning to join his party. In response, Ms Mahmood told Mr Farage to go away. She rejected Opposition (Conservative Party) Leader Kemi Badenoch’s offer in the U.K. House of Commons for them to combine forces on the issue, arguing that the Tories had caused the problem in the first place.
Risky strategy
Taking the lead from Reform on migration is a risky strategy — it could either be futile or backfire, according to Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.
Ms. Mahmood has forcefully argued for the policies, saying she was not making a political or electoral calculation, but rather trying to fix a broken system.
“…Research shows again and again that all that strategy does is to increase the salience of the migration issue on which the populist radical right thrives, giving voters the chance…to vote for the original rather than the copy,” Mr. Bale told The Hindu.
If the asylum policy changes do not improve Labour’s polling but instead send more voters to the Liberal Democrats or Greens, Mr. Bale argues, the split in the party is likely to get worse.
Published – November 18, 2025 09:51 pm IST
