The Conservative government’s draconian, racist plans to prevent so-called ‘illegal migration’ are in disarray. In a bid to secure the votes of reactionary sections of the electorate at the next general election, Labour leader Keir Starmer has weighed in with his own set of strong-arm plans to attack people seeking asylum in Britain. Nicki Jameson reports.
Undeterred by the passing of the Nationality and Borders Act (NABA) and Illegal Migration Act (IMA), desperate people continue to risk their lives crossing the Channel in fragile boats, fleeing war, economic hardship and environmental destruction. Approximately 21,000 people have made the crossing so far this year. Unlike refugees from Ukraine who are given a warm welcome, people from Iraq, Iran, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere are met with racist hostility and treated increasingly as criminals. This vilification is unrelenting and there is more to come: on 26 September Home Secretary Suella Braverman told a New York audience that the 1951 Refugee Convention was not ‘fit for the modern age’, and that it should not be the case that ‘simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection’.
Expensive chaos
In March 2023 the asylum application backlog stood at 172,000. These people are in limbo: neither able to settle in Britain and rebuild their lives, nor facing the imminent threat of deportation. They are not allowed to work and, in order to be paid the pittance of government subsistence money, have to live where directed to, under the provisions of the ‘dispersal scheme’ introduced in 1999 by the then Labour government.
By 20 September the government was spending £8m a day keeping asylum seekers in hotel accommodation. Much of that money is filched from the overseas aid Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget, on the basis that it provides assistance to people from ‘developing countries’. Other than the miniscule subsistence payments, this money does not go to asylum seekers, but into the pockets of the private firms which hold the lucrative contracts for migrant accommodation.
In an attempt to save both money and face, the government has been attempting to reduce the reliance on hotels and increase the warehousing of asylum seekers in army camps, as well as on the Bibby Stockholm barge (see above). The Home Office is also planning to reopen immigration prisons at Campsfield House in Oxfordshire and Haslar in Hampshire. Detention is cheaper than hotels (£113 per day, as opposed to £143). The cost of refurbishing the two prisons is estimated at £240-260m, but the government calculates that this will still be cheaper in the long run.
…and worse to come
The government claims that all its current problems will be resolved by the full implementation of the IMA, which is designed to ensure that anyone arriving ‘illegally’ is no longer designated as an asylum seeker, has no right to housing, and must be detained and removed. However, there are huge flaws in this plan, even on the government’s own racist terms.
On 22 August, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published a briefing entitled The asylum in-tray in 2025,* which graphically describes how, far from ‘solving’ the problem which it is attempting to address, the IMA, if fully implemented, will actually make matters worse for the government.
The asylum system already has a massive ‘legacy backlog’ from prior to June 2022, when the NABA came into force, plus a ‘flow backlog’ of those registered since then. The IMA will add to these a ‘perma-backlog’ of people whose claims cannot be processed but who cannot be removed, as there is no place to send them. Whatever meagre support is then provided to prevent these people falling further into destitution cannot then come from the ODA budget, as the terms of that aid only relate to asylum seekers with a claim under consideration.
The IMA allows for peremptory removals to all countries in the EU plus Albania, on the grounds that these countries are intrinsically safe, but in order to pay lip-service to Britain’s international obligations to refugees, sets out a process whereby all those from elsewhere will be sent to a ‘safe third country’ to have their claims processed. However, the only ‘safe third country’ nominated so far is Rwanda, which the Court of Appeal has said is not safe. No other agreements equivalent to the Memorandum of Understanding with Rwanda are in place, and even if the Supreme Court rules in October that the country is safe for asylum claimants, this will only make a small dent in this backlog.
Smash the gangs
Speaking variously from Europol HQ in The Hague, a ‘centre left’ leaders’ summit in Montreal, and Paris, where he was meeting President Emmanuel Macron, Keir Starmer set out his programme for sorting out the ‘migrant crisis’, centred on the slogan ‘smash the gangs’. To ensure the message reached those perceived as the key target audience (working class racists), on 14 September he also penned an article in The Sun, attempting to appeal to the paper’s readers by using the word ‘British’ a lot: ‘With a Labour government, those who make British lives a misery will face British force — and British justice.’
Starmer’s ‘big idea’ is that, rather than concentrate on persecuting migrants once they arrive in Britain, he will find ways to destroy the ‘criminal gangs’ who facilitate the crossings. This will ‘stop the boats getting in the water in the first place’.
Repeatedly referring to his previous role as Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer announced that people smugglers will on his watch be treated as terrorists. Questioned by Trevor Phillips on the Sky Sunday Morning programme, he refused to say whether this meant they would be subject to 28 days pre-charge detention and similar draconian anti-terrorism provisions, but appeared to accept the premise that anyone aware of a people-smuggling operation (such as the family of an unaccompanied child due to travel to join them in Britain) who did not report it to the police could be found guilty of a terrorist offence.
Aside from the big headlines, Labour’s plans are similar to the Conservatives’ – employ more caseworkers to deal with the backlog, end the use of hotel accommodation, and ‘control our borders’.
However much further to the right Labour moves, there will always be a hardcore element in the press which lampoons it for being soft. These right-wing commentators ignored the ‘smash the gangs’ rhetoric and latched on to his suggestion that a Labour government might discuss some kind of ‘quota’ arrangement with the EU. EU spokespersons also responded, pointing out that the EU’s own internal quota arrangements are in tatters and that Starmer was ‘deluded’ if he thought negotiating with a country that had left their club was any kind of priority.
Labour, Tory – same old story
The war of words continues between the Conservative and Labour parties, as they vie for the votes of reactionary sections of the electorate. Communists have no truck with any part of this. Britain is a rich country, which has plundered and looted more than half the world, but which is now polarised by a crisis of capitalism, resulting in increasing poverty for growing sections of the working class. The ruling class cannot fight on all fronts at once, so is using age-old divide-and-rule tactics. Migrants are not the enemy of British workers, and we defend the right of people whose countries have been bombed, invaded, occupied, plundered or sanctioned by western imperialism to seek sanctuary wherever they can. An injury to one is an injury to all. Fight racism! Fight Imperialism!
* The asylum in-tray in 2025
www.ippr.org/research/publications/the-asylum-in-tray-in-2025
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 296 October/November 2023
