Far right celebrates Labour's migration proposal

UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s announcement of an authoritarian asylum regime, aping aspects of Denmark’s controversial policies, has sparked concern among sections of her party and has outraged migrant rights campaigners and civil rights groups. But Mahmood’s proposals have been celebrated by the far right. 

Under the proposed changes announced on Monday, settled asylum applicants would be forced to wait 20 years before being able to apply for British citizenship - the longest wait in any European country. Refugees would also be forced to reapply to remain in the UK and could be returned to their countries of origin if the UK deemed them to be “safe”. Mahmood has also proposed curbs on benefits and support received by asylum applicants. In another proposal, Home Office minister Alex Norris said that migrants could have their jewellery seized and sold to pay towards their accommodation costs. 

The plans are yet another escalation of Labour’s increasingly toxic rhetoric and policies around migration and asylum in the wake of racist riots and often violent protests that have swept the country since August last year. Amid widespread outrage, there is one group that has welcomed Mahmood’s latest announcement: far-right and fascist activists and commentators have claimed the Home Secretary’s announcement as a triumph. 

Far-right influencer “Tommy Robinson” (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), who in September organised the largest far-right rally in UK history, appeared to claim credit for Mahmood’s proposals. In a post on X/Twitter, Robinson wrote, “The Overton window has been obliterated, well done patriots.” 

Other more overtly racist activists also celebrated, seeing the proposal as just one step in a longer process that they hope will culminate in the forced expulsion of millions of non-white Britons. Fascist activist Steve Laws - who has gained almost 125,000 followers on X/Twitter and was recently arrested for posts he allegedly made on the platform - wrote that, “The great thing about her doing this is it sets a precedent which can be extended to all immigrants and their assts. Literally laying the foundations for remigration.” Far-right content creator Hugh Anthony, who recently posted a humiliating viral video of his parents kicking him out of their house, levelled a jibe at Mahmood, posting “I’m glad she is pushing us more right… however she will also be deported eventually.”

Labour’s strategy has taken on a bizarre circular logic. The party continues to escalate its racist rhetoric and policies, while simultaneously warning that the rising racist violence this foments justifies its words and actions. In an article published in The Guardian on Sunday, Mahmood claimed that “dark forces are stirring up anger in this country” and that this necessitated Labour’s policies in order to “restore order and control.”

The calculation is a cynical one: Labour expects the left to fall in line - no matter how much it panders to the racist right - to keep Reform out of power. Like many strategies this government has pursued it seems like yet another misjudged blunder. The Greens, rising in the polls under Zack Polanski, show no interest in a pact with Labour, tacit or otherwise. Your Party, composed of activists previously involved in Corbyn’s Labour, are even less amenable. Labour’s majority, superficially large but incredibly fragile, cannot withstand the tensions it has generated inside its own base.

Far from being a solution to division, Labour’s lurch to the right will only further embolden the racist right. Performative cruelty and dehumanising refugees gifts a victory to the far right at the exact moment of their ascendency and legitimises calls for even more depraved policies.