Shabana Mahmood set out her stall as home secretary in her main stage address to the Labour conference in Liverpool on Monday, saying she will “do whatever it takes to secure our borders”.
Unveiling tough new measures to restrict access to indefinite leave to remain on Monday, the new home secretary confirmed that migrants who want to remain in the UK will have to learn English to a high standard, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community to be eligible for indefinite leave to remain.
They will also have to be working, paying national insurance and not be claiming benefits under the proposed changes.
It came just days after Nigel Farage announced plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, meaning tens of thousands of people who have legally settled in Britain could be at risk of deportation – a policy Sir Keir Starmer branded both “racist” and “immoral” on Sunday morning.
After Labour’s new plans were trailed yesterday, critics rounded on the proposals, with the Refugee Council accusing the government of “punishing refugees for needing help”.
But Mahmood told delegates: “Until we can decide who comes in and who must leave, we will never be the open, tolerant and generous country that I know we all believe in.”
Her comments were a clear attempt to persuade party members that her controversial new measures are part of a broader mission to keep Britain open and tolerant – rather than simply pandering to Reform, as many critics have argued.
Taking aim at Nigel Farage’s approach, she warned that Britain is moving from “patriotism towards ethno-nationalism”.
The broad vision of who we are as an “open, tolerant, generous country” is “increasingly disputed”, she said, adding: “The challenge we now face is this: not just to win the next election, but to keep the country together and to fight for our belief in a greater Britain, not a little England.”
While her comments were certainly an appeal to Labour members who have fears about the government’s tough approach to migration, they fell somewhat flat in the hall. There was applause, but it was lacklustre. On paper, it was a strong speech – but the energy in the hall didn’t quite match up.
The apathy towards the widely respected new home secretary is no surprise though, because Labour delegates generally sit much further to the left than the government, especially on issues like migration – a problem that was not lost on Mahmood, who admitted that Labour members “may not always like what I do”.
The home secretary is keenly aware that she will lose support from within the party in order to get the job of tackling illegal migration done.
Crucially, though, she knows that Labour delegates are not just more left wing than the government when it comes to migration, they are also more left wing than the country.
If Labour wants to see off the growing threat from Nigel Farage before the next election, losing friends in the Labour Party might be a necessary evil – or at least that’s the gamble that Shabana Mahmood made on Monday.
