The new Labour government has announced a raft of new bills, policies and approaches to asylum and immigration. What do they tell us about the government’s policies and the likely impact of any new measures?
Announcing policies on immigration
The border security, asylum and immigration bill was announced in the king’s speech. It will:
- legislate to increase the powers of the new border security command;
- increase penalties for organised immigration crime “including preparatory offences such as enabling the advertising the services [sic], of a migrant smuggling group and precursor offences such as relating to the supply of materials needed to facilitate organised crime gangs”; and
- make the asylum system more “efficient and effective” by clearing the asylum backlog, withdrawing from the Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda, and speeding up returns.
The government’s priority to go after the ‘smuggling gangs’ was repeated by Yvette Cooper, writing in the Sun on Sunday 21 July:
“We’ve moved staff [from the Rwanda scheme] instead into a new Returns and Enforcement programme to increase returns of those with no right to be here and to make sure rules are respected and enforced, starting with an increase in illegal working raids.
“We’ve directed Immigration Enforcement to intensify their operations over the summer, with a focus on employers who are fuelling the trade of criminal gangs by exploiting and facilitating illegal working here in the UK – including in car washes and in the beauty sector.
“And we are drawing up new plans for fast-track decisions and returns for safe countries.”
On 23 July the government announced it would not renew the contract for the Bibby Stockholm, the floating hulk docked at Portland, Dorset.
Additionally, the government pledges to work more closely with the EU, particularly on matters of ‘border security’ and, along with plans directly relating to asylum, the government will also support workforce training across the whole labour force, partly with the aim of reducing dependence on immigration in some sectors, especially social care.
Not much is new in Labour’s approach to immigration
As before, the government cannot return asylum seekers who have failed in their applications to an unsafe country, and they will remain in the UK. It will continue to return failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants from Albania and Vietnam under new returns agreements made under the Conservatives. It will continue to deport foreign offenders under the previous arrangements but, without significant improvements in how the criminal justice system functions, this is likely to remain a problematic area and many will remain in UK prisons long after their sentences have ended.
There will be no new ‘deterrent’ measures against refugees or asylum processing arrangements outside the UK, at least for now. There are no new arrangements with Europe to take a bigger share of Europe’s refugees – and, perhaps thereby, secure a returns agreement. The points-based immigration system remains and there is no cap on the number of immigrant visas. Visa and health charges are unchanged, as are the limitations on bringing in dependents.
Much of what the government has announced are good policies in themselves and to be welcomed, e.g., reversing Rwanda, closing Bibby Stockholm, a more efficient and quicker asylum decision making process, and improving the skills of UK residents, but they do not materially change the pattern of asylum immigration in the UK. The government has not committed to reducing Channel crossings or reducing immigration levels. A wise decision. The first is out of their control and the second would be catastrophic for sectors such as health, social care, construction and higher education.
Tackling criminal gangs
The main thrust of the government’s asylum and immigration policy is ‘smashing the gangs’ – articulated prior to the election, in the election manifesto, in the proposed legislation and in Cooper’s most recent speech.
It intends to strengthen the powers of the new border security command, make ‘preparatory offences’ illegal (the details of which, and how they differ from what is currently in place, are unclear); and seek out “employers who are fuelling the trade of criminal gangs by exploiting and facilitating illegal working here in the UK”. There will be additional resources allocated for this and we are told we can expect more raids on nail parlours and car washes where illegal and exploited labour are believed to be working.
The illegal workforce largely comprises people who have come to the UK legally but overstayed their visas; people who have come willingly or who have been trafficked into the UK as illegal immigrants; failed asylum seekers; asylum seekers who have got fed up waiting for a decision and so ‘take their chances’ in the grey economy; and, latterly, those given notice of being sent to Rwanda. There are also a growing number of legitimate immigrant workers whose visas are dependent on their employment status and who are made redundant or for whom work is denied following their arrival in the UK.
The UK’s dirty secret is its dependence on illegal workers
It has long been my contention that the UK thrives on illegal and exploited labour. The UK has (with Germany) the highest proportion of ‘irregular’ labour in Europe and the last government’s post-Brexit immigration policies created the perfect environment for slave and exploited labour. Large companies are often complicit in labour exploitation as was revealed in textile and food processing companies during the Covid pandemic.
Companies are generally fined for offences, although the previous government was lax in condemning companies while prosecuting vulnerable workers. As long as UK businesses profit from exploited labour and the UK public happily purchases goods or services that are cheaper than they can produce themselves, exploitation will continue.
Trafficked and slave labour is one end of the continuum of exploited labour, the other being pay below minimum wages either through illegal hourly rates or clawing back ‘expenses’. Companies that operate illegally or on the margins of legality often break the law in other regards such as tax and insurance, and health and safety.
Combined investigations by HMRC (tax, national insurance and minimum wage violations), Health and Safety Executive (work conditions), social services (child exploitation) as well as immigration enforcement and the police will be more productive – particularly in the care, food processing, hospitality and textile sectors – than focusing on the exploited labour that might be working illegally in nail bars or car washes.
A policy of muddling through
The new policies will have no impact on the numbers crossing the Channel and only a modest impact on trafficking and migration. No country has ‘stopped the boats’ and even the cruellest of measures – push-backs, repatriations, refusal to assess asylum claims in Australia, and drownings, internment and border fences in the EU – have also failed. Any new policy designed to do so is destined to fail and, like the Rwanda scheme, at inordinate cost.
There are indications that the government will penalise asylum seekers a little bit less than its predecessor and be more humane in its approach. The improvement strand – working more closely with the EU, reinvesting in asylum decision making, and better training for UK citizens – are all good policies and should bring some, though modest, reductions in immigration and, perhaps, exploitation.
Tackling ‘gangs’ is the least well-articulated policy to date, and it is not clear if the government will focus on serious players making a profit from trafficking rather than punishing those who have been exploited – another policy destined to fail when the UK market for exploited labour is so strong.
Added together, the Labour government’s policies with respect to asylum, trafficking and immigration is one of ‘muddling through’. This government, like its predecessor, seems unable to confront the public with the reality of migration and bring forward coherent, principled plans to manage it as it is, not as they would like it to be: plans that would include making the best of this mobility, supporting new Britons to integrate and help us build and grow for the future.
