Asylum seekers waiting over a year for claim in UK may be allowed to work under new measures

Shabana Mahmood writes in the Guardian that Labour’s border policy should be “neither the nightmare of Farage’s borders … nor the Greens’ fairytale of borders.” Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Up to 21,000 asylum seekers who have waited for a year for their claims to be processed could be allowed to enter the jobs market so they can support themselves, the Home Office has said, as part of a package of measures to be announced on Thursday.

As the government seeks to empty asylum hotels, claimants who break the law, work illegally or are found to have enough assets to live without support will from June be ejected and lose their support payments.