It is difficult to think of another area of government policy that has weathered as much legislative hyperactivity as asylum and migration. I have been chief executive of the Refugee Council since 2020, and I am struck by the fact that there have been four bills that have become law since I started. A fifth one in as many years is expected soon as Home Office officials beaver away under the orders of the home secretary to quickly turn the proposed asylum reforms, published in November, into legislation.
As I prepare to leave the organisation this month, I have been reflecting on how the asylum and migration landscape has changed. It’s clear the rhetoric and intent behind all these new laws has been the same: to deter so-called asylum shopping, to disrupt the people-smuggling gangs, to ramp up removals of migrants, to fix the broken asylum system and, ultimately, deliver control of our borders.
Soon after Labour came to power, there were hints of a change in tone when Home Office officials quietly said they had been told to stop using the language of “illegal arrivals” and instead describe them as “irregular”. It seemed at the time that ministers did not want to be seen to be punching down on those who came to our shores seeking safety, regardless of how they arrived.
But this change didn’t last long. Launching the latest proposed reforms, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, claimed illegal migration was “tearing the country apart”. People seeking asylum, particularly single men, are now seen as the root of all our problems. The leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, said women have “stopped jogging in the park because there are men lurking in bushes”. They were not seen as economic migrants but as potential criminals posing a major threat to our nation.
This narrative shift has been stark. It has emboldened the far right to exploit people’s concerns and pushed them to take matters into their own hands. When I began my role I never thought I would see a hotel housing asylum seekers set on fire, hear from refugees who had been beaten up in the street, watch organisations working with refugees face sustained attacks on social media, learn that staff are careful about disclosing where they work, or need to ensure my own home has security protection.
Hostility and toxicity have reached unprecedented levels. And I fear we have not seen the worst of it yet. Home Office officials will be bracing themselves for the possibility of yet more protests and attacks this summer.
Not surprisingly, the salience of asylum and migration as an issue of concern has grown. Despite analysis suggesting that annual net migration immigration could be negative by the end of the year , the majority of voters think immigration is increasing. And despite numerous new laws and government announcements, voters say they have no confidence in the government’s ability to control the UK’s borders.
To me, it is clear that in the last five years, endless talk of stopping the boats, smashing the gangs, restoring control and fixing the asylum system has simply led to a rise in scepticism and disbelief around the impact of immigration. This is compounded by the public hearing about the workings of the asylum system being dysfunctional. Analysis by the National Audit Office recently found that more than half of people who applied for asylum almost three years ago still didn’t have an outcome.
The basic malfunctioning of the system never ceases to amaze me. Letters are sent to the wrong address. Interpreters for asylum interviews who aren’t able to translate because they are given the wrong information about the individual’s mother tongue. Traumatised and bewildered children who are being told they will be sent to adult accommodation because they were given a cursory age assessment by border officials when they arrived.
The words that ring in my head each time I hear of these failures remind me of the Windrush inquiry’s conclusion: that the Home Office has lost sight of the faces behind the cases. Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. Better political decisions would mean people were not housed in hotels or former military barracks, that asylum decisions would be made in a timely manner and that refugees would be given support so that they could find work and contribute. Let’s not forget that for decades, many refugees have been welcomed into their new communities, going on to become proud British citizens.
This is only one area of government policy – but it has become one of the defining issues of our time that determines who we want to be. A nation that looks inwards or outwards, that chooses to hate or love strangers, that shuns or embraces the notion of a shared humanity.
It is a simple yet stark choice for the governing Labour party. Carry on with an approach to asylum and migration that in essence is stating that “Nigel Farage is right but don’t vote for him”, or confidently articulate an alternative worldview that proudly talks up the UK’s integration story and sets out a renewed values-based multilateralism that delivers global solutions to what at its root is a global challenge.
This is a critical moment. Our political leaders must do far more to bring an end to the division and hate that the harmful “othering” of migrants has created. And for all of us, we must say clearly to our family, friends, neighbours, colleagues and politicians this is not who we are or who we want to be. As I leave my role, it feels more urgent than ever that we collectively stand up for the British values of fairness, decency and compassion so that refugees are treated with the dignity and humanity they deserve.
Enver Solomon is the outgoing chief executive of the Refugee Council
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