𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Shabana Mahmood wants to end the UK’s immigration crisis, but she’s fighting a war against her own party – and it’s a battle the Home Secretary knows she could lose. Ms Mahmood delivered a staunch defence of her plans this week.

She warned that voters “feel like we have lost control” when they see small boats packed with migrants arriving on our shores. British people are also worried about sky-high levels of legal migration, she said, and “voices to the far-Right” were growing louder as a result. But there was something odd about her speech, delivered to a think tank in central London.

She repeatedly insisted that her policies were based on “Labour values”. Controlling immigration was part of “our creed, as the Labour Party”, she said.

And Ms Mahmood added: “Restoring order and control at our border is not a betrayal of Labour values, it is an embodiment of them, and it is the necessary condition for a Labour Government to achieve anything it hopes to.”

Plenty of voters want the Government to control immigration, but they probably don’t care whether a policy embodies “Labour values” – or Conservative, Reform or Liberal Democrat values, for that matter – as long as it works.

Ms Mahmood’s message, however, wasn’t aimed at the average voter. It was aimed squarely at Labour MPs and activists, and the broader Left, including trade unions and well-meaning charities, that have set out to sabotage her reforms.

She’s attempting to win over Labour MPs who oppose her efforts to cut immigration on ideological grounds, and others who fear she is driving liberal-minded voters into the arms of the Green Party. They, however, are determined to stop the Home Secretary in her tracks.

The UK has a problem. The number of small boat arrivals rose to 41,262 last year, up from 36,816 in 2024. And the figure for the first two months of 2026 is higher than it was for the same period in 2025.

Former prime minister Rishi Sunak promised to “stop the boats” and failed. Keir Starmer issued what is effectively the same pledge when he vowed to “smash the gangs”, meaning the criminal gangs selling spaces on the boats. He, too, has failed.

But the Home Secretary also fears that legal immigration is too high.

In the 12 months to June 2024, 1.2million long-term migrants, meaning people who planned to stay, came to the UK. There were 479,000 long-term leavers, giving a net migration figure of 728,000 – more than the population of Leeds.

The figure for 2023 was slightly higher. For 2025, it was lower, with a net migration of 204,000 people, which is roughly the population of Reading.

Ms Mahmood knows this can’t go on, and has set out tough measures to stop it.

This includes making it easier to deport failed asylum seekers, while those found to be working illegally, or who have savings stashed away, will no longer be given free housing and funding for living expenses.

The most radical changes include making refugee status temporary. People granted asylum in the UK will have their cases reviewed every 30 months – and if their home country is now considered safe, they will be sent home.

Meanwhile, the standard qualifying period for permanent residence (also known as indefinite leave to remain or settlement) is being doubled from five to 10 years – and the change is retrospective.

In other words, people who have been here legally for years, possibly working and paying taxes, will now have to wait five years longer than expected before they gain the right to live here permanently.

The changes, due to come into force in April, have provoked fury among Labour MPs.

In leaked messages from a WhatsApp group, backbencher Stella Creasy predicted a “Windrush-style scandal”, referring to the impact of the “hostile environment” policy.

Fellow MP Kate Osborne responded to a request to share Ms Mahmood’s speech on social media with a curt “absolutely not”.

Around 100 Labour MPs, a quarter of the Parliamentary Labour Party, sent a letter last week demanding the Home Secretary scrap her plans.

It was organised by Folkestone MP Tony Vaughan, who said the proposals “risk worsening child poverty”, unfairly move the “goalposts” and will “harm the UK’s economic competitiveness by exacerbating skills shortages”.

Another letter has been signed by around 40 Labour MPs.

As well as opposing the changes on principle, some backbenchers are angry at a lack of consultation. They contrast Ms Mahmood unfavourably with Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who recently defused what threatened to be a massive row over changes to special needs education by holding talks with worried colleagues.

Sarah Owen, the Labour MP who chairs the Women and Equalities Committee, told website Politico: “The letters are a sign of a failure of engagement from the department and the Secretary of State and relevant ministers.”

A recent debate in Parliament saw Labour backbenchers lining up to warn they had been contacted by constituents anxious about the changes. And it wasn’t just the usual suspects – Left-wingers whose instinct is to oppose the party leadership in almost all circumstances. On this topic, there is anger across the party.

Alloa and Grangemouth MP Brian Leishman told the debate: “What kind of society do we want to live in? Do we want to live in one that looks after the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and destitute, or one that looks to scapegoat and point the finger at these people for the political decisions that have led to growing poverty and inequality?”

Slough MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi said many constituents “feel that the goalposts are being moved and that this policy will have a hugely detrimental impact on their lives.”

Grimsby MP Melanie Onn said: “It would be wrong if the goalposts were moved halfway through the match.”

Opponents of the immigration reforms have received encouragement from unions affiliated to Labour. Unison said the plans “will be devastating to thousands of essential workers” while Unite claimed that simply announcing the proposed changes had caused “chronic stress, anxiety, and difficulties in planning for the future.”

Charities working with asylum seekers also joined the assault and the Refugee Council claimed the reforms will make it harder for refugees to integrate into UK society.

But perhaps less predictable was the broadside by a body called NHS Employers, which represents managers in NHS England. It has told the Government that extending the settlement period from five to 10 years will place “a substantial financial burden”, because it’s more expensive to employ a foreign worker without residency, and would encourage medical workers “to leave the NHS or choose other countries with more predictable settlement routes.”

Ms Mahmood is determined to see off her critics. But ultimately, it’s not up to her.

Sir Keir Starmer is “squarely behind” the reforms, according to Government sources. But the real threat to the Home Secretary’s plans is that the Prime Minister, under fire from all sides over a range of issues, concludes that he just can’t afford to enrage Labour colleagues more than he already has – and orders Ms Mahmood to back down.