𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Shabana Mahmood’s vow to introduce new “capped, safe and legal routes” for refugees “won’t stop the boats”, her Tory counterpart says. Under the Home Secretary‘s plan, communities and some “trusted” universities will be allowed to sponsor refugees to come to the UK.

The plan has been inspired by a Canadian scheme that has settled 400,000 people in the country since 1979. A separate route allowing employers to sponsor refugees is also expected to open next year. Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Philp, posted on X that 75,000 illegal immigrants have entered the UK in the last two years.

He added: “Until this is zero, we shouldn’t be shipping any extra people in at all on ‘humanitarian’ grounds. Unless every person that wants to come is let in (which would be mad) it won’t stop the boats.

“Open borders Labour revealing their true colours again.”

Friday’s announcement came as Ms Mahmood faces questions about whether she will stay in post once Sir Keir Starmer leaves Downing Street.

Her planned changes to rules governing Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) have sparked criticism from some Labour MPs, with Sir Keir’s likely successor Andy Burnham facing calls to scrap them.

During his by-election campaign in Makerfield, Mr Burnham suggested he wanted a “consultation” on the proposals, leaving open the possibility they could be revised.

Ms Mahmood also spent Friday embroiled in a row with one of her junior ministers, Mike Tapp, after he suggested exempting care workers from her ILR reforms.

Sir Keir resisted her calls to sack Mr Tapp, with Downing Street issuing a rebuke to both ministers. Mr Tapp used an article in The Times to argue foreign care workers should be exempt from plans to change visa rules for migrants already in the UK in Ms Mahmood’s immigration bill.

As part of the Home Secretary’s pledge on Friday to save the asylum system for “generations to come”, a separate route allowing employers to sponsor refugees is also expected to open next year.

The Home Office did not say how many refugees it expected to use the new routes, but it did say the system would “operate at a much higher capacity” than the current UK Resettlement Scheme that provides a route for only a small number of people each year. In addition to the new routes, Ms Mahmood has said a new Immigration and Asylum Bill will seek to prevent “abuse” of human rights laws, including the right to a family life and modern slavery protections.

The new law will tighten the definition of “family” for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), restricting it to immediate family members only.

Critics of the asylum system have focused on Article 8 of the ECHR, saying it has been used to frustrate the deportation of people with no right to be in the UK.

The Home Office said the new definition would prevent situations such as one that prevented the deportation of a convicted domestic abuser from Poland because he acted as a “father figure” to his nephew.

Ms Mahmood said: “Britain has always offered sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution. But this system only survives if the public trusts that it is fair, controlled, and not open to abuse.”