The clarification did not come before MPs took to social media to speak out. “Taking jewellery from refugees” is “akin to painting over murals for refugee children,” another backbench MP, Sarah Owen, said, referencing a controversial order under the Conservatives to cover up cartoons at an accommodation centre for unaccompanied child migrants.
The first Labour MP quoted above said that while many of his colleagues were seeing voters switch to Reform UK, a “hell of a lot of people” are going to the center-left Liberal Democrats and the Greens. “The tone that we’ve taken on immigration and asylum will hurt us as well,” the MP added.
‘Moral duty’
Government figures strongly disagree with the criticism — and think they have the public in their corner on this one.
They sought to highlight More in Common polling that suggested even Green voters would support some individual measures that are used in Denmark — such as only granting asylum seekers temporary residence (50 percent support, 25 percent oppose.)
A third, supportive MP on the right of the party pointed out there were “no surprise names” among those who had broken ranks to criticize the government’s plans.
Mahmood insisted Monday the government has a “moral duty” to fix Britain’s “broken” asylum system. “Unless we can persuade people we can control our borders, we’re not going to get a hearing on anything else,” former Minister Justin Madders told Times Radio.
It is an “existential test of whether we deserve to govern this country,” a serving minister said. They warned that if Starmer fails, the outcome in policy terms could be “a whole lot more drastic.”
Noah Keate contributed reporting