The push back to their homeland

Shabana Mahmood (45), a barrister by qualification and now Britain’s home secretary, is the new star on the ruling Labour Party’s front bench. Promoted to the post by Prime Minister Keir Starmer on 5 September, she has taken the bull by the horns on a big issue plaguing her country — irregular asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.

In the past decade, both have spiralled out of control in the UK. This has resulted in a sharp rise in poll ratings for the far-right Reform UK party, which has gainfully fuelled the White working class’s nativist instincts.

Non-resident Indians are in a double bind: at the receiving end of increasing racism and a tightening of the screws if they continue to live in the UK. In end-June, there were an estimated 2,700 Indians in the queue of asylum seekers. Possibly four times that number are awaiting immigration clearance.

The far right in Britain first raised its ugly head in 1932 with the formation of the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley, a former Conservative MP. Then came the National Front in the 1960s, the British National Party in the 1980s and the English Defence League in the 2000s. But they were all fringe players.

There was also Enoch Powell, a minister in Conservative prime minister Harold Macmillan’s government in the 1960s. He made himself quite infamous with the left and non-Whites in 1968 with a fear-instilling ‘rivers of blood’ speech in which he criticised immigration from Commonwealth countries. Edward Heath, who had by then become leader of the opposition, dismissed him from the shadow cabinet.

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, an erstwhile commodities trader, has only five MPs in the House of Commons, but its showing in the May local elections was a sign the party can potentially disturb racial harmony in the UK.

A significant number of indigenous Britons are frustrated with the failure of successive governments to check illegal immigrants and irregular asylum seekers. This has led to a backlash against blacks and Asians, stoked by Farage and his Reform colleagues.

Mahmood is the daughter of a migrant, a civil engineer from Mirpur in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. She is using this as a platform to champion legal migration. On 17 November, she announced sweeping amendments to asylum and immigration policies in the House of Commons.

There were, predictably, rumblings from left-wingers on her own back benches — MPs who want Labour to retain its welcoming stance on immigrants. Yet their discomfort is possibly allayed by the belief that a majority of their constituents will not oppose Mahmood’s measures.

Labour will need a majority in Parliament to implement some of the changes in Mahmood’s proposal.

The numbers seeking asylum in the UK has been on the rise: it was up 18 per cent in 2024. European Union countries, on the other hand, have seen a 13 per cent drop in these applications.

In the past decade or so, people have also been trying to cross the English Channel, perilously on dinghies, to arrive in England and seek asylum. These arrivals peaked in 2022 and the estimated figure for 2025 is comparably high. Even those who came to Britain legally, on work or student visas, often seek asylum.

The ‘pull factors’, as pointed out by the British home office, are: generous refugee protection compared to other countries; the extent of support provided to asylum seekers, including accommodation, while they await a decision on their bid; the ease with which people can enter the country’s black economy.

A refugee once granted this status gets residence rights for five years. At the end of that period, they can apply for settlement for an indefinite period, free of charge. Until recently, the refugees were allowed to bring their families to the UK without any costs or having to demonstrate that they can afford to do so.

Britain’s European neighbours are much less munificent. Mahmood’s plan is, in fact, modelled on Denmark’s framework, which clamped down a decade or so ago, and its asylum applications are currently at a 40-year low.

Going forward, the initial five-year leave of stay will be reduced to 30 months. Where it is deemed safe for people to return to their countries of origin, they will become liable for removal from the UK. There will also be no indefinite settled status until a refugee has spent 20 years in Britain.

A refugee granted protection in the UK will henceforth be encouraged to work or study, as appropriate; students will have to pay tuition fees. This would serve as an incentive to ‘earn’ settlement sooner than 20 years. The matter of families joining refugees will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

In 2005, in keeping with EU law — since Britain was a member state then — the UK was obliged to provide state-funded support, including accommodation, to asylum seekers. As of June 2025, as many as 106,000 were being cared for in this way. This will now become discretionary, with the home office stating it will ‘deny support to those who have deliberately made themselves destitute’.

In the year to September 2025, immigration enforcement conducted 11,000 raids to root out illegal working, realising £117 million in penalties (till June) and evicting 1,000 foreign nationals. In sending back failed asylum seekers, the UK has not done so well: in one year to June 2025, 58,000 asylum claims were refused, but only 11,000 removed.

The UK expects countries to take back citizens who have failed to obtain asylum or immigration. It has threatened to deny visas to applicants from countries that do not cooperate. As per UK government estimates, there are tens of thousands of illegal Indian immigrants in Britain, but India too has been dragging its feet on the matter.

Ashis Ray can be found on X @ashiscray. More of his writing can be found here