Hostile immigration policies keep backfiring on centrists

Superficially, some of what the UK Government is proposing to do on immigration reform sounds a bit like some of what Common Weal has proposed – and yet the differences are vast. This difference delineates the political change that has taken place in the last few years.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was on media duty yesterday trailing the Labour government's plans for immigration reform. Throughout this media round the tone was hostile, negative and reflected the kind of language that Reform uses. But the policies being touted are being presented as being modelled on the 'centre left' policies introduced in Denmark.

The problems begin with the fact that it wasn't introduced by a centre left government at all but a centre right government, though the social democrats who took power in 2019 have maintained the system. But perhaps the bigger factor that we should look at is its impact. But first, what is the policy based on?

The strategy in Denmark is openly and explicitly to deter asylum seekers by making the position of asylum seekers as precarious as possible. There is no assumed path to permanent residency. All permission to remain is temporary, meaning migrants live with the constant fear of deportation. Even minor civic infractions can result in the chance of citizenship being taken away – get a speeding ticket, get settled status blocked.

The second aspect of the temporary citizenship model is that it is assumed that people will be returned to their home country as soon as the government determines it is safe. Of course, across the world, that has often had little to do with true safety and more to do with politicians who want to deport people who are not white.

And in between, government has the quite shocking power to demolish apartment buildings if more than half of the residents come from 'non-Western backgrounds'. This seems like a direct lift from Israeli policy in Palestine.

There are three aspects of Common Weal's approach which sound similar. First, we have favoured a status of 'temporary citizenship', but for quite different reasons. We believe that people who are fully resident here for set periods of time should have the same rights as citizens so should have citizens' rights for as long as their visa is valid. This would protect overseas students and people who have settled for work, but only for a limited time.

What it was not was a system designed to intimidate vulnerable people. Likewise, we also favoured return to home nation as an option, but again our reasons were a complete inversion of the Danish/Mahmood system. For us, we did not believe that it was in the best interests of nations to lose their own citizens and the skills they have.

But again, for us this was about designing a system for migrants, not for those who want to prevent migrants coming here. Our system involved a right to remain but a negotiated option of returning to home countries when both parties agree they are safe and if the migrant wants to return.

The Danish 'anti-ghetto' laws (the demolition powers) are the most shocking of all, yet they also mirror a step in our proposals. These laws are nominally about 'integration', but in reality they are about intimidation. But integration is a positive step for anyone that comes to a new country.

We had extensive integration support built into the system we proposed, but it was based on a National Care Service supporting individuals to integrate as they established a new life here. Two policies with the same nominal objective but with almost the opposite purposes.

We do not know what the proposed UK system will look like, but we know what it is for. In her rhetoric, Shabana Mahmood already represents one of the most reactionary and illiberal Home Secretaries in British history and, as with the rest of the UK Government, seems to see no end point to the merits of demonising immigrants.

It is no surprise at all that they have looked to Europe's most hostile immigration system (one that has been very widely condemned) as its inspiration. Yet while we don't know what this new system will look like, we know what the outcome will be. It is the outcome that has occurred everywhere centrist politicians have tried to 'take on' the populist right by aping the populist right.

And it is the experience of what has happened since this policy was introduced in Denmark. Far from taking the heat out of the immigration debate, this policy has normalised anti-migrant sentiment and in so doing has boosted the far right. In 2019 the Danish People's Party vote collapsed from the previous election. It kept dropping and by 2022 was only marginally over two per cent.

Since then? The party's vote has more than tripled and the only parties rising in the polls are right or far right. Quite why Labour, regularly polling fourth in Britain, thinks it can be the first centrist party to break this trend is difficult to understand.

Read more of our plans in Sorted.