Shabana Mahmood should be moved out of the Home Office and her asylum policies of “performative cruelty” dismantled by Andy Burnham’s incoming administration, the veteran Labour peer Lord Dubs has said.
Dubs, who arrived in Britain aged six in 1939 as part of the Kindertransport, fleeing the Nazi persecution of Jews in Czechoslovakia, said Mahmood’s talents “would be better used elsewhere in the cabinet” and that her approach was out of step with what Labour stood for.
“This is Andy Burnham’s opportunity to correct some of the mistakes that the Starmer government made as regards asylum seekers and refugees,” he told the Guardian. “At a time when the party needs unity, I do not believe that Shabana Mahmood’s policies represent the right approach.”
What Dubs wants changed
The peer, who has been described as “the conscience of the Labour movement” and who came to Britain on a train organised by stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton – a fact he only discovered later in life – was specific about what needed to go.
He pointed to the proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain as a particular injustice. “The proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain, for instance, which would apply retrospectively to people who came here in good faith and according to the rules, are simply unjust and should be reconsidered.” He urged the incoming government to stand “firmly by our commitments under the 1951 refugee convention and the ECHR and not attempt to water them down, which is what the current proposals threaten to do.”
Dubs was also critical of Mahmood’s decision to suspend family reunion visas. He warned that an asylum and immigration bill expected to be unveiled imminently would make it easier to place children in handcuffs prior to deportation, or to remove sick children.
“As these proposals stand, children like me arriving in the UK seeking sanctuary would be left out in the cold. Worse, they could be handcuffed and deported, even if they have family here ready and willing to care for them. Those are not British values and they are certainly not Labour values.”
‘Performative cruelty’
The language Dubs used about Mahmood’s approach was pointed. He singled out what he called “performative cruelty” – citing the briefing that the Home Office would start seizing refugees’ jewellery at the border, and what he described as “incendiary language” blaming refugees for “tearing our country apart.”
“We must redouble our efforts to establish Europe-wide cooperation on asylum seekers and refugees. It is only by working with our partners that we can achieve an effective human-rights based policy,” he said.
He drew a sharp distinction between controlling the UK’s borders – which he said Labour should do – and doing so cruelly. “This control should also come with our commitment to basic rights, and compassion for those who are in time of greatest need. Not performative cruelty.”
The political argument
Beyond the moral case, Dubs made an explicitly political one. Burnham’s byelection campaign in Makerfield had been “positive, community-focused and unifying.” To bring policies many in the parliamentary Labour party did not support into a new administration, “spearheaded by a home secretary who divides opinion,” would be, he said, “a political mistake.”
He urged Burnham to use the transition as a reset. “This is Labour’s reset moment when we can consign to the past some of the appalling language used by politicians to describe refugees: ‘invaders’, ‘an island of strangers’, ‘tearing our country apart’.” Labour should champion “human rights, compassion, fairness and equality” while maintaining border control, he argued.
His call to give “high priority to family reunion to allow asylum-seeking children to join their families here” would, he said, be one “the public would accept and see as a fair and compassionate approach.”
Where Mahmood stands
Mahmood has been attempting to soften some aspects of her approach. She has been in talks to exempt care workers from the proposed indefinite leave to remain changes and is currently embroiled in a standoff over the future of immigration minister Mike Tapp, who has been accused of presenting her plans as his own.
Sources close to the home secretary said her policies were necessary to restore order and control at the UK’s borders and were consistent with Labour values. Mahmood has previously argued that the UK risks losing popular consent for its asylum system without tough policies. She previously joked in a WhatsApp group that she would “taser and deport” various politicians including Polanski, Farage and Badenoch – a clip that illustrated the particular political volatility she generates even among Labour supporters.
What Burnham does next
The question of whether Mahmood stays in post will be one of Burnham’s earliest signals of political direction. The Starmer government’s approach to the Home Office and its tensions with the PLP were already visible before his resignation. What Burnham does with it will say a great deal about whether his government represents the reset Dubs is calling for – or whether the change of prime minister leaves the most contested parts of the Starmer immigration agenda largely intact.
Dubs, 93, was clear about what he wanted to see. “This is Andy Burnham’s opportunity.” Whether Burnham takes it is now the question.
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