With its quaint fish and chip shops and luxury boats, the south coast town of Poole is a beautiful holiday destination. But all is not as tranquil as it may seem.
Near the shore stands the Poole Quay Hotel, a 1980s brick behemoth that was the centre of such intense social media rumours it might become home to asylum seekers that the council was forced to issue a denial.
It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that on a trip to the town centre — a melange of cosy pubs and charming bistros next to boarded-up shopfronts and shops selling vapes — almost everyone I spoke to was in favour of a crackdown on illegal immigration.
PETER TARRY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
PETER TARRY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Jason, 51, a public sector worker who declines to give his surname because of the sensitive nature of his job, works with deprived people and worries about the cost of housing asylum seekers. “We could be opening up spaces for local homeless people,” he says. “We deal with suicide attempts and all sorts because there’s no help.” For constituents like him, the immigration reforms announced by Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, are a step in the right direction.
The local MP, Neil Duncan-Jordan, is not so sure. Duncan-Jordan, who won the seat for Labour last year, acknowledges that illegal immigration needs to come down but says: “When you’ve got people like Tommy Robinson saying ‘Well this is a jolly good idea,’ you do sort of have to wonder how you ended up here. This is the Labour Party after all. We are supposed to be caring.”
He is waiting to hear the details of the government’s programme before passing full judgment, but says he is deeply concerned about “the language that … does sound like it’s from the far right.”
More than 20 Labour MPs have expressed reservations about Mahmood’s reforms, which include reviewing refugee status every 30 months and paying asylum seekers to return home. Some of the critical Labour MPs are what might be called “the usual suspects”: those on the left like John McDonnell and Richard Burgon, who are sitting on big majorities in urban areas. But many are like Duncan-Jordan: first-time MPs in ultra-marginal seats, who were expected to be loyal to Sir Keir Starmer.
Across the country, many of the policies set out by Mahmood are popular. Some sixty-nine per cent of people support moving to a system whereby asylum seekers have their claims frequently reassessed to check whether it is safe for them to go home, and 69 per cent support restricting refugees to a single appeal. MPs who criticise these policies face a challenge to prove to voters they are on the same side.
• Shabana Mahmood’s asylum seeker policy reforms: the key points
Duncan-Jordan’s position is more precarious than most. He is the first Labour MP in his constituency’s 75-year history, and won the seat from the Tories in 2024 by 18 votes.
Polling last week by More in Common showed that 68 per cent of 2024 Labour voters wanted their MPs to back the plans. Rivals see this as an opportunity. “We will target these MPs,” a Reform source says. “They are all vulnerable.”
In September, MRP polling already had Poole falling to Reform if an election were held today.
The source expects the rebellion among Labour MPs to spread a lot wider when the reforms come to a vote. “At the first sign of trouble from the party the government will crumble on this,” the source says. “By the time of the election we will end up targeting all of them, and anyone not in a city seat will be vulnerable.”
Reform will lay down amendments to add more draconian measures to the bill. When Labour MPs vote against it, this will allow Nigel Farage’s party to carpet their target constituencies with advertising that says the local MP voted against plans to crack down on illegal migration.
This may find fertile ground in Poole, where there is a broad consensus Britain should keep its borders open to those fleeing war and persecution — a position shared by 76 per cent of the public, per More in Common’s polling — but that there are many people who seek to exploit the asylum system, and these people should be stopped from coming. ‘If they’re failed asylum seekers they should go,” says Sorrell Yates, 52. She thinks the government “were silly to cancel that Rwanda thing”.
“I’m pleased about it” says Alan Heckford, 76. “There are too many people coming to the country.”
Duncan-Jordan is sanguine. “Some people are single-issue but most aren’t,” he says, noting that he received only three emails last week about the immigration plans but was “inundated” with concerns about fireworks causing distress to dogs.
In Folkestone & Hyde, Tony Vaughan — a KC specialising in immigration and human rights law — has also criticised Mahmood’s plans. He is another first Labour MP in his seat’s history, and has a majority of about 4,000. Reform are on track to take his constituency according to recent polling.
Tony Vaughan
HOUSE OF COMMONS
His seat also contains the Napier Barracks, which houses asylum seekers. “I have people on the doorsteps who feel there is a sense of unfairness, and that if we can’t control the borders what can we control? I completely agree the problem needs to be fixed,” Vaughan says, but he thinks the government’s approach is entirely wrong. There should be more focus on strengthening the one-in-one-out deal with France, he says, and establishing similar deals with other countries.
He blames the high number of illegal arrivals on the fact that asylum seekers believe Britain will not be able to return them because of its changed relationship with Europe. “Brexit is the culprit here,” he says. “It’s the elephant in the room … These are Farage’s boats.”
• What questions remain unanswered in Mahmood’s asylum reforms?
It is not a simple calculation for MPs like these to make. Vaughan finds himself squeezed from both sides: Folkestone has a Reform-run county council and a Green-run district council.
Nationally, Duncan-Jordan says, “the Labour Party is haemorrhaging votes to the left — the Greens and the Liberals. The popularity of Reform has influenced … the Labour Party to adopt the clothes of Reform because they think that’s where the votes are. Following Reform and their policies is a dead end electorally.”
But is refusing to follow them also a dead end? These MPs are about to find out.