{"id":594764,"date":"2025-11-26T10:09:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/594764\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T10:09:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:09:18","slug":"londoners-react-to-shabana-mahmoods-controversial-policies-towards-asylum-seekers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/594764\/","title":{"rendered":"Londoners react to Shabana Mahmood\u2019s controversial policies towards asylum-seekers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Accused of pandering to the Right, Mahmood\u2019s policies on \u2018Restoring Order and Control\u2019 of immigration have drawn significant backlash, with more than 24 Labour MPs having voiced concerns.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The home secretary announced sweeping changes towards the processing of asylum-seekers in the Commons this week.<\/p>\n<p>Outlined in a document titled \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/asylum-and-returns-policy-statement\/restoring-order-and-control-a-statement-on-the-governments-asylum-and-returns-policy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Restoring Order and Control<\/a>\u201d, Mahmood\u2019s measures include:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Refugees will have to spend 20 years in the UK before being allowed to apply for settled status<\/li>\n<li>Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention, the \u2018Right to Family Life\u2019, will no longer apply in full to refugees<\/li>\n<li>Asylum seekers with assets will have to contribute to their costs, and housing and weekly allowances will no longer be guaranteed.<\/li>\n<li>Refugees will be subject to criteria on \u201cearned settlement\u201d.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Londoners spoke to immigrants and asylum-seekers in London about their opinions on Labour\u2019s new policies.<\/p>\n<p>Rodrigo Hammond, 20, a photographer in South Kensington, said: \u201cI understand how ensuring safe and lawful immigration is an important issue for any state.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut the home secretary is talking about changing our convention of human rights in order to deal with immigration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo me, that is just absurd \u2014 to suggest that fixing our system requires a denial of human rights is just downright wrong in every way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The suggested changes to other parts of the European Human Rights Convention drew similar concerns from several interviewees, but significantly different conclusions.<\/p>\n<p>Londoner Kate Engler, 37, said: \u201cI\u2019m conflicted on how I feel. The changes to human rights law obviously sound wrong.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut when you look into it, changes to Article 3 mean that migrants will have to pay for their accommodation themselves instead of the government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s so terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The sentiment that refugees are not the responsibility of the state varied between interviewees, with several claiming Britain has a moral imperative to take in asylum-seekers.<\/p>\n<p>Sufian Barghouti, 52, who lives in Ilford and works in the NHS, said: \u201cWhat I struggle to understand is, why do refugees have to now \u2018earn\u2019 their right to be here?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy should someone born in a conflict which they have no responsibility for have to prove that they deserve to leave?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve voted Labour all my life, but I don\u2019t think this is anything I can stand behind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The idea that these policies are a divergence from traditional Leftist values continues to widely inform the backlash that the Labour government continues to face from its own voters. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Jemimah Saliq, 26, said: \u201cI\u2019m honestly shocked. This is not a Labour policy at all. If I didn\u2019t see Mahmood announcing it, I could\u2019ve believed these were Reform UK\u2019s proposals.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe idea that someone fleeing war has to wait twenty years to know that they have a home, to know that they are safe \u2014 I don\u2019t have the words to express how much that disgusts me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy are we still putting the blame for all our problems on the most vulnerable people in this country?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Home Office were approached for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Featured image credit: Andy Taylor via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Accused of pandering to the Right, Mahmood\u2019s policies on \u2018Restoring Order and Control\u2019 of immigration have drawn significant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":594765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,40,257,6658,16,10788,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-594764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-refugees","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-uk-government","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115615456578456912","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/594765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}