Shabana Mahmood has promised to get tough on illegal immigration after a public outcry (Image: Getty)

Well, yes, minister. Full marks for observation!

So the latest wheeze to make the Kent coast less attractive to tens of thousands of people beating a path here is to grant temporary asylum and remove individuals as soon as their home countries are deemed safe.

It campaigned on a manifesto pledge to scrap the Conservative’s Rwanda deportation scheme and, immediately after winning the general election, Sir Keir Starmer declared the “gimmick” was “dead and buried”.

The latest Hokey Cokey comes hot on the heels of Labour’s “one in one out policy” – for each person returned to France, the UK accepts someone with a case for protection as a refugee who has not attempted to cross the Channel. It has proved a farce.

And it also serves as a timely and convenient distraction from a shambolic and stuttering government about to unleash untold misery on voters at the Budget.

It is doomed to fail for one reason.

PM Sir Keir Starmer labelled Reform’s plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain racist (Image: Getty)

So far this year almost 40,000 have arrived on small boats from France. And these are the ones the authorities are aware of.

Under current UK rules, those granted refugee status have it for five years and can then apply for indefinite leave to remain and, possibly, a route to citizenship. Ms Mahmood wants to extend this to 20 years.

Additionly, she wants every refugee’s status to be reviewed every 30 months. And those whose countries become safe – whatever that means – will be removed.

But the plan does little to smash the crime cartels facilitating small boat crossings in the first place, or deter the appetite of illegal migrants paying them to traverse the Channel. In fact, it risks driving those already here, or planning to come, further underground to operate in Britian’s burgeoning black economy.

To give you some idea of how far the pendulum has swung in Britain, Labour will try to introduce a new law to force judges to put public safety above the rights of illegal migrants and foreign criminals when considering removal.

But the Government cannot decide what is a safe country. It is not in its gift all the time the UK remains tied to the European Convention on Human Rights which it incorporates into law through the Human Rights Act.

The army of human rights activists and lawyers to whom Labour is attached at the hip will ultimately arbitrate on what constitutes safe. And is Labour really going to challenge the Supreme Court? Of course not.

Only weeks ago an increasingly desperate government was reduced to labelling Nigel Farage’s plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain as racist and immoral.

The Reform UK leader’s policy could effectively see hundreds of thousands of people, here legally, being thrown out the front door. It is deeply controversial but appears hugely popular with a fed-up electorate.

On Ms Mahmood’s first day in the job more than 1,000 migrants made the very same journey.

In what at first blush seems to be an awakening, Ms Mahmood has parroted what millions across the UK have been screaming for years: that the border security shambles is dividing communities because those who flout the rules and abuse the system can and do get away with it.

In her Road to Damascus epiphany she states she is “not willing to stand by and pretend there isn’t a problem when I know there is one”.

It will surely leave some wondering where these words were 17 months ago.

Labour Appear to Have Got Tough on Migrant Crisis – But You’ll Hate What Happens Next

The Labour government’s approach to immigration has become significantly tougher, with ministers introducing stricter visa rules, changing the asylum system and stepping up efforts to prevent small boats from crossing the English Channel.

For a government that came to power promising to “stop the boats” and restore control over Britain’s borders, the latest figures provide evidence of movement in that direction.

But the story is considerably more complicated than a simple political victory.

Some migration figures have fallen sharply. Small-boat arrivals are down substantially compared with 2025, while net migration has also dropped. At the same time, the government is introducing policies that could have significant consequences for employers, migrants already living in Britain and the country’s care sector.

That is where the “what happens next” part of the debate begins.

According to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, net migration fell to 171,000 in 2025, down 48 per cent from the previous year and 82 per cent from its peak of 944,000 in 2023. However, the organisation cautions that the decline cannot simply be attributed to Labour’s policies, because several important changes had already been introduced by the previous government.

The reduction in Channel crossings is also striking.

Migration Observatory analysis published in September found that around 27,900 people had crossed the Channel by small boat in the year ending September 9, 2026. That was 40 per cent below the recent peak recorded in September 2025 and 11 per cent below the level when Labour came to office in July 2024.

In the first eight months of 2026, approximately 16,300 people arrived by small boat, 47 per cent fewer than during the equivalent period of 2025.

Those figures provide the government with an important political argument.

Ministers can point to the numbers and say that measures designed to reduce irregular migration are having an effect.

The Home Office has highlighted enforcement cooperation with France, claiming that more than 48,000 crossing attempts have been prevented and 1,100 boats and engines seized since the 2024 general election. It also says that the number of crossings has fallen this year and that July 2026 recorded the lowest number of small-boat arrivals for that month since 2020.

But the Migration Observatory stresses an important limitation: it is difficult to establish exactly why crossings have fallen.

Government policies may have contributed, but changes in unauthorised migration into Europe and other factors may also have influenced the numbers.

That distinction matters.

A fall in arrivals is a measurable fact. The precise reason for the fall is a separate question.

Labour has nevertheless continued to tighten the wider immigration system.

The government’s 2025 immigration white paper proposed making it more difficult to enter and settle permanently in Britain. Some of its measures have already taken effect, while others remain under development.

The House of Commons Library reported in September 2026 that the government had reduced the list of jobs eligible for Skilled Worker sponsorship, ended overseas recruitment of social care workers from July 2025, increased the immigration skills charge and introduced a higher English-language requirement for new applicants on several visa routes.

Further changes are scheduled.

Graduate visas will generally last 18 months for applications from January 2027, rather than the previous longer period, except for PhD graduates who can receive 36 months. A higher English-language standard for indefinite leave to remain is also due to apply to various immigration routes from March 2027.

Perhaps the most politically significant proposal concerns permanent settlement.

The government has proposed changing the system under which migrants qualify for indefinite leave to remain. Rather than the traditional five-year route applying to many workers, ministers have explored much longer qualifying periods, with the exact final arrangements still subject to policy and legal changes.

This is where the consequences become much more complicated.

For migrants who have built their lives in Britain, a longer route to permanent residence could mean considerably greater uncertainty.

For employers, particularly in sectors that have depended heavily on overseas recruitment, the consequences could also be substantial.

Care is a particularly sensitive example.

Reuters reported in April that proposals to make migrant workers wait as long as 15 years for permanent residency could create staffing difficulties in care homes, where roughly one in three employees is from overseas.

The government argues that the immigration system should encourage employers to train and recruit workers already living in Britain rather than relying indefinitely on overseas recruitment.

That is reflected in the government’s immigration white paper.

It proposes a Temporary Shortage List for occupations where overseas recruitment is genuinely justified, while linking access to immigration to workforce strategies and employer commitments to domestic skills development.

In principle, the approach is straightforward: fewer overseas workers where Britain can train its own workforce, but continued immigration where serious shortages cannot otherwise be addressed.

In practice, however, replacing overseas workers takes time.

Training a new nurse, engineer, social care worker or other skilled employee cannot necessarily be achieved quickly enough to meet immediate labour shortages.

That creates a tension between immigration reduction and the functioning of public services and businesses.

The same tension exists in the asylum system.

The government’s latest statistics show that 86,000 people claimed asylum in the year ending June 2026, 21 per cent fewer than the previous year. Nevertheless, the total remained above the levels typically recorded before 2021.

The government has also changed the structure of asylum protection.

Under reforms introduced in 2026, refugees receiving protection are generally placed on a temporary protection model, with their status subject to review rather than automatically providing a direct route towards permanent settlement. The Migration Observatory notes that this represents a significant change in the UK’s asylum system.

Ministers argue that such reforms are necessary to restore control and discourage abuse of the system.

Critics argue that greater uncertainty for refugees can make integration harder and create additional pressure on families who have already experienced displacement.

There is another political problem for Labour.

Even if migration falls, public perceptions may not immediately change.

Immigration has become one of Britain’s most politically sensitive subjects. Numbers can decline while public debate remains intense because migration affects housing, public services, employment, wages, taxation and community relations.

That means a government cannot necessarily declare victory simply because one set of statistics moves in the desired direction.

For Reform UK, this provides an opportunity.

Nigel Farage and his party have argued that Labour’s measures remain insufficient and have called for substantially tougher action against illegal migration. Reform has used the Channel crossings issue as one of its central political arguments.

Labour therefore faces pressure from two directions.

On one side, it must demonstrate that it is responding to voters who want lower migration and stronger border enforcement.

On the other, it must manage the economic and social consequences of policies that restrict immigration.

The government has already faced disagreement within Labour over some of its proposed settlement reforms. That suggests the issue is not simply a contest between Labour and Reform; it is also generating debate within Labour itself.

The bigger question is what Britain’s immigration system will look like several years from now.

If net migration remains substantially lower, small-boat arrivals continue to decline and the asylum backlog is reduced, ministers will be able to argue that their strategy has fundamentally changed the system.

But if employers experience persistent labour shortages, care services struggle to recruit staff, or migrants who are already contributing to the economy face prolonged uncertainty, political pressure could move in another direction.

There is also a practical question about enforcement.

Stopping boats is only one part of immigration control. A comprehensive system must also process asylum claims quickly, remove people who have no legal right to remain, provide legal routes where appropriate and ensure that people with permission to work can enter through a system that businesses can actually use.

That is why the latest statistics need to be viewed together rather than separately.

The fall in net migration is significant.

The reduction in small-boat arrivals is significant.

The fall in asylum applications is also significant.

But none of those figures alone proves that the government’s entire immigration strategy is succeeding or failing.

Some changes were inherited from the previous government. Others have been introduced by Labour. Some policies have not yet had enough time to show their full effects.

And some of the biggest changes have consequences that may take years to become visible.

For Labour, that is perhaps the most important part of the story.

The government has clearly moved towards a more restrictive immigration framework. The question is whether it can reduce irregular and legal migration while still maintaining the workforce Britain needs and ensuring that the asylum system functions effectively.

For migrants, the consequences may include longer waits, stricter requirements and greater uncertainty about permanent settlement.

For employers, the challenge will be adapting to a labour market in which overseas recruitment is increasingly restricted.

For the government, the political challenge is to prove that tougher immigration rules can produce sustainable results rather than simply shifting pressures from one part of the system to another.

So, has Labour finally got tough on the migrant crisis?

The statistics show that several important migration indicators have fallen.

But the next stage may be much harder.

Reducing numbers is one challenge. Building an immigration system that is controlled, enforceable, economically workable and politically sustainable is another.

And that is the real test now facing the Labour government.

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