Shabana Mahmood trumpeted her ‘moral mission’ to control Britain’s borders today as Labour tries to look tough on immigration.
The Home Secretary insisted she is bringing in ‘sweeping’ reforms with Channel boat arrivals facing a 20-year wait for permanent settlement in the UK – quadrupling the current period.
There will also be reviews every 30 months of whether refugees’ home countries have become safer – potentially allowing them to be sent back.
Ms Mahmood is also outlining plans to scrap automatic state handouts to many asylum seekers, and signalled in interviews that she will announce plans to reform the implementation of the European Convention of Human Rights in the Commons tomorrow.
The Cabinet minister said she recognised illegal immigration is causing ‘huge divides’ in the UK and voiced concerns that the public might demand the total scrapping of the asylum system without changes.
The government must ‘deal with the pull factors that draw people in in the first place’, she told Sky News amid alarm that Britain looks like a ‘golden ticket’.
‘I know we have to go further, because people are still getting in boats every day, crossing the Channel, putting their lives at risk, and those of other people as well,’ she said.
She added: ‘That’s what the new suite of proposals, the most sweeping set of reforms in modern times, that’s what that is designed to do.
‘Because I know illegal migration is causing huge divides here in our own country, and I do believe we need to act if we are to retain public consent for having an asylum system at all.’
The plans are based on hardline Danish laws, to curb immigration and reduce the ‘pull-factor’ bringing migrants to the UK.
The new 20-year qualifying period will apply to those who arrive illegally, such as in small boats or in lorries, and claim asylum, or those who overstay their visas and then claim.
Home Office sources said it will be the longest route to settlement in Europe – tougher even than Denmark’s eight-year pathway, the second longest in Europe.
However, the plans are already facing a backlash from left-wing Labour MPs who regard Denmark’s set-up as ‘undeniably racist’.
Ms Mahmood told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: ‘I really reject this idea that dealing with this problem is somehow engaging in far-right talking points.
‘I am the child of migrants myself, my parents came to this country lawfully in the late 60s, and in the 70s. Immigration is absolutely woven into my experience as a Brit and also that of thousands of my constituents.
‘This is a moral mission for me, because I can see illegal migration is tearing our country apart, it is dividing communities.
‘People can see huge pressure in their communities and they can also see a system that is broken, and where people are able to flout the rules, abuse the system and get away with it.’
She added: ‘I know that I have to persuade people across the country, not just in Parliament, but across the country, that these are reforms that can work.’
According to Labour insiders, Ms Mahmood has told colleagues that she would do ‘the unthinkable for a Labour Home Secretary’.
And it emerged last weekend that it would include copying parts of the hardline immigration reforms introduced by the Danish centre-Left government to combat Right-wing populism.
The reforms, introduced in 2016, have led to a 40-year low in asylum claims there. Ms Mahmood’s officials revealed she will propose revoking the statutory legal duty to provide asylum-seeker support, including housing and weekly allowances of £49.
The presumption is that asylum seekers who have the right to work and support themselves but choose not to would be denied the benefits.
There are currently 8,500 people in asylum accommodation on visas with the right to work.
It emerged last week that the plans will also include no longer granting permanent asylum to refugees. Instead, they would have their asylum status in the UK reviewed every two to three years.
Home Office sources said that Denmark had reduced the number of asylum applications to its lowest level in 40 years and removed 95 per cent of rejected asylum seekers.
They said the UK offered a package of benefits and support that far exceeded our international obligations.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch warned that Labour was ‘incapable of getting any real change past their Left-wing backbenchers’ and offered to work with the Government to deliver meaningful reform of the asylum system.
