Former Conservative MP Danny Kruger has welcomed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s “rhetoric,” and even jokingly suggested that she might join him in defecting to Reform UK.
Despite this initial praise, Mr Kruger expressed significant reservations to MPs, fearing that new asylum policies would not “stop the lawfare” he claims failed asylum seekers use to delay and block their removal from the country.
Ms Mahmood unveiled a series of measures on Monday, explicitly designed to “tackle the pull factors that draw people into this country”.
These include plans to remove benefits from refugees who “are able to work but choose not to.”
The Home Secretary also vowed to narrow the UK’s interpretation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to respect for private and family life.
Under the proposed changes, a “family” would be defined solely as “parents and their children,” and asylum seekers would only be permitted to lodge claims using this right if they are already present in the UK.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described the moves as “baby steps, but positive”.
Mr Kruger told the Commons: “I welcome the rhetoric that the Home Secretary has announced.
“In fact, I recognise the rhetoric of the Home Secretary today – we have our plan for restoring justice, she’s announced a plan to restore order and control.
“But before she puts in her application to join Reform UK, and I’d very much welcome her doing so, can I draw out the difference between our parties?
“Unlike the Government, we don’t propose to give illegal immigrants the right to stay here for two-and-a-half years after arriving, we don’t propose to give them the right to study and work here, we don’t propose to allow them to bring their families here, and crucially, we’re not going to contort our law to fit in with the ECHR.”
The East Wiltshire MP, who joined Nigel Farage’s party earlier this year, warned the move would not “stop the lawfare”.
Referring to his invitation to join Reform UK, Ms Mahmood said: “Over my dead body.”
Mrs Badenoch had earlier said: “Some of the measures she is announcing today are undoubtedly positive steps – baby steps, but positive nonetheless.
“We welcome making refugee status temporary, and we welcome removing the last Labour government’s legislation that created a duty to support asylum seekers. She’s right to do that.”
But the Conservative leader said the Government’s announcement “simply does not go far enough” and continued: “The fact is, we have looked at this issue from every possible direction, and the reality is that any plan that doesn’t include leaving the ECHR as a necessary step is wasting time we don’t have.
“Just like their plan to smash the gangs, or the ‘one in one out’ policy, it is time wasting, and it is doomed to fail because of lawfare.”
And Conservative Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh, the Gainsborough MP, gave Ms Mahmood a “seven out of 10” for her announcement.
“She clearly has strong Conservative instincts,” he said, to laughter.
Sir Edward called on the Home Secretary to have “an open mind about schemes such as Rwanda”, referring to the previous government’s now-cancelled plan to remove asylum seekers to Africa if they made an unauthorised crossing into the UK.
Ms Mahmood replied: “On Rwanda, no.”
The Home Secretary also faced criticism for her announcement from Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson.
He said: “What is not helpful is the Home Secretary claiming that the country is being torn apart by immigration.”
Ms Mahmood said in her response: “I wish I had the privilege of walking around this country and not seeing the division that the issue of migration and asylum system is creating across this country.
“Unlike him, unfortunately, I am the one that is regularly called a f****** Paki and told to go back home.
“It is I who knows, through my personal experience and that of my constituents, just how divisive the issue of asylum has become in our country.”
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused Ms Mahmood of “trying to appease the most ghastly right-wing racist forces all across Europe in undermining and walking away from the ECHR, a convention created by the post-war Labour government”.
Many asylum seekers have arrived from Afghanistan, which the UK “helped to make into a war-torn country”, the Your Party co-founder added.
He asked: “Does she not recognise history is going to be a harsh judge on this Government for undermining the whole global humanitarian principles behind the ECHR and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?”
Claimants from Afghanistan have had access to “bespoke schemes”, Ms Mahmood replied.
The Cabinet minister said she wanted to “incentivise people coming on safe and legal routes instead” of by crossing the English Channel on small boats.
Ms Mahmood also said she was “sorry to find that the Reform party is living rent-free in so many people’s heads” but that it was “nowhere near” hers, after Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts told MPs “imitating Reform doesn’t create unity, doesn’t win trust”.
