By Eniola Amadu
The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood has defended the reforms in the UK’s asylum system, informing the MPs that the present situation is “out of control and unfair”.
At the House of Commons, Mahmood said: “If we fail to deal with this crisis, we will draw more people down a path that starts with anger and ends in hatred.”
Refugee status will become temporary, asylum seekers will no longer receive guaranteed housing support, and new limited “safe and legal routes” into the UK will be introduced as contained in the new framework.
A few Labour MPs registered their displeasure on the new framework. MP for Nottingham East, Nadia Whittome tagged the as “dystopian” and “shameful” while the Conservatives responded with guarded approval.
The MP for Nottingham East, Whittome, accused the administration of “ripping up the rights and protections of people who’ve endured imaginable trauma”. Almost 20 MPs have criticised the decisions.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch stated that the initiatives were “positive baby steps” warning that Mahmood’s efforts would be ‘doomed to fail” without UK’s exit from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Badenoch however urged Mahmood to team up with the conservatives, noting she may get their approval which would “come in handy”.
The spokesman for the Liberal Democrat home affairs accepted the introduction of new safe and legal pathways. However, he criticised the home secretary for “stoking division by using immoderate language”.
In response, Mahmood said to the MP: “I wish I had the privilege of walking around this country and not seeing the division that the issue of migration and the asylum system is creating across this country.”
An immigration lawyer and the MP for Folkestone and Hythe MP, Tony Vaughan stated the new limiting the refugee status would create a “situation of perpetual limbo and alienation”.
The MP for Leeds East, Richard Burgon, expressed that the plans were “morally wrong” and would “push away Labour voters”.
“Why not recognise that now rather than in another few months and have to make a U-turn,” he said.
Meanwhile, other MPs have revealed their backing for the home secretary.
MP for Blackley and Middleton South, Graham Stringer, noted that Mahmood was “going down the right track”.
He stated that she would find common ground with Labour MPs adding that “It might all be for naught if we don’t get out of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
Mahmood, in a chat with the BBC revealed reforming the system was a “moral mission” for her.
“If we don’t win this argument… we will lose public support for having an asylum system at all and therefore we’ll lose something brilliant about this country.
“I’m not willing to put public support for having an asylum system at risk.”
