Immigration Reforms

Sally Jameson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Pete Wishart]

I absolutely agree. I am really pleased that the hon. Lady raised that issue, and she is right to do so. I have received countless briefings from a number of organisations, including the Royal College of Midwives, that are genuinely concerned about where this leads. Scotland is in the early stages of depopulation; just wait till they get it down here. If the Government think immigration is a bad thing, just wait till they get to the negative consequences of emigration. We are starting to get there, because it looks like immigration this year will be net zero. The rest of the UK is about to experience the end of population growth, which will put all sorts of strains on demographic issues throughout this country. The hon. Lady is right to raise that point.

It is not only that people are being forced out; I have high-value constituents from Sri Lanka who are just going home. They have had enough. They cannot be bothered dealing with a Government who treat them so shabbily and shoddily and do not see any value in what they do. That is what the Government are doing with the immigration changes.

All this essentially delivers prolonged uncertainty, fear and anxiety in the asylum system. It will undermine every and all positive efforts towards integration. It will leave a generation of people living permanently in limbo, constantly looking over their shoulder and fearing that, at any moment, they may be forcibly removed. Whole communities that have already been traumatised by having to leave their home, sometimes in the most extraordinary conditions, fleeing oppression, with their own lives sometimes at risk, feel they are being traumatised all over again.

But do not worry—the Home Secretary tells us this is the plan. She says we have to make the UK an unattractive country for people who want to come here, as if they could make hostile-environment UK even more unattractive. That is the Government’s mission, and by God are they making a good go of it! They are not just making the UK an unattractive place for asylum seekers; they are making it an unattractive place for all of us who have to live in this country—all of us who care deeply and passionately about community harmony, consensus, building communities and giving honourable people a break and an opportunity to get on with their lives. Well done, Minister: you have managed to make this place even more unattractive than the Conservatives did, and I did not believe that would be possible for a minute.

The Government do not have the courage to bring their proposal to the House. They do not have the guts to bring it forward and ask us to support them, because they know what will happen: all the Labour MPs who oppose this will be there to voice that opposition, call them out and join us in standing up for some of the most wretched souls who inhabit this country. That is why they will not bring anything to the House.

The Home Secretary did not even have the courtesy to come to the House and make a proper statement. She was forced to answer an urgent question from the Conservatives, who actually told her that she did not go far enough, but she did not have the courtesy to come to the House to announce the reforms. She was in Denmark, in the British embassy in Copenhagen. She is asking us to emulate what is happening in Denmark—a country that could not be more different from the United Kingdom in terms of our historical roles in the world.

Denmark’s approach has not produced anything resembling a humane, fair or effective asylum system. It has not defeated the rise of the far right. Denmark has what it calls “parallel societies”, a sinister development that seems like some sort of weird ghetto law. Denmark has seen growing calls from its far right for remigration—that is where the debate is going there—and it has some of the worst structural discrimination in any welfare system in Europe. “Let’s copy Denmark,” they say. Well done on that one!

I remind the Minister, because he is such a fan of Denmark, that the Social Democratic alliance that introduced those measures was facing political annihilation until Trump ensured political and national unity with all his Greenland ambitions. But even so, many social democrats and progressives have abandoned those parties and are looking to the Greens and other progressive parties in Denmark. Maybe that is the real lesson from Denmark: look at what is happening to core Social Democrat support.

The truth is that the Government will not bring the reforms to the House because they know what will happen if they do. More than 100 Labour MPs have written to the Home Secretary to say that they have deep concerns about what is proposed. I hope that if they are given the chance to vote, many of them will join us in beating the proposals.

The question that always gets me in this particular Parliament is: why are the Government doing this? What is motivating them to take such an approach to immigration and asylum, and why do it now? The conventional view from the Government, and what we continue to hear from various Ministers and the Home Secretary, is that if they are not seen to be hard on asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants, their votes will go to Reform—that Reform will continue to grow unless Labour is seen to be as hard as Reform when it comes to these issues. But there is absolutely no evidence that Labour supporters are moving towards Reform. There is loads of evidence that Labour voters are moving towards the Greens; we have seen that in a couple of—

[Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

That’s not true!

[Pete Wishart]

Does the hon. Lady want to intervene? Sorry; I thought she was making weird gestures at me, but obviously she is just looking at her phone. That is what is actually happening.

As I have said to the Government at every opportunity —and I will say it again and again—they cannot beat Reform by emulating them. Reform can be beaten by challenging its agenda and dismantling its toxic ambitions. Reform cannot be beaten by marching on to its territory and fighting on its ground. All that does is legitimise its arguments and embolden its ambition.

You would think, Mr Stringer, that after their absolute hammering at the by-election a couple of weeks ago by my colleagues in the Green party, the Government might just think, “Is this working for us? Is there a problem with the way we are positioning ourselves on the spectrum of UK politics?” They might have taken a cursory glance at what happened in Caerphilly, where my colleagues from Plaid Cymru hammered the Government and stood strong against Reform, and were rewarded by a stunning by-election victory.

The Government’s strategy seems to be going on to Reform’s territory and trying to beat them. I say ever so gently to the Minister: regardless of how hard he tries—and he seems to be trying his utmost and damnedest—he will never out-Reform Reform, which is possibly to his credit. Reform are the absolute masters of sinister, poisonous right-wing ideology and, regardless of how hard the Government try, they will never beat Reform on that territory.

The Government are chasing Reform down that road but not noticing something profound that is happening in British politics. In Scotland, we have a particularly sharp divide in our politics, based around the constitution, and a divide seems to be opening up in English politics. Let us look at who came first and second in the by-elections. On one side, it is the parties of the progressive ideals of unity, consensus and wanting a compassionate immigration system. On the other side stand the parties of the right—the authoritarians and those who believe immigration is a bad thing that has to be controlled and defeated.

Labour is absolutely nowhere. It is fourth in the polls this morning. When is Labour going to have an opportunity to look at where it is? The dividing line is opening up, and Labour Members are all on the wrong side of it. Labour is seen to be part of a right-wing coalition; we hear that every time some right-wing Conservative or senior Member praises the Home Secretary to the rafters, and there is even praise from Reform. I am sure we will get more praise for the Home Secretary from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds). I hope he will indulge the House and tell us how wonderful he thinks these things are, because I know that privately he thinks what the Home Secretary is doing is brilliant. That is where Labour is now.

We have a march and rally next Saturday, organised by the Together Alliance. We are all going to be there. We are going to stand up, proudly and defiantly, to the far right. We have a little group in Westminster—the parliamentary forum to take on the far right. Members should come and join us, because that is where the action is in this country now, and where it is increasingly going. Labour Members are going to have to get on the right side or they are going to be finished.