Starmer braced for backlash from Labour MPs as Mahmood sets out asylum plans – UK politics live

November 17, 2025 1

Home secretary to announce a drastic tightening of rules, including requiring asylum seekers to wait 20 years before getting the right to permanently settle in UK

Good morning. At the 2024 general election Labour sought to appeal by right-leaning voters by telling them that Keir Starmer would not raise the main rates of tax, and to left-leaning voters by telling them that he would get rid of the Tories’ Rwanda scheme. These days there must be a lot of people in government who think life would be easier if they had done it the other way round – offering tax rises to the left, and Rwanda (or something similar) to the right.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, isn’t resurrecting the Rwanda policy today (although recently Josh Glancy reported in the Sunday Times that privately some government figures now believe that scrapping it was a mistake). But she will announce plans that would drastically tighten the UK’s asylum laws. One feature of the plans would require asylum seekers to wait 20 years before being allowed to get permanent settlement in the UK – which would be the longest wait in any European asylum system.

The Home Office has announced a further element of the plan – a threat to “stop granting visas to nationals of Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo if their governments do not rapidly improve co-operation on removals”. The Home Office says:

Thousands of illegal migrants and criminals from these nations are currently in the UK, with the Home Office continually frustrated in its efforts to remove them.

Visa penalties could mean VIPs and tourists alike not being able to enter the UK unless co-operation improves in the coming months.

Alex Norris, a Home Office minister, has confirmed that refugees could have jewellery or other valuables taken to pay for the costs of processing their cases. He was standing up a story first reported by the Sun. Peter Walker has the details here.

Source: www.theguardian.com

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Written by: truelightfm

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