Richard Haviland

Shabana Mahmood to announce asylum system changes to take effect From Monday, asylum seekers granted refugee status in the UK will be offered only temporary protection.

This seems to be the substance of tomorrow’s announcement - that anyone who applies for asylum as of Monday will, if they’re successful, get 2.5 years leave instead of 5 years. They would then go into the new 20 year route to settlement, once that’s in place.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The US is not a 'partner'. It's in their National Security Strategy to support far right parties that oppose multicultural liberal democracy here. They are behaving lawlessly at home and abroad, summarily executing their own citizens, and now bombing Iran with no coherent rationale or plan.

“We cannot say that the United States’ actions are against international law, but we condemn Iran’s retaliatory actions as against international law,” is neither a coherent nor a compelling position.

It’s worse than stupid, it’s dangerous. It shows that Labour - or at least these elements within Labour - are absolutely not to be trusted in the existential fight against the far right which should be uniting all the rest of us, whatever our political beliefs.

In order to understand UK politics in 2026 you must realise that a plumber & plasterer doesn't represent the interests of the working class because she is left-wing but a wealthy broadcaster & former academic does represent the interests of the working class because he is right-wing. Hope this helps

‘It’s for the accused to explain the legal basis for his actions’.

<UK Politics warning>

I want to make a prediction here so I can point to later:

As well as the intended target (Muslims), all this talk of "family voting" and sudden need to police the sanctity of the secret ballot is going to disenfranchise disabled people.

🧵 1/10

Yeah, having now slept on it properly, it is weird that no losing parties statement really reckons with why people might have chosen the Greens and instead they all chose to blame sectarianism. It does suggest that they still don't really recognise people who vote Green as, you know, real people.

Something so wrong with this. Rarely in the international sphere is there such a clear case of right and wrong.

I’m convinced that people like Starmer, Streeting and Mahmoud have a world view so shaped by Labour factionalism that they’re unable to view calls for them to change as anything other than a call for Corbynism.

Maybe in the real, non-Labour world people just want them to be kinder and more humane.

The Labour leadership still don’t understand that immigration *does* matter to people other than immigrants. Their viciousness matters to anyone who cares about humanity. *AND* lots of us have friends, family, colleagues etc who are immigrants.

As ever, I don't imagine myself representative of anyone but me. But if I'd had a vote in Gorton I'd have agonised, then done whatever felt most likely to stop Goodwin. After Starmer and Mahmoud's responses I now feel quite motivated to vote *against* Labour?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself too? Coalition? I doubt it. Informal arrangement? Seems increasingly plausible.

As I understand it, the answer is

Yes - because their parents are economic migrants,

So working-class children aged 7 should face hurdles & barriers to secure status, family security & educational opportunity that affluent classmates & those in private schools will not

I can well believe it. I didn’t have space to mention that too!

When Starmer says the Greens and Reform are equally extreme, just as when Labour make the same comparison between SNP and Reform, it causes a visceral reaction in me. Not just because it’s stupid. But because it shows a fundamental triviality about the existential threat posed by the far right.

I’ve no idea! And I know nothing about them. I just find the name unconvincing.

I’ve genuinely no idea about the seriousness of suggestions of electoral malpractice yesterday, but the name ‘Democracy Volunteers’ does have a whiff of ‘Taxpayers’ Alliance’ or ‘Free Speech Union’ about it.

When Starmer says the Greens and Reform are equally extreme, just as when Labour make the same comparison between SNP and Reform, it causes a visceral reaction in me. Not just because it’s stupid. But because it shows a fundamental triviality about the existential threat posed by the far right.

Immigration and asylum Shabana Mahmood vows to stick with hardline migration policies after byelection defeat Home secretary will defy 'plain wrong' calls from unions and leftwing MPs that she is alienating Muslim voters Rajeev Syal Home affairs editor Fri 27 Feb 2026 22.30 GMT < Share G Prefer the Guardian on Google Shabana Mahmood will press on with hardline immigration policies despite calls for a reversal from unions and left-leaning Labour MPs after the Green party's byelection victory. Senior Labour sources insisted that the home secretary would continue to roll out changes to asylum policy, dismissing as "plain wrong" claims that it would further alienate Muslim voters.

Listening and learning is going really well already

The UK is doing this to a Dutch pensioner who has lived in England for 50 years.

I am disgusted to the core with my own country and I don't quite know how to deal with that.

This is not a reasoned political response. Labour has spent two years making all the voting groups who backed the Greens feel unwelcome and unheard, and now attacks them for daring to back someone else. They believe Labour isn’t listening and Starmer seems determined to prove them right

For a nanosecond there was hope. Another mistake, one in a long line. For whatever reason, he can't or won't read the room.

Not for the first time falls into using the same language being used by the right.

File under lesson definitely not learnt.

A man blinded by his own sense of moral righteousness.

Close parallel in Scotland where where you see parallels drawn between the SNP and Reform, with ‘different flag, same poison’ or words to that effect. Patent nonsense, and hard to think of a better way to alienate the undecided progressive voter.

This was obvious to anyone looking at this. They created a policy that attacks people's very status to be able to live in a country and settle. No amount of saying "rules change" will help.

Alot of Labour MPs get this and are rightly livid. This should be a big wake up call for the rest.

The whole tone of Goodwin’s comments is ‘I’m going to tell my Uncle Donald, and you won’t like it when he finds out’.

Very dark, very Trumpy, very racist