Jonathan Kingham

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

This policy is bad for community cohesion.

You don’t build confident, contributing neighbours on rolling 30 month visas. The current 5‑year route is how people plan for the future and fully join our communities.

The Danish model won’t work here.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Thanks..

Mahmood trumpeting her admiration for Danish asylum policy, only to have to distance herself from its architects because they‘re massive racists. Incredible scenes

It's pretty clear that the Home Secretary (& Blue Labour more generally ) isn't doing racist things in an effort to stop Reform, she's doing them because she wants to. Last week's by-election result gave her the perfect pretext to change course; the fact she's not leapt at it speaks volumes.

Thanks v much; I will need to get hold of that Times piece

Where do you have that from, Jon, on the ES timing? It would make sense in a rational world with 180,000 consultation responses to get through.. but there was a line in the Guardian article suggesting there might be something on ES in these Rules

only if the government grant time for the debate. And even then it's take it or leave it - there's no amendments to be tabled and debated. The rules also aren't a statutory instrument, so a motion to disapprove the rules doesn't revoke the changes.

The proposal often to take Danish "vibes" [in a different party system, electoral, cultural context] though the Home Secretary says she is taking the policy measures.

That is mainly temporary protection
NB: Denmark 8 year settlement/citizenship (not 3-5-10-15-20-30 years as Labour proposes for UK)

Denmark's temporary status reforms do not lead to most of those who lose their protection and legal status leaving Denmark.

I agree. But, of course most of the settlement changes can be amended via a statement of changes to the immigration rules without parliamentary debate (changes haven't been debated since 2008). MPs already ceded a significant proportion of their oversight here to the executive.

Putting things like basic ethics aside...

... does anyone really believe that the Home Office, which cant deal with its present asylum responsibilities, is going to be able to review every application, every 30 months?

I have a bridge to sell you

Yes that’s very true; good point. And agree it would be rotten, although obvs something.

This assumes that @samfr.bsky.social Is talking about the earned settlement proposals; which would not largely come out via a Bill anyway, but via Immigration Rules.. which are not voted on.

Lucy Powell says the government's proposals om settlement proposals - doubling + tripling how long it takes those on a visa to be permanent or get citizenship - were unpopular, saying that ethnic minority voters who think border control does matter don't think the government's changes are fair

Well this is very strange... surely Goodhart is not a revisionist?

🇺🇦❤️

Its genuinely mad that we are, arguably, the most successful multicultural state on earth and instead of celebrating that we...

...keep trying to copy nations who have very evidently done worse at it than us

🎯🎯

WELL NOW, would you look at that?

A massive, 26-YEAR-LONG study of MORE THAN 2.4 MILLION people in Sweden found found NO EVIDENCE to support a causal link between acetaminophen (the API in Tylenol) use during pregnancy and increased risk of autism, ADHD, OR intellectual disability in children.

Our politics and media are riddled with people who simply do vibes on immigration. Rarely do the things they claim match up with the facts of the matter. I have lost count of the amount of times Jonathan, and others, have - in varying degrees of politeness - pointed out the codswallop being spouted.

Let’s be crystal clear, Reform has admitted any polling infringements (which it *always* claims, btw) were electorally inconsequential, but is working with Mail to use them to problematise the fact of brown people who’ve lived here decades but remain commonwealth citizens, having the right to vote.

This story has been puzzling, because im still not clear exactly what is meant to have happened where, or why DV insists there was egregious family voting but the council seems so sure nothing was raised with them on the day (bar one concern, I’m told, which apparently turned out to be innocent)

Meltdown in Gorton puts wind in the sails of Labour’s imm... Feeling vindicated by the Greens’ byelection win, MPs hope to force the home secretary to rethink her plans

The Observer reports that cohesion minister Miatta Fahnbulleh, and health secretary Wes Streeting among those ministers who think settlement reforms need rethink. Neither comment publicly.

Home Office keep conflating the asylum + the settlement changes
observer.co.uk/news/politic...

I would be interested to see how many government ministers have noticed this + could defend this - or have notice the proposal to make all the 7-11 year children of social care workers pay international students fees at 18!

bsky.app/profile/sund...

Though the defeated Reform candidate Matthew Goodwin and party leader Nigel Farage have taken ill-tempered swipes at the electoral process, in truth this was a remarkably strong showing by Reform in a seat that is not demographically favourable to the party. Goodwin’s 28.7% vote share is the sixth-best showing yet by either Ukip, the Brexit Party or Reform, and the 14.6% rise in the Reform vote is also in the top 10 byelection showings by any of these parties. Though the party was comfortably beaten by the Greens, this was an impressive performance by Reform in a seat with many graduates, students, young people and Muslims – all groups who tend to shun the party.

While by no means understating the Green's achievement, my #BGE2024 co-author, @robfordmancs.bsky.social, provides a really important reminder here (observer.co.uk/news/politic...) that, actually, Reform's performance shouldn't be dismissed either.

It would strike me as a bit mad to crack on regardless, as hinted here, when we now know at least 80 MPs are against, including cabinet members and the London Mayor?

So presumably this Daily Mail campaign against "foreign-born" voters will quickly be applied to their foreign-born star columnist, Boris Johnson, and their own France-based for tax purposes non-dom owner?

"And I wudda gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddlin' kids...."

As journalists working today many of us are taught to recognise disinformation when we see it and fight back against it.

Unfortunately there are some who willingly seek it out and put it on their front pages. A disgrace to the profession.

Who is old enough to remember when we had to leave the EU as Commonwealth citizens were being discriminated against?