Labour's 'Go Home Van' moment
There is another way - trying to 'out Reform Reform' is a mis-step for Keir Starmer and Labour. They must not forget why progressives gave them support.
When Labour swept to power last summer, it did so on the promise of change. No more gimmicks. No more performative politics. After fourteen years of outlandish, unworkable immigration plans under the Tories, many of us breathed a collective sigh of relief.
It takes time for anyone to show their true colours. Governments are no different. Yesterday's display of cruelty came in the form of a video showing deportees - including one who was shackled - being taken from a detention centre and escorted onto a plane, then removed from the country. We know nothing about them: not their names, their offences or where they were being taken to. Was this, as critics have dubbed it, the Labour party’s ‘Go Home Van moment’?
The government was right about one thing: it really has brought about change, not least to its own moral compass. It had all started relatively well. The Rwanda plan was scrapped on day one. Asylum processing was kick-started, with more decision-makers brought in to tackle the backlog. The Bibby Stockholm floated back where it came from, and plans to house asylum seekers at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire were abandoned. Keir Starmer and his ministers went out on their equivalent of the charm offensive, pictured shaking hands and striking deals around the world in a bid to ‘smash the gangs’. Presentationally, it was all going the right direction.
But within weeks of Labour taking office, the Southport murders took place, leaving that community, and the country, reeling. The far-right took full advantage, with neo-Nazis and opportunistic thugs setting asylum hotels on fire and racially abusing people in the streets. The riots had started due, in no small part, to misinformation - lies - that the perpetrator of the Southport attacks had been an asylum seeker who arrived on a small boat. Reform UK began fanning the flames, doing what Nigel Farage does best, whipping up hatred and causing division and chaos.
Labour is now seeking to out-Reform Reform. The party's surge in the polls has them spooked, and it needs to act fast to counter the narrative that it is soft on immigration. Deportation TV is one way of doing that, but it’s part of a much wider drip-drip communications strategy which my former Home Office press office colleagues have been rolling out over recent months.
Last week the government started ramping up its comms activity, taking out social media ads on Facebook with the same turquoise branding Reform uses. Alongside targeted ads, they have sought to bombard journalists with announcements. Almost every day for the last six months, another press release has appeared in my inbox. All of them feature tabloid-friendly headlines with language like ‘crackdown’, ‘mass surge’, ‘blitz’.
So far, the government’s two-pronged approach - enforcement and returns - has focused largely on the removal of failed asylum seekers, foreign national offenders, overstayers; those like the people escorted to the plane in yesterday's video. These individuals only make up a fraction of the overall removal figures. Of the nearly 19,000 people the Home Office says it has forced out of the country since last summer, only a fraction - about 5% - arrived by small boat. Nearly three quarters (73%) of them left voluntarily.
Despite its tough talk, these are the departures the government would like to see more of but they're complex and time-consuming and fiddly to administer. Paperwork is needed from the voluntary deportee’s home country, and an official is required to manage each individual's return process. They can also be costly: everyone who chooses to leave the UK is given £3000 to settle back in their country of origin. Though there is often very little for people once they return, it is typically a more compassionate approach than forcing someone onto a plane, shackled, distressed and often protesting.
The government knows that there is another way. They don't have to take the lead from Reform, or follow in the footsteps of the Tories, to stay in power. Most of those who voted for them - younger, more liberal, more diverse - put their cross in the box precisely because they believed the party represented something different. Now is not the time to disappoint their supporters. Neither should the influence of the right lead to Labour’s demise. We were promised change. This is the time to deliver it.
About the author: Nicola Kelly is an award-winning home affairs reporter and writer. Before moving into journalism, she worked for the Home Office during the rollout of the hostile environment policy. Her book, ‘Anywhere But Here: How Britain's Broken Asylum System Fails Us All’, will be published on 3 April and is available for pre-order here.
At The Lead then immigration is a topic we return to regularly, to give a more balance view than throwaway crackdown headlines. From our recent review of Channel 4’s Go Back To Where You Came From, to how Labour can take back control, and Zoe Gardner on how ‘smashing the gangs’ won’t work. You can support our writing on immigration by tapping below to support us with a paid subscription.