‘This is a moral mission for me, because I can see illegal migration is tearing our country apart, it is dividing communities. People can see huge pressure in their communities and they can also see a system that is broken, and where people are able to flout the rules, abuse the system and get away with it.’

These are not my words, the words of a Tory or Reform MP, or of Rupert Lowe. They are the words of Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who is to announce a number of new asylum policies today. The Home Secretary’s goal is to ‘make it less attractive’ for illegal migrants to come to Britain and ‘make it easier to deport illegal migrants off British soil’. 

This is a significant change from the distant days of July when Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper announced the ‘one in, one out’ deal with France. In the summer, the PM and then home secretary seemed to hope that deporting a handful of migrants over the Channel would deter the relentless flood of asylum seekers arriving in Britain drawn by the lure of housing, work in the gig economy, and the very low chance of ever being deported.

Since then, we’ve had a relentless succession of headlines about migrant crimes. Hadush Kebatu, who sexual assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Epping. Deng Chol Majek, who murdered mother and migrant hotel worker Rhiannon Whyte. Haybe Cabdiraxmaan Nur, who stabbed a stranger, Gurvinder Johal, while he was queueing in Lloyds Bank. Every of these crimes........

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