So who is going to be brave enough to ask whether Shabana Mahmood's proposed reforms are right/sensible/racist?

It's irrelevant what Labour proposes. The issue is the inevitability of any new laws being challenged in the courts on human rights grounds. Such legal actions have a very high chance of success at present. Until that issue is addressed then it's just political grandstanding.

Refugee status in the UK currently lasts for five years, after which people can apply for indefinite leave to remain, which offers a pathway to British citizenship.

^^this is absolutely as it should be. Refugees granted legal asylum should pretty mych guaranteed permanent residency, barring any serious crime.

Mahmood’s changes will also include people who arrive illegally having to wait 20 years before they can apply for permanent settlement. This is only expected to apply to new arrivals.

^^illegal immigrants should never have a right to residency.

The whole reason we are in this mess and migration is now the No1 issue is because we cannot seem to differentiate between refugees and illegal immigrants and have a sensible number about the number of people we can offer appropriate refuge for within our budget.

Can you edit your original title/description to make this clear? Not everyone will read through and see your response.

If you go on Facebook there are many pages where people in Bangladesh and similar are actually posting marriage CVs in the hope of finding a British spouse so they can move here. They’ll list the things they want and invariably it’s ’British groom’ ‘groom with British residency’ or whatever. Bangladeshi Brits then peruse the page and contact the ones they’re interested in.

This is the precise opposite of integration. It’s a world away from happening to meet somebody from a different country, falling in love then applying to bring them here so they can settle down and get married.

Yep exactly. What happened to all that rhetoric?

Forget it. Plus the plans are bad. The last thing was one in one out that was bad too.

The country is being scammed by tens of thousands of people using the current system. Labour MPs are now calling them asylum shoppers! Such hypocrisy, anyone saying such a thing were called dog whistling immoral racists by Mahmood five minutes ago.

Once your own MP job is under threat you suddenly switch accusations of other people's racism into your own personal morality.

Its too late, the damage is far too great, there's absolutely no trust, millions of illegal immigrants have to be deported. The abuse of ordinary people by MPs including Mahmood over this has destroyed Labour. Now she's claiming morality. No.

@SquirrelosaurusSoShiny "Tens of thousands of undocumented young men (often with very different cultural attitudes) arriving and flooding small towns will of course lead to a backlash."

This. I don't know why so many people find this so hard to understand. To be honest, if it was thousands of white men (all unchecked and many with no identification) I think most people would feel just as uneasy if they arrived en masse in their town.

You need a third option.

You're not keen on any of it, but to end up with the other parties in charge would be far, far worse.

I don't think someone who has been granted asylum should have to live with the uncertainty of being sent back in a few years. To what exactly?
They can't settle into a community and children will be uprooted to a different education system if they have to return.

I think it places people in limbo which may cause other problems. I guess it depends on whether they can work.

Nothing will happen . She won’t get it passed the same Labour back benchers who wouldn’t pass the changes to welfare .

What you on about?
All i said is ive seen /heard about it on the GB news.
Its not a slur to your integrity.

employers are required to check an employees right to work
in the U.K. A digital ID won’t change that if an employer isn’t checking in the first place.

It doesn't go far enough. And it won't happen.

It won't make a bit of difference. We can't deport anyone now, imagine trying to return someone to Afganistan for example after this proposed 2 years - who decides it's safe?, you can bet the person you are trying to deport won't think it's safe and so the merry-go-round round of HR claims and court appeals begin.

I was watching this on GBnews.

I think it’s hypocritical after all their rhetoric and I’m not sure it’ll do much.

In principal I don’t disagree. The current system disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable, including women, children, and the elderly who are least likely to be able to make a long journey seeking asylum, as well as the those without the means to finance it, and ultimately creates a drain of young men and those with skills and money leaving their country of origin permanently, meaning that once stability is restored that country is less able to rebuild itself internally. Disincentivising those who are economic migrants with a higher barrier to permanent citizenship whilst ensuring those who genuinely need safety are given it is fair. A system which reviews a refugee’s status and considers when it would be safe for them to return home and to expect that is reasonable and I don’t think that’s racist - it’s ultimately how we’ve approached recent Ukrainian refugees, after all.

But ultimately I think we need a total rehaul of asylum routes to the U.K. whereby people can apply formally in their country of origin or from a nearby safe country and be assessed through formal channels: many people arrive “illegally” because that’s the only option available to them, we won’t stop people trafficking until there are viable alternatives.

It's hard to vote as you haven't said what the voting options mean.

I think Mahmoud is a very competent politician who has communicated effectively. The rhetoric that she has adopted was very offputting for me, but I do understand why she has adopted it and I appreciate that I am not the target audience. I also believe that she is genuine in saying that she believes this issue needs to be tackled in order to improve community cohesion.

I am still struggling to understand the detail of some of the proposals and what they might mean in practice. I cannot really form a proper view without understanding some of these details more.

At first glance, I welcome the plan to introduce safe and legal routes for people who are claiming asylum, but I would like to see more info about what this would actually entail.

I don't support the idea of making refugees wait for 20 years before they can get settled status. I just don't think it's right to leave traumatised people in limbo for that many years, and it seems likely to me that this will actually serve as a barrier to integration as people won't know where they stand or whether it's worth the effort to put down roots. Having said that, Mahmoud did indicate that there would be ways of shortening this period - it would be good to understand more about how she plans to make that work.

I really don't understand the proposal about scrapping the statutory requirement to house and support asylum seekers or what that means in practice. What support are local authorities going to offer if they are told that it is "discretionary"? Does it mean that those who are not supported will be permitted to work? Or will it be the expectation that they live on the streets/beg/steal/rely on charity? Or what?

I'm not sure about the idea of using AI to assess the age of child migrants. I'm not clear as to how accurate that would be, but I would not be in favour of such technology if there is any risk that vulnerable children might be failed as a result of incorrectly treating them ascadults.

Can't remember what else was in there right now.

I do think that the proposed measures will be popular overall, as they're clearly designed to appeal to those who want a hard line on immigration. However, I remain unconvinced that any of these suggestions are necessarily going to stop people from coming, because I don't think they're coming for the supposed perks in any case, but rather because of family ties, language issues, historical associations etc.

Can you say what the yanbu / yabu means?

Your poll doesn't really indicate the question maybe edit it? I don't know if you're BU or not.

I think there will be general support for this in the average British home, even if people are publicly outraged by it. Tens of thousands of undocumented young men (often with very different cultural attitudes) arriving and flooding small towns will of course lead to a backlash. I'm just glad Labour are finally holding their noses and trying to admit that there's a problem.

Step in the right direction. Forget race and politics for a moment, we are hideously overcrowded and our wildlife is dying out. Seeing a few green fields isn’t the same as having enough rural green for food production, green lungs and habitats. We’ve destroyed our country and rather than yet more short termist Ponzi schemes we need to reduce the population and salvage what we can