Labour's new policies for asylum seekers

[frommyheadtomyfeet]

Are rumoured to follow Denmark's, which include the seizure of valuables from people arriving here to pay their accommodation costs.

Is anyone else disgusted by this?! How will it work, they can take people's jewellery, phones etc., and leave them with nothing? What sort of message does that send?

This was also my impression but thanks very much for sourcing it.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is a slightly right of centre, well respected economic think tank. They recently calculated that the total economic impact of immigrants to the UK economy currently stands at a positive contribution of approximately £3B pa.

Fair point. Maybe it should be full fact inspected or similar.

Then again Starmer’s lines on illegal migrants aren’t true and barely remarked upon.

Yes this is the problem

But as I said above the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which is slightly right of centre and highly respected, has determined that immigrants are making a net positive contribution of £3B pa to the British economy.
So every immigrant not carrying their weight is more than compensated for by others.

With the birth rate to British women falling and the vast majority of benefit claimants and pensioners being British and Irish citizens, one could say we need the economic contributions of immigrants to fund our benefits bill.

Southernecho
Overall, in the period from April 2016 to June 2021, around 3% of completed deportations for criminal offending were successfully challenged on ECHR grounds alone in the First-tier Tribunal (922 successful appeals out of 31,400 removals).

I have found a new report (published three weeks ago by the House of Commons Library) - which gives a much higher figure for ECHR immigration appeals overall, not just for foreign criminals:

Immigration and the ECHR
Research Briefing 27 October, 2025

From 2015 to 2024, around 61,000 ECHR appeals were successful in the first-tier immigration tribunal.
Recent media coverage has highlighted appeals by criminals specifically, although successful challenges based solely on the ECHR represent around 3% of completed deportations for criminal offending [as per your post].

Further:

• How many ECHR appeals succeed?

• From 2015/16 to 2024/25, immigration judges granted 61,000 out of the 115,000 human rights appeals brought against the Home Office (53%).

• A minority of these cases are appealed to a higher tribunal or court, but the statistics do not show which side was successful.

• For foreign national offenders, the success rate for migrants appears to be lower. While the government does not routinely publish data on appeals against deportation for criminal offending, some internal data has come to light...

• Of the appeals won by the [foreign national offender] contesting deportation, around 1,000 were successful on ECHR grounds only although some of the other 1,500 appeals won by migrants may have been a mix of ECHR and non ECHR reasons...

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10376/

What has Starmer said?

@poetryandwinethere are two issues with the contribution analysis.

Firstly, it does not follow that because the total contribution of all immigrants is positive, we have to let all the immigrants we currently have in. Within the immigrant community, there are premiership footballers, doctors and bankers. We don’t somehow logically have to accept those who are not contributing as the price of having the high earners. We could have a higher contribution with a bit of discernment.

secondly, the IFS hasn’t done a proper analysis as it works off the basis of government assumptions and data over a 5 year period. This means that it doesn’t factor in later life healthcare expenses, for example. The government numbers on immigration kind of assume that people go elsewhere when they get older. It’s a fact that there really are no sensible government statistics on this or on how much public services you can expect an average immigrant to consume over their lifetime, which is shocking.

And @poetryandwineit also doesn’t price in the costs of additional infrastructure needed to sustain a bigger population. If you think about it, 3bn a year for 10 years at a cost of well over 5m more people really isn’t that much if you have to actually build more roads, houses, hospitals, schools etc. It’s 6k per migrant over 10 years - frankly, that’s very little if you’ve not fully priced in healthcare, elderly care and/or infrastructure. There’s a reluctance to really work through these issues.

Nearly 500 migrants a day are signing up for benefits as claims by foreign nationals hit a record high, official figures show.

Last month, some 472 migrants a day began claiming Universal Credit, while the overall number of foreign nationals receiving it rose to nearly 1.3 million, an increase of 6.7 per cent in a year.

The disclosure comes as Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, will on Thursday announce new laws making migrants’ right to settle in the UK dependent on not claiming benefits.

Asylum seekers cannot claim UC, those with settled status can, so who gave us that?
Ukrainian refugees can too, again, who allowed that?

Its also a benefit that is often claimed by low paid workers.

Also your link is behind a paywall.

Firstly this has nothing to do with people arriving on boats as they can’t claim UC. But it baffles me that this would be done. Take care workers for example. They all seem to be migrants and they would be applicable for UC. So if they can’t stay who is going to do the Care working job?

Should we not all be calling for better wages? Why does the taxpayer have to supplement the wages of staff, who are often paid by corporations that earn £££ in profit every year.

Ah that’s too bad, sorry.

You cannot make a private company pay higher wages, the only option would be to take Social Care into the NHS, that would cost billions.

I do wonder if the IFS figures take into account the non-working family members that any working immigrants may choose to bring with them, and the massive impact the lack of housing is having on this country.

The amount people spend on housing means they have less money to spend on tax.
Having to stress about how to meet the high cost of house massively reduces the UK populations happiness.
High housing costs is a huge reason why young, educated professionals are making the leap overseas.
its also a massive reason behind the falling UK birthrate - again feeding into people’s dissatisfaction with living here.

I think until these things have been properly addressed we cannot afford to keep people here.

And IFS slightly right leaning? Not even the Resolution Foundation or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation would agree with that characterisation! The IFS stand out as hugely respected in the think tank arena for their total commitment to impartiality.

.

It’s the if you come here illegal line that Starmer and Labour use, it was just repeated on R4

If you come here illegally you will be asked to leave - when asked to leave if your country is deemed safe.

And on the forgotten one in one out scheme

Keir Starmer
@ Keir_Starmer
We have detained the first illegal migrants under our new deal before returning them to France

The full quote is IF you meet the asylum criteria, you will be asked to leave once your country of origin is deemed safe.

You re implying its for any asylum seeker coming here.

Otherwise you'll be deported immediately.

Do you believe migrants shouldn't be sent back to France?

Are you suggesting that immigrants’ use of the NHS and social care is not costed by the IFS? On what basis?

We are in fact tightening up the financial requirements for immigration

Surely, any family reunification application should be subject to the same income requirement (£29k pa, IIRC, but expected to increase) that a British citizen has to meet to gain permission for a foreign spouse?

@poetryandwinedid you have a view in the accuracy of the language 7.17 post below, in answer to what did Starmer say

@poetryandwine - what jobs exactly are you expecting immigrants to do? There are increasingly fewer unskilled “man jobs” available.

“The NHSSSS” you might cry. Well, having seen a lot of care workers/homes in the last few years, I have seen lots of sub-Saharan men working there. But I have never encountered a (middle-eastern extraction) Muslim man. Nor a Muslim woman. Nor a Muslim daughter. They make huge use of the NHS though. I suggest you might visit for example Dewsbury hospital.

We can’t import endless men to be taxi drivers or barbers - and then innumerable women who will never consider working.

AI will decimate white collar jobs. There will be plenty of young workers for more.menial jobs. But unfortunately we have stuffed them full of immigrants. Immigrants who won't be leaving.So its life on the dole for our own youth. Or they get out. Which is what is happening.

I think most people know that mass immigration has been a disaster for the country. Most are not net contributers - Only 1 in 20.

At minimum the arrangement with France isn’t looking very practical or implementable, is it?

Brexit seems to me an own goal simply in terms of having some control over immigration. Farage pulled a blinder

I cannot find this statistic. Where is it from?