Reform MP invites Mahmood to join his party, saying he ‘welcomes’ and ‘recognises’ her rhetoric – as it happened | Politics

This blog is now closing. Below is a summary of today’s events:

• Shabana Mahmood has announced the biggest shake-up of asylum laws in the UK in 40 years.

• The plans include forcing people with refugee status to return to their home country if the government seems it safe, changing the number of years people who arrive illegally would have to wait before they can apply for permanent settlement from five years to 20 and plans to consult on measures to allow the removal of financial support for families with children under the age of 18 if they have been refused asylum.

• The proposals have faced fierce opposition from some in the Labour party, enough to spark fear for a major rebellion.

• Making her case to the Commons, Mahmood said the asylum system feels “out of control and unfair” to members of the public and that if the government does not bring the asylum system under control, there will be more hatred.

• Green MP Carla Denyer accused the home secretary of “attempting to out-Reform”. She continued: “Reform is actually just boosting this baseless far-right narrative and will only deepen divisions”.

• Reform UK appeared to welcome the plans, with MP Danny Kruger saying he “welcomes” and “recognises” the “rhetoric” used by the home secretary today and suggested that Labour sounds like Reform.

Attempts to toughen up asylum rules in the UK could have significant implications for relations with Ireland, Dublin’s justice minister has said, amid concerns that this could increase migration flows to Ireland.

More than 80% of people who use irregular routes to Ireland originate from Great Britain, travelling to Belfast by plane or boat and then by road to Dublin to make asylum claims, the justice department has said.

“I am committed to ensuring that Ireland is not viewed more favourably than the UK by those seeking to claim asylum,” Jim O’Callaghan said after a meeting of the British-Irish intergovernmental conference in Dublin.

“Consequently, I will closely monitor the changes proposed by the UK government and will respond to those proposals having considered them fully and discussed them with government colleagues,” he added.

On Monday, the UK government unveiled controversial proposals for the biggest changes to migration in 40 years, including plans to make it easier to remove people with no right to be in the country.

Ireland has had a rise in irregular migration in recent years and is experiencing a similar backlash to the UK in certain quarters of the voter base.

Jeremy Corbyn says the home secretary is putting in “draconian measures” against refugees.

He says she fails to recognise that 6,000 of the refugees that crossed the Channel this year come from Afghanistan, “a war-torn country that we helped make into a war-torn country”.

He accuses Mahmood of instead trying to appease “the most ghastly, right-wing racist forces across Europe in walking away from the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Mahmood says she’s “mystified” and that Corbyn should know that there are bespoke schemes for the resettlement of people from Afghanistan.

She says this policy is about securing safe and legal routes.

Also on this theme, Green MP Carla Denyer tells Mahmood:

It isn’t people seeking sanctuary that are tearing people apart, it’s toxic, racist narratives and the scapegoating of migrants and asylum seekers for what is nothing to do with them.

The chronic housing crisis, the running down on public services, are not caused by migrants; they are caused by political decisions and the grotesque inequality in this country.

She asks the home secretary if she understands that “attempting to out-Reform Reform is actually just boosting this baseless far-right narrative and will only deepen divisions”.

Mahmood replies that she “couldn’t care less” what any other political party or politician says, she says that “there is a genuine problem” that needs to be fixed.

To pretend it doesn’t exist, she says, “fuels division in the first place”.

She then accuses the Greens of “hypocrisy” for “opposing asylum accommodation in their own constituencies”.

On that point, Reform’s Danny Kruger says he “welcomes” and “recognises” the “rhetoric” used by the home secretary today, suggesting that Labour sounds like Reform.

“Before she puts in her application to join Reform UK … can I draw out the difference between our parties?” he asks.

Kruger says Reform doesn’t propose giving “illegal immigrants” the right to stay for two-and-a-half years, to work and study, or to bring their families to the UK, nor does Reform want to “contort our law to comply with or fit into the European Convention on Human Rights”.

Mahmood points out that Kruger hasn’t actually asked a question. To his invitation to join his party she adds: “Over my dead body.”

The SNP’s shadow home affairs spokesperson Pete Wishart points out that Labour’s new policy has been welcomed by the likes of Reform UK and Tommy Robinson.

“From throwing refugees into destitution, to denying any meaningful route to citizenship to forcible evictions, where exactly is the compassion in that?” he asks.

Mahmood says, “given that Tommy Robinson doesn’t even think I’m English”, she won’t comment further on anything he has to say.

Conservative MP Saqib Bhatti asks what third party countries Mahmood is negotiating with for so-called “return hubs”, where people with failed asylum seeker applications could be sent instead of their home country.

Mahmood says only that these are active and ongoing negotiations, and that she hopes to have announcements to make soon.

Labour MP Derek Twigg asks Mahmood about asylum seekers who have been deported after committing crimes but then go on to make a second asylum application.

Mahmood says a combination of sentencing bill changes and the policies announced today “should lead to earlier deportations of foreign national offenders”.

It’s important that offenders face the “full force of the law”, Mahmood says, but the government has made a “policy decision” that, for the vast majority of foreign national offenders, the “appropriate thing to do” is to move to “immediate deportation wherever possible”.

Conservative MP Ashley Fox, who represents Bridgwater in Somerset, says his constituents want their local Holiday Inn “emptied of migrants”.

The home secretary needs to be “bolder”, he says, before asking:

Does she agree with me that anyone who arrives in this country illegally should be detained on entry and deported automatically?

Mahmood says she won’t take lectures from the party who brought in hotel use in the first place.

She reiterates the manifesto commitment to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this parliament, and says the government is looking into alternative large sites, including military sites.

Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine asks whether there’s a danger that the people “we do actually need to come to this country legally” (she highlights, for instance, those who work in the NHS and in social care) “will actually look at this country now and say ‘no I don’t want to go there’?”

Mahmood says there is “no reason to believe that”.

She says that figures show the number of people coming on small boats is about the same number of people that come by a legal route and then apply for asylum.

“We need to stop that abuse of the asylum system,” she says, to retain confidence in the legal migration system.

Conservative MP and home affairs committee chair Karen Bradley asks whether there has been any consideration of a deferred payment scheme, like the one used for student loans, which would allow people to start paying back funds they’ve received once they’re in work.

Mahmood says that on the specific point of further contributions, it’s something the government is “currently exploring” but it’s not part of the package of measures announced today.