Minister defends using TV footage to promote crackdown on illegal workers as critics call it ‘performative’
Good morning. Politicians like to claim that they are completely different from their opponents, because to win elections they need dividing line issues, but in truth the similarities can be striking too, because they end up facing the same challenges, and the electorate does not change much either. This Labour government is not the same as the last Conservative one. But at times it has sounded like Rishi Sunak (it adopted his signature anti-smoking legislation wholesale), Liz Truss (ministers constantly stress that growth is the number one priority) and even Boris Johnson (after the negativism of last year’s budget, there is a pivot towards more optimism). And today it it is sounding a bit like Theresa May in her “hostile environment” phase as home secretary.
The Home Office has embarked on a publicity blitz to show that it it beefing up efforts to catch people who are working in the UK illegally and to deport people who should not be in the country. This is not just policy; it involves ‘show not tell’ communications. As Pippa Crerar, Diane Taylor and Peter Walker report:
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, is expected to join an early morning raid this week targeting illegal working, while the government will broadcast footage of deportations, a number of them involving foreign criminals, from detention to removal centres and on to waiting planes …
Downing Street is planning to go beyond simply taking the fight to Reform. “We don’t think it’s enough just to look strong on migration, we actually need to be strong. We’ve done really well on returns but people say they don’t believe it, that if it was true they’d see it on the news,” a source said.
This sort of approach is contentious in liberal circles (which may be part of the appeal in No 10, where Labour figures are worried a lot more at the moment about losing votes to Reform UK than losing votes to the Liberal Democrats and the Greens) and the Refugee Council has criticised the Home Office for the way it is publicising what it is doing. Enver Solomon, its chief executive, told the Independent:
It was not long ago that hate-filled mobs attempted to burn refugees alive in a hotel,. Communities are still healing from the appalling violence last summer, so the government should not risk driving up mistrust by using performative tactics that play into negative and dangerous narratives about immigration.
The public want a system that is orderly and controlled but also compassionate. That includes returning people without a right to be in the UK, but doing so in a dignified way instead of melodramatic television footage that will not build trust in government.
Angela Eagle, the minister for border security and asylum, has been doing an interview round this morning and she defended that the government is doing. Asked whether the policy was line with Keir Starmer’s previous pledge in opposition to create an immigration system “based on compassion and dignity”, Eagle replied:
I don’t believe for one minute that enforcing the law and ensuring that people who break the law face the consequences of doing that, up to and including deportation, arrest, is not compassionate. We have to have a system where the rules are respected and enforced.
She also defended the Home Office releasing pictures and footage of immigration raids and deportations:
It’s important that we show what we are doing and it’s important that we send messages to people who may have been sold lies about what will await them in the UK if they get themselves smuggled in.
They are more likely to be living in squalid conditions, being exploited by vicious gangs.
It’s important that we get those realities across and it’s important that that’s done in imagery as well as words.
There will be more on this as the day goes on. Here is the agenda for the day.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Farmers hold a rally in Westminster to protest about the extension of inheritance tax to cover farms.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
After 3.30pm: MPs debate the second reading of the border security, asylum and immigration bill.
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