UK seeks Danish inspiration to shake up immigration system

According to the BBC, Home Secretary Theresa May is likely to announce a major shake-up of the immigration and asylum system later this month. Shabana Mahmood will demonstrate some of her latest Danish initiatives, which has been described as one of Europe's most difficult. Officials in Denmark are apparently considering tighter controls on family reunion and limiting the number of refugees to a temporary stay in the country. Mahmood intends to reduce incentives that lure people to the United Kingdom while still making it possible to depose those who have no right to be in the country. However, some in her party are against going down the Danish route, with one left-wing Labour MP saying it was too hardcore and contained echoes of the far right.

Mahmood promised to do whatever it takes to regain control of Britain's borders at the Labour conference in September. With the exception of 2020, she is amazed that Denmark has reduced the number of successful asylum cases to a 40-year low - with the exception. The BBC has been told that senior Home Office officials were sent to Copenhagen last month to see what lessons could be applied to the UK. Refugees in Denmark who have been specifically threatened by a foreign regime are likely to be given protection. However, the majority of people who have been successfully granted asylum in the wake of violent wars are now only allowed to remain in the country on a temporary basis. When the Danish government declares that their home country is safe, they can be returned. For those who have been in Denmark for a longer time, the amount of time it takes to obtain settlement rights has been extended and conditions such as being in full-time work have been enforced.

Officials from the UK Home Office have also expressed concern for Denmark tighter controls on family reunions. If you are a refugee in Denmark with residence rights, both you and your partner who is applying to join you in Denmark must be 24 or older. According to the Danish government, this is to prevent forced marriages from occurring. Both partners must pass a Danish language examination before determining that the partner in Denmark cannot have been receiving health insurance for three years and then have to put up a financial guarantee. Refugees who live in housing estates designated as non-Western communities, which is where more than half of residents are from what the Danish government considers to be no-Wester backgrounds, will not be eligible for family reunion at all. This law, which also allows the state to sell or demolish apartment blocks that fall under the parallel societies classification, has been contentious. The government of Denmark said it was aimed at improving integration, but a senior advisor to the EU's top court described it as discriminatory based on ethnicity earlier this year. In September, the UK Home Offices suspended new applications under the Refugee Family Reunion scheme, pending the drafting of new rules. The pre-September program enabled spouses, partners, and dependents under the age of 18 to enter the United Kingdom without having to pass the income and English-language tests that are not applicable to other migrants. Mahmood is unlikely to go as far as Denmark when she announces that the UK's replacement laws for family reunions will be followed, but it is likely that she will take action along a more restricted route.

Last week, the BBC went to Denmark to find out how their immigration system works. Rasmus Stoklund, Denmark's Immigration and Integration Minister, is a member of Labour's sister group, the Social Democrats, and is based in Mahmood. We've tightened our regulations in several ways, he said.

We return more people back home. We've made it difficult to get family reunification in Denmark.

If you commit offences, you will be arrested a lot quicker. We've also developed separate services to encourage people to return home safely. "There is no suggestion that the UK government will follow the Danish example of offering substantial sums - the equivalent of £24,000 - for asylum seekers to return their country of origin, which includes contributing to the cost of their children's education. However, the BBC understands that some of Stoklund's ideas are being scrutinized in the Home Office.

According to Stoklund, tighter immigration and integration are about safeguarding Denmark's cultural identity, which is a smaller country with a lower population than the United Kingdom.

We want people who come here to participate and contribute positively, and if they don't, they aren't welcome,

he said. There's a lively political discussion in Denmark, as in the United Kingdom, about whether the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) makes the expulsion of foreign criminals more difficult. Stoklund, like the UK government, does not want to leave the ECHR, but believes that reforms could be made. Stoklund said he could make common cause with his British counterparts after the Danish government has conducted a study into how this could be carried out, and he has suggested that they work together.

I think it's really positive every time I hear that other countries have the same fears and are suffering the same way as many of us in Denmark.

Mahmood is expected to be eager to meet Stoklund at the earliest possible.

There are political, as well as practical lessons, to learn from Denmark for Labour ministers. With immigration increasingly troubling voters, the country had a center-left government in danger and a right-wing populist party winning in the polls in 2015. As the Reform UK maintains its poll lead over Labour, there are parallels with the UK today. Downing Street is curious to see how a center-left party, one-time allies of Nigel Farage's UKIP in the European Parliament, reclaims power. According to Ida Auken, the Social Democrats' environment spokesperson, adopting a tougher position on immigration meant there was ample opportunity to pursue progressive initiatives in other areas.

It was a licence for us to do the things we like doing,

she explained.

We need a workforce that is educated, has a social security, and we do not want to do a green transition.

And we would not have been able to do this unless we had those tight migration policies. "Any senior ministers in the United Kingdom are expected to find that argument persuasive.

Although there are similarities with the United Kingdom, critics would point out that Denmark's situation is not similar to that. Small boats are not arriving or arriving in the country from the North Sea or Baltic. The Danish language is not as widely spoken as English, so language barriers could possibly discourage some potential refugees. And although the overwhelming majority of Social Democrat parliamentarians were in favour of more hardline measures, some Labour MPs are much more suspicious. Some mainstream Labour MPs have stated that they would oppose the transfer of Danish policies to the UK.

Ex frontbencher Clive Lewis, a former frontbent of the party, has argued vehemently against the Danish system in an attempt to deflank Reform in the United Kingdom.

Denmark's Social Democrats have slowed down, what I would describe as a hardcore strategy to immigration,

he said.

They've adopted many of the talking points of what we'll call the far right.

Labour does need to win back some Reform-leaning voters, but you can't do that if you're losing progressive seats.

Nadia Whittome, a Labour MP for Nottingham East and a member of Labour's Socialist CaMPaign Group, said it would be a

dangerous route

to take and that some of the Danish policies, especially those regarding

parallel societies,areundeniably racial.

I think this is a dead end, politically, and electorally,

she told BBC Radio 4's Today show. Gareth Snell, a Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, said that similar policies to Denmark are worth investigating and that his constituents do not trust the current system in the UK and see it as inherently unfair.When asylum is provided to people who can safely return to their home countries later to help rebuild their communities, we should promote that,

he said. Jo White, who leads a 50-strong Labour party in

Red Wall

seats in the Midlands and North of England, would also like to see ministers move in a Danish direction. Labour would pay a high political price if it does not adopt measures such as requiring certain asylum seekers to contribute to the cost of their stay, according to her.

The results are that we're going into a general election in which Reform will be the biggest challenger in most Labour seats. and we will be annihilated.

The Danish Way will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 13:30 GMT on Sunday 9th November, and BBC Sounds is now available on BBC Sounds.