UK exploring Danish model to check soaring migration

UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has turned to Denmark as a model for tougher measures to crackdown on soaring migration figures, with plans for tighter controls and an overhaul of the asylum system, according to British media reports this weekend.

Denmark is seen as one of the toughest countries in Europe on immigration and Mahmood is said to have dispatched senior Home Office officials to Copenhagen recently to study some of the lessons that could be applied to the UK.

In the Scandinavian country, most people who have been successfully granted asylum when fleeing conflicts are only allowed to remain in the country on a temporary basis until the Danish government decrees their home countries as safe for them to be returned.

According to the BBC, Denmark's tighter rules for family reunions have also attracted the interest of UK Home Office officials. This includes financial requirements and an age limit of 24-plus for residency rights to guard against forced marriages and strict housing rules to prevent migrant ghettos from being created in the country.

‘The Sunday Times' notes that asylum seekers wishing to remain in the UK will have to learn English to a high standard and have a clean criminal record. They may also be forced to repay the costs of their accommodation and benefits if granted asylum.

It also references a leaked document that claims that the Home Office has identified at least 14 sites where up to 10,000 migrants can be placed as part of a major shake-up of the system to impose tougher conditions and restrict most migrants to a temporary stay in the UK.

“Plans to warehouse thousands of people seeking asylum on military sites or other government land are not a viable or humane solution. They are extremely costly and logistically complex, and fail to address the real issues facing the asylum system,” said Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council.

There is also criticism from within the Labour government ranks, including from Indian-origin MP Nadia Whittome, who branded the plans to model the system along Danish lines as “policies of the far right.” “I don't think anyone wants to see a Labour government flirting with them,” said the MP for Nottingham East.

Another fellow Labour backbench MP, Clive Lewis, also struck a note of caution.

“Denmark's Social Democrats have gone down what I would call a hardcore approach to immigration. They've adopted many of the talking points of what we would call the far right. Labour does need to win back some Reform-leaning voters but you can't do that at the cost of losing progressive votes,” he said.