‘Repugnant’ or necessary? The new asylum rules
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Home secretary Shabana Mahmood announced sweeping changes to the asylum rules yesterday; the largest overhaul since the Second World War. The changes have apparently been inspired by Denmark but will they work or are they - as one Labour MP said - ‘repugnant’?
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Guests:
- Ben Clathworthy, Whitehall editor, The Times.
- Fraser Nelson, columnist, The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producers: Olivia Case, Micaela Arneson, Harry Stott.
Read more: Shabana Mahmood speech: Asylum policy to cope with ‘volatile’ world
Further listening: Doomed to fail? Labour’s asylum u-turn
Clips: Sky, Times Radio, parliamentlive.tv.
Photo: Andrew Fox for The Sunday Times.
Get in touch: thestory@thetimes.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. |
| 0:07.0 | I'm Manvine Rana. |
| 0:13.0 | This is a moral mission for me. |
| 0:14.0 | I can see that illegal migration is creating division across our country. It's not unusual to hear a home secretary |
| 0:24.1 | wringing their hands about small boats. But what is unusual is to hear a Labour home secretary |
| 0:30.4 | promising the biggest overhaul of Britain's asylum system since World War II, with a raft of radical new policies. People are angry about something |
| 0:41.6 | that is real. It is my job, therefore, to think of a proper solution to this very real problem. |
| 0:48.9 | Can Shabana Mahmood bring the country and her party with her? It's already causing an outcry among Labour backbenchers. |
| 0:57.5 | Do you think that policies like this are a betrayal of labour values? Absolutely, I do. Some of the |
| 1:02.7 | proposals that have been leaked, they do sound very reform in their nature. Something reform |
| 1:08.6 | are very aware of. When we were using similar language two months ago, |
| 1:13.3 | the Labour Party was describing us as racist bigots. I mean, talk about hypocrisy. |
| 1:24.9 | So will the Home Secretary win over the doubters? |
| 1:28.3 | And if this new policy shift was inspired by the Danish government's radical approach to asylum laws, |
| 1:35.3 | how did it work out there? |
| 1:39.3 | The story today, Labour's Asylum Gamble. |
| 1:51.6 | I am Ben Clatworthy and I'm Whitehall editor at the Times. |
| 2:00.6 | Well, Ben, I know you've been watching events in Parliament all afternoon. |
| 2:05.9 | We've finally had the big announcement from the Home Secretary, |
| 2:09.5 | this raft of measures that we've been hearing about for days now. |
| 2:13.5 | Talk us through them. |
| 2:15.0 | Shabana Mahmood has stood up and unveiled a raft of measures today that she hopes will bring down illegal migration. |
... |
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