Britain is looking to Denmark for inspiration to shake up its immigration system

The Home Secretary will announce a major shake-up to the immigration and asylum system later this month, the BBC has learned.

Shabana Mahmood will model some of her new measures on the Danish system, which is seen as one of the toughest in Europe.

It is understood officials have been looking at Denmark’s stricter rules on family reunification and limiting most refugees to temporary stays in the country.

Mahmood wants to reduce the incentives that draw people to Britain, while making it easier to deport people who have no right to stay in the country.

But some in her party are opposed to going the Danish route, with one left-wing Labor MP saying it was too “hardcore” and had echoes of the far right.

At the Labor Conference in September Mahmood promised to do “whatever it takes” to regain control of Britain’s borders.

She is impressed that Denmark has reduced the number of successful asylum applications to the lowest level in four decades – with the exception of 2020, amid pandemic travel restrictions.

The BBC has been told it sent senior Home Office officials to Copenhagen last month to investigate what lessons could be applied to Britain.

In Denmark, refugees who are personally targeted by a foreign regime are likely to receive protection.

But most people who successfully obtained asylum while fleeing conflict are now only allowed to stay in the country temporarily.

If the Danish government decides that their home country is safe, they can be sent back.

For those who have been in Denmark longer, the time required to acquire settlement rights has been extended and conditions have been added, such as full-time employment.

Denmark’s stricter rules on family reunions have also attracted the attention of officials at the British Home Office.

If you are a refugee who has been granted residence rights in Denmark, both you and your partner applying to join you in the country must be 24 years or older.

The Danish government says this is to guard against forced marriages.

The partner in Denmark may not have applied for benefits for three years and must also provide a financial guarantee – and both partners must pass a Danish language test.

Refugees living in designated residential areas as “parallel societies” – i.e. where more than 50% of residents come from what the Danish government considers “non-Western” backgrounds – will not be eligible for family reunification at all.

This law, which also allows the state to sell or demolish the apartment buildings that fall under the heading of ‘parallel societies’, is controversial. The Danish government said it was aimed at improving integration, while a senior adviser to the EU Supreme Court described it earlier this year as discriminatory on the basis of ethnicity.

In September, the British Home Office new applications under the family reunification scheme for refugees have been suspendedpending the drafting of new rules.

The pre-September scheme allowed spouses, partners and dependents under the age of 18 to come to Britain without meeting the income and English language tests that apply to other migrants.

Mahmood is unlikely to reach Denmark when she announces the UK’s replacement rules for family reunifications, but it seems likely she will take steps along a more restrictive route.

Last week the BBC also made the trip to Denmark to find out how their immigration system works.

Mahmood’s counterpart, Rasmus Stoklund, the Danish Minister for Immigration and Integration, is a member of Labour’s sister party, the Social Democrats.

He said: “We have strengthened our laws in many ways.

“We are sending more people back home. We have made it quite difficult to achieve family reunification in Denmark.

“It’s much easier to get deported if you commit crimes. And we’ve created several programs to help people return home voluntarily.”

There is no indication that the UK government would follow the Danish example in offering significant sums – as much as the equivalent of £24,000 – to asylum seekers to return to their countries of origin, including a contribution towards the costs of their children’s education.

But part of what Stoklund outlined is true The BBC understands this is being closely monitored by the Home Office.

According to Stoklund, stricter immigration and integration are about protecting the social character of Denmark, which is a smaller country with a lower population density than Britain.

“We expect people who come here to participate and make a positive contribution, and if they don’t, they’re not welcome,” he said.

In Denmark – as in Great Britain – there is a live political debate about whether the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) makes the deportation of foreign criminals more difficult.

Like the British government, Stoklund does not want to leave the ECHR, but believes changes can be made.

The Danish government has launched a study into how this could be done and Stoklund agreed that he could work with his British counterparts to achieve a common goal.

“I think it’s very positive every time I hear that other countries have the same concerns and are frustrated in the same way as many of us in Denmark.”

Mahmood would like to meet Stoklund as soon as possible.

For labor ministers, there are both political and practical lessons to be learned from Denmark.

In 2015, the country had a center-left government in trouble and a right-wing populist party doing well in the polls, while immigration was a growing concern among voters.

There are parallels with Britain today, as Reform UK maintains its poll lead over Labour.

Downing Street is interested in how a centre-left party managed to defeat the Danish People’s Party, once an ally of Nigel Farage’s UKIP in the European Parliament, and return to power.

Ida Auken, environmental spokesperson for the Social Democrats, said taking a tougher stance on immigration meant there was room to pursue progressive policies in other areas.

“For us, it was a license to work on the things we want to do,” she said.

‘We want to have a workforce that is well educated, that has social security and we want to implement a green transition.

“And we would never have been able to do this without a strict migration policy.”

It is believed that some senior ministers in Britain find this argument persuasive.

Critics point out that while there are similarities with Britain, the situation in Denmark is different.

The country is not affected by the arrival of small boats from the North Sea or the Baltic Sea.

Danish is not as widely spoken as English, so language requirements are likely to discourage some potential refugees.

And while the vast majority of Social Democratic parliamentarians were in favor of tougher policies, there is much more caution among some Labor MPs.

Off the record, some mainstream Labor MPs say they would oppose the transplant of Danish policies to Britain.

On the left of the party, former frontman Clive Lewis argued strongly against adopting the Danish system in an attempt to outflank Reform UK.

“The Social Democrats in Denmark have taken what I would call a hardcore approach to immigration,” he said.

‘They have adopted many of the talking points from what we would call the extreme right.

“Labor does indeed need to win back some reform-minded voters, but that cannot come at the expense of losing progressive votes.”

Nadia Whittome, Labor MP for Nottingham East and member of Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group, said this would be a “dangerous path” and that some of Denmark’s policies, especially those around “parallel societies”, are “undeniably racist”.

“I think this is a dead end – morally, politically and electorally,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

However, Gareth Snell, Labor MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, said he thought a similar policy to Denmark was “worth exploring” and that his voters did not trust the current system in Britain and saw it as “inherently unfair”.

He said that when asylum is granted to people who can later safely return to their home countries to help rebuild their communities, “we should support that.”

Jo White, who leads a group of 50 Labor MPs in the “Red Wall” seats in the Midlands and northern England, would also like to see ministers move further in the Danish direction.

She argued that Labor would pay a high political price if it did not adopt policies such as requiring some asylum seekers to contribute to the costs of their stay.

“The consequences are that we will have a general election in which reform will be the biggest challenger in most Labor seats… and we will be destroyed.”