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jeremy corbyn
UK Labour to Let Authorities Take Jewelry From Asylum-Seekers as Part of Sweeping New Immigration Crackdown
"Labour won't redistribute wealth from billionaires," said former party Leader Jeremy Corbyn. "But they will seize belongings from those fleeing war and persecution."
Nov 17, 2025
A new asylum policy announced Monday by the UK Labour Party will allow authorities to confiscate the jewelry and other belongings of asylum-seekers in order to pay for their claims to be processed.
The policy, which some critics said was "reminiscent of the Nazi era," was just one part of the Labour Party's total overhaul of the nation's asylum system, which it says must be made much more restrictive in order to fend off rising support for the far-right.
In a policy paper released Monday, the government announced that it would seek to make the status of many refugees temporary and gave the government new powers to deport refugees if it determines it to be safe. It also revoked policies requiring the government to provide housing and legal support to those fleeing persecution, while extending the amount of time they need to wait for permanent residency to 20 years, up from just five, for those who arrive illegally.
The UK government also said it will attempt to change the way judges interpret human rights law to more seamlessly carry out deportations, including stopping immigrants from using their rights to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to avoid deportation.
In an article for the Guardian published Sunday, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called the reforms "the most significant and comprehensive changes to our asylum system in a generation." She said they were necessary because the increase in migration to the UK had stirred up "dark forces" in the country that are "seeking to turn that anger into hate."
Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK Party, is leading national polls on the back of a viciously anti-immigrant campaign that has included calls to abolish the UK's main pathway for immigrants to become permanent residents, known as "leave to remain."
Meanwhile, in September, over 100,000 people gathered in London for an anti-immigrant rally led by Tommy Robinson, a notorious far-right figure who founded the anti-Muslim English Defence League (EDL). The event saw at least 26 police officers injured by protesters.
Last summer, riots swept the UK after false claims—spread by Robinson, Farage, and other far-right figures—that the perpetrator of the fatal stabbing of two young girls and their caretaker had been a Muslim asylum-seeker. A hotel housing asylum-seekers was set on fire, mosques were vandalised and destroyed, and several immigrants and other racial minorities were brutally beaten.
Mahmood said that if changes are not made to the asylum system, "we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all."
But as critics were quick to point out, the far-right merely took Labour's crackdown as a sign that it is winning the war for hearts and minds.
Robinson gloated to his followers that "the Overton window has been obliterated, well done patriots!" while Farage chortled that Mahmood "sounds like a Reform supporter."
Many members of the Labour coalition expressed outrage at their ostensibly Liberal Party's bending to the far-right.
"The government should be ashamed that its migration policies are being cheered on by Tommy Robinson and Reform," said Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East. "Instead of standing up to anti-migrant hate, this is laying the foundations for the far-right."
In a speech in Parliament, she chided the home secretary's policy overhaul, calling it "dystopian."
"It's shameful that a Labour government is ripping up the rights and protections of people who have endured unimaginable trauma," she said. "Is this how we'd want to be treated if we were fleeing for our lives? Of course not."
The UK has signed treaties, including the ECHR, obligating it to process the claims of those who claim asylum because they face persecution in their home countries based on race, religion, nationality, group membership, or political opinion. According to data from the Home Office, over 111,000 people claimed asylum in the year from June 2024-25, more than double the number who did in 2019.
The spike came as the number of people displaced worldwide reached an all-time high of over 123.2 million at the end of 2024, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, with desperate people seeking safety from escalating conflicts in Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and across the Middle East.
In her op-ed, Mahmood lamented that "the burden borne by taxpayers has been unfair." However, as progressive commentator Owen Jones pointed out, the UK takes in far fewer asylum-seekers than its peers: "Last year, Germany took over twice as many asylum-seekers as the UK. France, Italy, and Spain took 1.5 times as many. Per capita, we take fewer than most EU countries. Poorer countries such as Greece take proportionately more than we do."
The Labour government, led by Prime Minister Keir Starmer, already boasts that it has deported more than 50,000 people in the UK illegally since it came to power in 2024, but it has predictably done little to satiate the far-right, which has only continued to gain momentum in polls despite the crackdown.
Under the new rules, it is expected that the government will be able to fast-track many more deportations, particularly of families with children.
The jewelry rule, meanwhile, has become a potent symbol of how the Labour Party has shifted away from its promises of economic egalitarianism toward austerity and punishment of the most vulnerable.
"Labour won't redistribute wealth from billionaires," said former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is now an independent MP. "But they will seize belongings from those fleeing war and persecution."
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Corbyn-Led Tribunal Slams UK 'Complicity' in Israeli Gaza Atrocities
"Just like Iraq, the government is doing everything it can to protect itself from scrutiny," said Corbyn.
Sep 05, 2025
A tribunal led by former Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn on Thursday accused the UK of being complicit in Israel-committed atrocities in Gaza.
As reported by Al Jazeera, Corbyn led an unofficial inquiry into how the UK government's support of Israel has aided the country in carrying out war crimes in Gaza in a conflict that so far has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians.
The tribunal heard from Nick Maynard, a British doctor who has treated wounded civilians in Gaza's Nasser Hospital, and who described seeing teenage boys who appeared to have been deliberately shot in the genitals by Israeli soldiers.
"The pattern of the targeting of specific body parts was something we all recognized," said Maynard, who described such actions "as target practice by the Israeli soldiers."
Maynard also described his attempts to treat a 7-month-old baby in the hospital who eventually died of malnutrition.
"You could see every rib, every bone in her body," he said. "She was being fed with water mixed with sugar. We had completely run out of formula feed."
Per Middle East Eye, the inquiry also featured testimony from Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on occupied Palestine, who said that the UK and other Western nations deserved condemnation for continuing to supply weapons and resources to Israel even as its actions have created a famine inside of Gaza.
"States, including the United Kingdom, have been on notice for decades of their legal obligations," she told the panel. "This failure to abide by long-standing international obligations might be sufficient to establish a criminal case for complicity in the actions of Israel."
Corbyn, who is leading the panel alongside Queen Mary College professor of human rights law Neve Gordon and University of Kent lecturer on international law Shahd Hammouri, likened the UK government's current actions to actions it took under former Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq War.
"Just like Iraq, the government is doing everything it can to protect itself from scrutiny," said Corbyn. "Just like Iraq, it will not succeed in its attempts to suffocate the truth. We will uncover the full scale of British complicity in genocide—and we will bring about justice for the people of Palestine."
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'Genocide Is a Red Line': Thousands Encircle UK Parliament to Demand Sanctions on Israel
"U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer admitted this week that the situation in Gaza is 'getting worse by the day' but has yet to match these words with concrete actions."
Jun 04, 2025
Thousands of people formed a "Red Line for Palestine" encircling the U.K. Parliament in Westminster on Wednesday to demand an arms embargo and sanctions on Israel for its ongoing genocidal violence against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The protesters are also calling for the reinstatement of U.K. aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the government's support for International Criminal Court investigations, and an immediate and permanent cease-fire in Gaza, according to a statement from organizers.
The red line protest during Parliament's "question time" was organized by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Stop the War Coalition.
"The U.S.-backed aid distribution in Gaza has shut down operations today, citing 'security risks,'" organizers noted. "This follows widespread criticism over its ties to Israel and alleged downplaying of civilian casualties. Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer admitted this week that the situation in Gaza is 'getting worse by the day' but has yet to match these words with concrete actions."
While people in the streets took aim at Starmer and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who are both part of the Labour Party, some members of Parliament joined the protest.
Scottish MP Brian Leishman, a member of Labour's Socialist Campaign Group, said on social media that he was "proud to stand with fellow MPs and the thousands of people that joined the Red Line for Palestine protest outside Parliament today calling for an end to genocide and for countries to stop arming Israel."
MP Colum Eastwood, former leader of Northern Ireland's Social Democratic and Labour Party, similarly said that he was "proud" to join the protest, while MP Zack Polansky, a candidate to lead the Green Party, said he was "proud to stand with so many fellow Jewish people against the genocide."
Party MP Ellie Chowns described her experience participating in the demonstration as "incredibly moving and powerful," while Independent MP Shockat Adam declared: "Starving children is a red line. Genocide is a red line. When humanity is on the line, silence cannot be the response."
Independent MP Adnan Hussain said he was "honored to have joined" the action and shared footage in which he appeared with MP Jeremy Corbyn, a fellow Independent who used to be Labour's leader. In the Sky News clip, Corbyn talked about the bill he's introducing to demand an independent public inquiry into the U.K.'s "complicity with active genocide" in Gaza.
"Many of us remain disgusted by the continued supply of components for the F-35 fighter jet program," Corbyn told The New Arab. "I am shocked the government openly admits to making 'exceptions' to its partial suspension. Does this breach its legal obligations to prevent genocide? One thing is clear: This government still supplies weapons to a state whose leader is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity."
The Hague-based tribunal in November issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and a Hamas leader who has since been declared dead. Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its annihilation of Gaza.
Polling shows Israel's destruction of Gaza is unpopular with the British public. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign not only was an organizer of Wednesday's protest but also commissioned a poll from Opinium Research and released the results on Wednesday. The survey, conducted from May 30 to June 2, found that 57% of Brits believe the U.K. should impose a full arms embargo.
The survey also found that 54% support sanctioning Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, 53% think Israel should be expelled from the U.N., and 50% support boycotting Israeli products in supermarkets. Middle East Eye reported that "the new poll comes after a similar survey showed public support for Israel in European countries had fallen to its lowest recorded level."
The polling also comes as the official casualty counts in Gaza—which experts warn are likely significant underestimates—climbed to 54,607 Palestinians killed and 125,341 wounded, with most of the enclave's more than 2 million struggling to access food, water, shelter, and healthcare in the face of Israel's bombings and blockade of humanitarian aid.
U.K. organizers plan to follow Wednesday's red line action with a National March for Palestine on Saturday, June 21.
"Israel's attacks on Gaza and the West Bank are intensifying. Their starvation policy continues," says the march's webpage. "The U.K. government has at last accepted that Israel's actions are unconscionable. Now they must act—words are not enough."
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