Labour faces accusations of hypocrisy over borders bill

Labour has been accused of rank hypocrisy over plans to uphold controversial Tory proposals to detain child migrants in its bid to crack down on cross-Channel smuggling gangs.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL MILLIE COOKE HOLLY BANCROFT

Despite Labour frontbenchers repeatedly speaking out against the Conservatives’ Illegal Migration Act (IMA), Yvette Cooper is pressing ahead with plans to allow unaccompanied children whose age is disputed by the Home Office to be detained. In Labour’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, published yesterday, the home secretary will also keep a ban on migrants claiming modern slavery protections, along with a string of other measures the party previously opposed.

Amnesty International accused Ms Cooper of “rank hypocrisy” for holding on to parts of the Tories’ bill, a decision it said would signal that “disdain for human beings remains at the heart of this government”. Independent anti-slavery commissioner Eleanor Lyons said victims of modern slavery “deserve our compassion and support, and no new legislation should reduce victims’ rights”. Meanwhile, Tory shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the bill was “weak and reannounces steps the last government took already”.

Labour’s Jess Phillips – who now sits in Sir Keir Starmer’s government as safeguarding minister – previously claimed that the Conservative bill was “a trafficker’s dream, a tool for their control”, as it effectively hid modern slavery victims from UK authorities. And former shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock, now a health minister, said it is “deeply unethical, as it also makes it harder for victims of modern slavery to come forward and [makes it] harder to prosecute criminals”. Mr Kinnock branded the bill a “traffickers’ charter, a gift to traffickers and pimps”.

Dame Diana Johnson, now a minister in the Home Office, previously accused the Tory government of making an “unnecessary and unjustified” choice to sacrifice its focus on human trafficking as part of its response to irregular migration. None of the three has responded to The Independent’s request for comment on the U-turn.