Most sweeping reforms to asylum rules in a generation to be unveiled

Charities and Labour figures express alarm at toughening of policy

- Jessica Elgot Rajeev Syal

Shabana Mahmood has warned Labour MPs that “dark forces are stirring up anger” over migration, amid growing alarm among senior party figures over the most sweeping overhaul of refugee rights in a generation.

Mahmood will today announce controversial laws to overhaul refugee status, which must be reassessed every two years, as well as curbing asylum appeals and toughening the approach to rights to family life.

The home secretary warned in an article for the Guardian website that anger about illegal migration could turn on second-generation immigrants such as her and rupture community relations.

“I know that a country without secure borders is a less safe country for those who look like me,” she said.

But the Guardian understands the extent of Mahmood’s plans has prompted significant unease among senior Labour aides and ministers, with at least one on resignation watch. Two said they were particularly concerned about the plans to step up deportations of refugee families, including those with children.

Charities said it would risk “another Windrush scandal" and leave refugees in nearpermanent limbo, with children liable to be unrooted from schools adults unable to build careers, and make integration harder.

The home secretary will announce three new safe routes for refugees to legally come to the UK from war-torn countries such as Sudan and Eritrea, but even the status of those refugees will be under constant review.

Mahmood confirmed refugees would be liable to be returned if their country was no longer deemed dangerous, with their status reviewed every 30 months, including families with young children in school.