Labour’s plan to toughen up on migration has taken another turn — but not a helpful one.

Instead of addressing the root causes of increased arrivals, ministers want to close a legal loophole that allowed some convicted sex offenders to claim asylum.

Their move was sparked by a high-profile and horrifying case – but it risks being more performative than transformational.

On Monday (April 28, 2025), Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced that any asylum seeker placed on the sex offenders register — regardless of sentence length — will now be barred from remaining in the UK.

Under current rules, only those sentenced to more than a year in prison can be excluded from refugee protection under the 1951 UN Convention. The new amendment will expand that threshold to cover a wider range of sexual offences.

The change follows outrage over the case of Abdul Ezedi, a man granted asylum in 2020 despite being a convicted sex offender.

In January 2024, he went on to attack his ex-partner and her children in a chemical assault before taking his own life. That case, understandably, triggered public anger and calls for action.

But is this really action — or a headline-chasing fix that avoids the bigger picture?

Targeting offenders, dodging strategy

In isolation, the proposal seems sensible: if someone commits a sexual offence after arriving in the UK or while seeking asylum, the case for deportation is compelling. Few would argue otherwise. As Cooper put it, these are “appalling crimes” that deserve serious consequences.

But what this policy doesn’t do is address why people are arriving in such numbers in the first place. Nor does it fix the Home Office’s long-standing inability to vet applicants properly or process claims efficiently — failures that allowed Ezedi to be granted asylum after two rejections.

Meanwhile, the number of people arriving in small boats hit 10,000 weeks earlier than last year, and ministers are still focused on reactive, moralistic legislation, not systems reform.

The Opposition reacts, but not adversely

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp called the changes “too little, too late” — but his party had 14 years in power to make similar reforms – if it had so desired, and didn’t.

The Tories continue to argue that Labour is soft on deportations and have called for the Human Rights Act to be disapplied entirely in immigration cases.

In that sense, Labour’s move looks more like triangulation than leadership.

It tweaks the law to head off criticism but stops short of offering a coherent migration or justice strategy.

As with its “terrorist-style” framing of people-smugglers, the emphasis is on language and punishment — not long-term prevention.

Human rights in the crosshairs

Cooper has also flagged the government’s intention to revisit how Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights — the right to a family life — is applied in deportation cases.

This raises further concerns about the erosion of legal protections, especially as courts already weigh public interest when applying Article 8. Changing the framework risks turning nuanced decisions into political theatre.

The Refugee Council and Law Society both warned that rushing appeals or over-relying on AI to speed up claims processing could lead to more flawed decisions, not fewer.

A pattern, not a plan

Ultimately, this latest policy shift fits into a clear pattern: UK governments respond to migration with piecemeal, reactive laws driven by headlines and party competition.

From the failed Rwanda scheme to promises of AI-driven border efficiency, the bigger questions — about conflict, international development cuts, foreign policy, and border infrastructure — are rarely confronted.

If the goal is to reduce arrivals and maintain public safety, fixing loopholes is necessary but insufficient.

The real task is building a migration system that is consistent, humane, well-resourced, and credible. And that’s something no party has yet achieved.