Dare we go full Danish and make Britain ‘zero refugee’ zone?

In many international arenas, the UK likes to present itself as a model with something akin to a divine right to “lead”. So it is refreshing to find at least one member of the current government looking to see what international examples the UK might usefully follow. Step forward, home secretary Shabana Mahmood, who is about to announce changes in the immigration and asylum system that are borrowed, to some degree at least, from Denmark. Why Denmark?

In the simplest of terms, because Denmark, under left-of-centre PM Mette Frederiksen since 2019, offers a unique combination of a European country with a social democratic government that has managed to reduce the number of migrants and asylum seekers to a 40-year low by dint of rigorous legislation and enforcement, while mostly staying on the right side of the Geneva Conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The left-of-centre government element is crucial, because it stands to give the UK’s Labour government cover for measures that would otherwise be condemned as exclusive to the far right. Danish ministers do not entirely reject this argument, but they have a reply: by addressing public concerns about levels of legal and illegal migration, their government has effectively bought the freedom to implement its socialist agenda elsewhere. So this is a way for the left not only to keep the far right out of power — unlike what has happened in other countries — but to remain true to its liberal left agenda.

For a Labour government under pressure from Reform UK, specifically on the subject of migration and asylum, the attractions of a Danish solution are clear. The question might be: why did the last Conservative governments, or indeed the last Labour home secretary, Yvette Cooper, not look towards Denmark? Another question might go further back: why did David Cameron, when trying to negotiate concessions that could keep the UK in the EU, not seek a similarly wide opt-out on justice and home affairs, including migration, to the one secured by Denmark when it joined the Maastricht Treaty in 1992?

In fact, the UK benefited from its own opt-outs and, unlike Denmark, remained outside the Schengen agreement. Where it mainly appears to have differed from Denmark, however, is in the use it made, or did not make, of its EU opt-outs, which anyway no longer apply, given Brexit. Something similar, however, could apply to the migration and asylum measures now enforced by Denmark that the UK is eyeing. They include offering only temporary refuge for those fleeing war, rather than indefinite leave to remain — with some Somalis, Sudanese and Syrians now being required to return home. It is not enough to claim membership of a persecuted minority to qualify for asylum, which is increasingly restricted to those personally targeted by a given regime. Conditions for family reunion — currently being reviewed for refugees in the UK — are stricter in Denmark, in terms of income, work and language requirements, with the minimum age for spouses being 24, a measure designed to reduce the incidence of enforced marriages. Permanent settlement is open only to those who have been resident for eight years and who are in work.

Such measures are within the jurisdiction of Denmark, just as they could be within the jurisdiction of the UK if the government and, where necessary, parliament so chose. Nor do they necessarily conflict with the Geneva Conventions, at least as they were interpreted during the Cold War, when political asylum was granted to a relatively small number of persecuted individuals. Today’s greater freedom to travel means that many more people arrive at a foreign border with the right, both under the Geneva Conventions and under the European Convention on Human Rights, to claim asylum. But the right to claim is one thing, and the right for that claim to be granted is another, with Denmark interpreting the provisions far more strictly than the UK — and without, for the most part, drawing the ire of the ECHR. That would suggest that at least part of the greater generosity shown by the UK rests on interpretation, rather than the actual letter of the law — something that Cooper, and now Mahmood, set out to address.

Being more Danish in the granting of asylum, residence and family reunion could perhaps reduce the desirability of the UK, and so the number of legal and illegal arrivals — even without resort to two of the Danish measures that would probably fall foul of MPs and, to a lesser extent, the public in the UK. One is requiring asylum seekers to contribute to their keep with any valuables they may have brought with them. Another is trying to foster integration by refusing to house new migrants in areas populated predominantly by non-Danes. It is hard to see any local authority willing or able to push through such a policy in the UK.