The U.K.’s Labour government is facing backlash over its proposed border security bill, which retains key elements of controversial policies of the previous Conservative government that restrict protections for trafficking survivors and allow for the detention of unaccompanied child migrants. Campaigners warn that these measures will embolden traffickers, increasing the risks of exploitation and modern slavery.

A U-turn on protections for trafficking survivors

Labour leaders, including Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, had previously condemned Conservative immigration policies as inhumane. However, under the newly proposed bill, Labour is set to uphold provisions that limit the ability of trafficking victims arriving by irregular routes—such as small boats crossing the Channel—to access protections under the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), the U.K.’s system for identifying and supporting survivors of modern slavery.

When introduced under the previous Conservative government, Labour MPs had fiercely criticized these measures, with some calling them a “traffickers’ charter” that would strengthen the control of smuggling networks over vulnerable migrants. Jess Phillips, now a minister in the Labour government, once described the policy as “a trafficker’s dream, a tool for their control.” Now, as Labour pushes forward with a nearly identical bill, campaigners say the party is engaging in “rank hypocrisy.”

“The only way to stop people smugglers is to create safe routes for people fleeing violence and persecution,” Green Party leader Carla Denyer told The Independent, adding that Labour’s bill “contains no measures to do so.”

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