ATHENS — Greece’s parliament is expected to pass double-edged legislation on Wednesday that will help recruit tens of thousands more South Asian workers, while simultaneously penalizing migrants that the government says have entered the country illegally. Greece’s right-wing administration seeks to style itself as tough on migration but needs to pass Wednesday’s bill thanks to a crippling labor shortfall in vital sectors such as tourism, construction and agriculture. The central idea of the new legislation is to simplify bringing in workers through recruitment schemes agreed with countries such as India, Bangladesh and Egypt. There will be a special “fast track” for big public-works projects. The New Democracy government knows, however, that these measures to recruit more foreign workers will play badly with some core supporters. For that reason the bill includes strong measures against immigrants who have already entered Greece illegally, and also pledges to clamp down on the non-government organizations helping migrants. “We need workers, but we are tough on illegal immigration,” Greece’s Migration Minister Thanos Plevris told ERT television. The migration tensions in Greece reflect the extent to which it remains a hot button issue across Europe, even though numbers have dropped significantly since the massive flows of 2015, when the Greek Aegean islands were one of the main points of arrival. More than 80,000 positions for immigrants have been approved by the Greek state annually over the past two years. There are no official figures on labor shortages, but studies from industry associations indicate the country’s needs are more than double the state-approved number of spots, and that only half of those positions are filled. The migration bill is expected to pass because the government holds a majority in parliament. Opposition parties have condemned it, saying it ignores the need to integrate the migrants already in Greece and adopts the rhetoric of the far right. Under the new legislation, migrants who entered the country illegally will have no opportunity to acquire legal status. The bill also abolishes a provision granting residence permits to unaccompanied minors once they turn 18, provided they attend school in Greece. “Whoever is illegal right now will remain illegal, and when they are located they will be arrested, imprisoned for two to five years and repatriated,” Plevris told lawmakers. Human-rights groups also oppose the legislation, which they say criminalizes humanitarian NGOs by explicitly linking their migration-related activities to serious crimes.  The bill envisages severe penalties such as mandatory prison terms of at least 10 years and heavy fines for assisting irregular entry, providing transport for illegal migration, or helping those migrants stay. “Whoever is illegal right now will remain illegal,” Thanos Plevris told lawmakers. | Orestis Panagiotou/EPA Wednesday’s legislation also grants the migration minister broad powers to deregister NGOs based solely on criminal charges against one member, and will allow residence permits to be revoked on the basis of suspicion alone — undermining the presumption of innocence. Greece’s national ombudsman has expressed serious concerns about the bill, arguing that punishing people for entering the country illegally contravenes international conventions on the treatment of refugees. Lefteris Papagiannakis, director of the Greek Council for Refugees, was equally damning. “This binary political approach follows the global hostile and racist policy around migration,” he said.

The Senate passed a compromise spending package Friday, clearing a path for Congress to avert a lengthy government shutdown. The 71-29 vote came a day after Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump struck a deal to attach two weeks of Homeland Security funding to five spending bills that will fund the Pentagon, State Department and many other agencies until Sept. 30. Only five of 53 Republicans voted against it after Trump publicly urged lawmakers Thursday to approve the legislation. Democrats were split, with 24 of 47 caucus members opposing the package. The Senate’s vote won’t avert a partial shutdown that will start early Saturday morning since House lawmakers are out of town and not scheduled to return until Monday. During a private call with House Republicans Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson said the likeliest route to House passage would be bringing the package up under a fast-track process Monday evening. That would require a two-thirds majority — and a significant number of Democratic votes. The $1.2 trillion package could face challenges in the House, especially from conservative hard-liners who have said they would vote against any Senate changes to what the House already passed. Many House Democrats are also wary of stopgap funding for DHS, which would keep ICE and Border Patrol funded at current levels without immediate new restrictions. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he had been in constant contact with Johnson “for better or worse” about getting the funding deal through the House, predicting that the Louisiana Republican is “prepared to do everything he can as quickly as possible.” “Hopefully things go well over there,” he added. If the Trump-blessed deal ultimately gets signed into law, Congress will have approved more than 95 percent of federal funding — leaving only a full-year DHS bill on its to-do list. Congress has already funded several agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Justice. “These are fiscally responsible bills that reflect months of hard work and deliberation from members on both parties and both sides of the Capitol,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said before the final vote. The Office of Management and Budget has issued shutdown guidance for agencies not already funded, which include furloughs of some personnel. Republicans agreeing to strip out the full-year DHS bill and replace it with a two-week patch is a major win for Democrats. They quickly unified behind a demand to split off and renegotiate immigration enforcement funding after federal agents deployed to Minnesota fatally shot 37-year-old U.S. citizen Alex Pretti last week. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who helped negotiate the final deal, took a victory lap after the vote, saying “the agreement we reached today did exactly what Democrats wanted.” But Democrats will still need to negotiate with the White House and congressional Republicans about what, if any, policy changes they are willing to codify into law as part of a long-term bill. Republicans are open to some changes, including requiring independent investigations. But they’ve already dismissed some of Democrats’ main demands, including requiring judicial warrants for immigration arrests. “I want my Republican colleagues to listen closely: Senate Democrats will not support a DHS bill unless it reins in ICE and ends the violence,” Schumer said. “We will know soon enough if your colleagues understand the stakes.” Republicans have demands of their own, and many believe the most likely outcome is that another DHS patch will be needed. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance, wants a future vote on legislation barring federal funding for cities that don’t comply with federal immigration laws. Other Republicans and the White House have pointed to it as a key issue in the upcoming negotiations. “I am demanding that my solution to fixing sanctuary cities at least have a vote. You’re going to put ideas on the floor to make ICE better? I want to put an idea on the floor to get to the root cause of the problem,” Graham said. The Senate vote caps off a days-long sprint to avoid a second lengthy shutdown in the span of four months. Senate Democrats and Trump said Thursday they had a deal, only for it to run into a snag when Graham delayed a quick vote as he fumed over a provision in the bill, first reported by POLITICO, related to former special counsel Jack Smith’s now-defunct investigation targeting Trump. Senate leaders ultimately got the agreement back on track Friday afternoon by offering votes on seven changes to the bill, all of which failed. The Senate defeated proposals to cut refugee assistance, strip out all earmarks from the package and redirect funding for ICE to Medicaid, among others. Graham raged against the House’s move to overturn a law passed last year allowing senators to sue for up to $500,000 per incident if their data had been used in former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the 2020 election. But he backed off his threats to hold up the bill after announcing that leaders had agreed to support a future vote on the matter. “You jammed me,” Graham said on the floor Friday. “Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this.” Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — When it comes to support for Ukraine, a split has emerged between the European Union and its English-speaking allies. In France and Germany, the EU’s two biggest democracies, new polling shows that more respondents want their governments to scale back financial aid to Kyiv than to increase it or keep it the same. In the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, meanwhile, respondents tilt the other way and favor maintaining material support, according to The POLITICO Poll, which surveyed more than 10,000 people across the five countries earlier this month. The findings land as European leaders prepare to meet in Brussels on Thursday for a high-stakes summit where providing financial support to Ukraine is expected to dominate the agenda. They also come as Washington seeks to mediate a peace agreement between Moscow and Kyiv — with German leader Friedrich Merz taking the lead among European nations on negotiating in Kyiv’s favor. Across all five countries, the most frequently cited reason for supporting continued aid to Ukraine was the belief that nations should not be allowed to seize territory by force. The most frequently cited argument against additional assistance was concerns about the cost and the pressure on the national economy.  “Much of our research has shown that the public in Europe feels the current era demands policy trade-offs, and financial support for Ukraine is no exception,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London that carried out the survey for POLITICO.  “In a time where public finances are seen as finite resources, people’s interests are increasingly domestic,” he added.  WESTERN DIVIDE Germans were the most reluctant to ramp up financial assistance, with nearly half of respondents (45 percent) in favor of cutting financial aid to Kyiv while only 20 percent wanted to increase it. In France 37 percent wanted to give less and 24 percent preferred giving more. In contrast to the growing opposition to Ukrainian aid from Europe, support remains strikingly firm in North America. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism toward Kyiv’s chances of defeating Moscow and has sent interlocutors to bargain with the Russians for peace. And yet the U.S. had the largest share of respondents (37 percent) in favor of increasing financial support, with Canada just behind at 35 percent. Support for Ukraine was driven primarily by those who backed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election in the U.S. Some 29 percent of Harris voters said one of the top three reasons the U.S. should support Ukraine was to protect democracy, compared with 17 percent of supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump. “The partisan split in the U.S. is now quite extreme,” Wride said. In Germany and France, opposition to assistance was especially pronounced among supporters of far-right parties — such as the Alternative for Germany and France’s National Rally — while centrists were less skeptical. “How Ukraine financing plays out in Germany in particular, as a number of European governments face populist challenges, should be a particular warning sign to other leaders,” Wride said. REFUGEE FATIGUE Support for military assistance tracked a similar divide. Nearly 40 percent of respondents in the U.S., U.K. and Canada backed higher levels of military aid, with about 20 percent opposed. In Germany 26 percent supported increased military aid to Ukraine while 39 percent opposed it. In France opinions were evenly split, with 31 percent favoring an increase and 30 percent favoring cuts. Germany was also the only country where a majority of respondents said their government should accept fewer Ukrainians displaced by the war.  In a country that has taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, 50 percent of Germans said Berlin should admit fewer.  Half of respondents also said Germany should reduce support for Ukrainians already settled in the country — a sign that public fatigue is extending beyond weapons and budgets to the broader social and political pressures of the conflict. The softer support for Ukraine in France and Germany does not appear to reflect warmer feelings toward Moscow, however. Voters in all five countries backed sanctions against Russia, suggesting that even where publics want to pare back aid they remain broadly aligned around punishing the aggressor and limiting Russia’s ability to finance the war. This edition of The POLITICO Poll was conducted from Dec. 5 to Dec. 9 and surveyed 10,510 adults online, with at least 2,000 respondents each from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France and Germany. The results for each country were weighted to be representative in terms of age, gender and geography, and have an overall margin of sampling error of ±2 percentage points for each country. Smaller subgroups have higher margins of error. The survey is an ongoing project from POLITICO and Public First, an independent polling company headquartered in London, to measure public opinion across a broad range of policy areas. You can find new surveys and analysis each month at politico.com/poll. Have questions or comments? Ideas for future surveys? Email us at poll@politico.com.

LONDON — The Council of Europe’s most senior human rights official warned European leaders not to create a “hierarchy of people” as they pursue reforms to migration policy. Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, said “middle-of-the-road politicians” are playing into the hands of the populist right. His comments, in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, come after 27 countries in the Council of Europe issued a statement Wednesday setting out how they want the European Convention on Human Rights to be applied by courts, including on familial ties and the risk of degrading treatment. The nations hope to reach a political declaration in spring 2026. O’Flaherty warned against any approach that would downgrade human rights, echoing calls he made in a speech to European ministers Wednesday morning. “The idea that we would create or foster the impression of a hierarchy of people, some more deserving than others, is a very, very worrying one indeed,” he said. He added: “For every inch yielded, there’s going to be another inch demanded,” telling the paper: “Where does it stop? For example, the focus right now is on migrants, in large part. But who is it going to be about next time around?” He also hit out at the “lazy correlation” of migration and crime which he said “doesn’t correspond with reality.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer and fellow center-left Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen wrote in the Guardian Tuesday the best way of “fighting against the forces of hate and division” was showing “mainstream, progressive politics” could deal with the challenge. Britain’s chief interior minister Shabana Mahmood has proposed tougher policies for irregular migrants including a 20 year wait for permanent settlement and assessing refugee status every 30 months.

Wies De Graeve is the executive director of Amnesty International Belgium’s Flemish branch. Tomorrow, Seán Binder will stand trial before the Mytilene Court of Appeals in Lesvos, Greece for his work as a volunteer rescuer, helping those in distress and at risk of drowning at sea. Alongside 23 other defendants, he faces criminal charges including membership in a criminal organization, money laundering and smuggling, with the risk of up to 20 years in prison if convicted. I first met Seán in 2019. A bright, articulate Irish activist in his twenties, he was our guest at the Belgian launch of Amnesty International’s annual end-of-year campaign. And there, he shared his equally inspiring yet shocking story of blatant injustice, as he and others were being prosecuted for saving lives. Two years earlier, Seán had traveled to Lesvos as a volunteer, joining a local search-and-rescue NGO to patrol the coastline for small boats in distress and provide first aid to those crossing from Turkey to Greece. Since 2015, the war in Syria has forced countless individuals to flee their homes and seek safety in Europe via dangerous routes — including the perilous journey across the Aegean Sea. In 2017 alone, more than 3,000 people were reported dead or missing while attempting to cross the Mediterranean, and when authorities failed to step in, many volunteers from across Europe did so instead. Seán was one of them. He did what any of us would hope to do in his position: save lives and help people. Yet, in 2018, he was arrested by Greek authorities and held in pretrial detention for over 100 days before being charged with a range of crimes alongside other humanitarian workers. These charges aim to portray those who help people on the move as criminals. And it’s part of a trend sweeping across Europe that’s criminalizing solidarity. In Malta, three teenagers from West Africa stand accused of helping to bring more than 100 people rescued at sea to safety, and are facing charges that carry a lifelong sentence. In Italy, ships operated by search-and-rescue organizations are being impounded. And in France, mountain guides have faced prosecution for assisting people at the border with Italy. European governments are not only failing people seeking protection, they’re also punishing those who try to fill that dangerous gap. I met Seán again in 2021 and 2023, both times outside the courthouse in Mytilene on Lesvos. In 2023, the lesser misdemeanor charges against him and the other foreign defendants — forgery, espionage and the unlawful use of radio frequencies — were dropped. Then, in 2024, the rest of the defendants were acquitted of those same charges. While leaving the courthouse that day, still facing the more serious felony charges along with the other 23 aid workers, Seán said: “We want justice. Today, there has been less injustice, but no justice.” As Amnesty International, we’ve been consistently calling for these charges to be dropped. The U.N. and many human rights organizations have also expressed serious concerns about the case, while thousands across Europe and around the world have stood by Seán’s side in defense of solidarity with migrants and refugees, signing petitions and writing letters. This trial should set off alarms not only for Europe’s civil society but for any person’s ability to act according to their conscience. It isn’t just Seán who is on trial here, it’s solidarity itself. The criminalization of people showing compassion for those compelled to leave their homes because of war, violence or other hardships must stop. This trial should set off alarms not only for Europe’s civil society but for any person’s ability to act according to their conscience. | Manolis Lagoutaris/AFP via Getty Images Meanwhile, a full decade after Syrians fleeing war began arriving on Europe’s shores in search of safety and protection, Europe’s leaders need to reflect. They need to learn from people like Seán instead of prosecuting them. And instead of focusing on deterrence, they need to ensure the word “asylum,” from the Greek “asylon,” still means a place of refuge or sanctuary for those seeking safety in our region. People who save lives should be supported, not criminalized. This week, six years after our first encounter, Seán and I will once again meet in front of the Mytilene courthouse as his trial resumes. I will be there in solidarity, representing the thousands who have been demanding that these charges be dropped. I hope, with all my heart, to see him finally receive the justice he is entitled to. Humanity must win.

DUBLIN — Ukraine cannot accept any U.S.-Russian ceasefire formula that would allow Russia to “come back with a third invasion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday. During his first visit to Ireland as president, Zelenskyy received fulsome backing from Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him and condemned Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “Putin has shown a complete indifference to the value of human life and to international laws and norms,” Martin told their joint press conference. “He must never be allowed to succeed.” Zelenskyy’s whirlwind visit to Dublin — where he also received a standing ovation from the joint houses of parliament and met Ireland’s newly elected and NATO-critical President Catherine Connolly — coincided with resumed Moscow talks between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Zelenskyy said he spoke Monday with Witkoff and expected a post-talks update call Tuesday night — but downplayed hopes of reaching a speedy accord that would permanently end Russia’s attacks on his nation. He dismissed as unrealistic any proposed agreement that fails to include clear-cut security guarantees from both the U.S. and European allies, a commitment that Trump appears loath to give. “We have to stop the war in such a manner that in one year Russia would not come back with a third invasion,” he said, referring to Russia’s initial 2014 seizure of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine as well as its full-scale assault on Ukraine launched in 2022. Martin said making any ceasefire permanent would require, in part, that Russia pays a punitive price for the costs of Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. That would mean, he said, approving the European Commission’s plan to tap frozen Russian funds largely banked in Belgium. Martin expressed hopes that Belgium would drop its objections at the next European Council this month. “When the U.N. charter is violated in such a brutal manner,” Martin said, referring to Russia’s ongoing invasion, “there has to be a deterrence of such behavior. There has to be some responsibility on the aggressor who has wreaked such devastation.” “There’s a very practical issue of the enormity of the reconstruction of Ukraine and the cost of that, and who’s going to pay for that,” Martin said. “It cannot only be the European taxpayer. Europe did not start this war.” But Ireland — a militarily neutral nation that will hold the EU’s rotating presidency in the second half of 2026 — did use Zelenskyy’s visit to boost its own financial support to Ukraine. Martin signed an agreement with Ukraine pledging a further €100 million in nonlethal military equipment, including for minefield clearance, and €25 million to help rebuild Ukraine’s besieged energy utilities. Ireland, a non-NATO member with virtually no defense industries of its own, has declined to provide any finance for acquiring weapons. Ireland, a country of 5.4 million people, also hosts more than 80,000 Ukrainian refugees — but, against a wider tide of anti-immigrant sentiment, is trimming the housing and welfare supports it has provided since 2022 to the Ukrainians. Zelenskyy said he couldn’t concern himself with the level of Irish support, and was grateful it keeps being provided at all. “The question is not about the size of assistance. It’s about the choice,” he said.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music When Europe’s biggest political family crosses the aisle to vote with the far right, something fundamental shifts in Brussels. In this episode, host Sarah Wheaton unpacks the vote that cracked the European Parliament’s cordon sanitaire — and what a newly disciplined, image-polished far right means for Ursula von der Leyen’s shaky centrist alliance. POLITICO’s Marianne Gros and Max Griera take us inside the omnibus showdown; Tim Ross demonstrates how the same forces are reshaping politics across Europe — from the English seaside town of Jaywick to Paris, Berlin and beyond. Plus — Aitor Hernández-Morales brings us a surprising counterpoint from Denmark, where voters pushed back against a left-wing government they felt had leaned too far toward the right.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Endlich Gold für Deutschland? Das Bundeskabinett beschließt heute die Unterstützung für eine deutsche Olympia-Bewerbung für 2036, 2040 oder 2044. Gordon Repinski analysiert den anstehenden Wettstreit der Regionen zwischen München, Rhein-Ruhr, Hamburg und Kiel sowie Berlin und erklärt, warum Kanzler Friedrich Merz jetzt sechs Millionen Euro für den Bewerbungsprozess zusagt.  Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Christiane Schenderlein. Die für Sport zuständige Staatsministerin im Kanzleramt verteidigt erklärt, was in der möglichen  Bewerbung steckt, warum auch ein Olympia in Berlin 100 Jahre nach 1936 eine Chance sein kann und wie die Spiele als Motor für Infrastruktur und Bürokratieabbau dienen sollen. Außerdem: Die Zahl der ukrainischen Geflüchteten in Berlin steigt so stark wie seit 2023 nicht mehr. Jasper Bennink berichtet über die zeitgleiche Maßnahme der Koalition Ukrainern, die künftig kein Bürgergeld, sondern Leistungen aus dem Asylbewerberleistungsgesetz zu geben und so Geld zu sparen. Und: Rasmus Buchsteiner meldet sich aus Peking. Er begleitet Vizekanzler und Finanzminister Lars Klingbeil, der dort an über Elektrobusse staunt, aber gleichzeitig überraschend deutlich davor warnt, nach Russland nun in eine Abhängigkeit von China zu geraten Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

LONDON — It’s a decade since Britain’s Labour Party caused uproar simply by printing “controls on immigration” on a mug. Ten years, it turns out, are a long time in politics. Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s new interior minister, unveiled hardline plans Monday to shake up Britain’s immigration system that make the 2015 mantra look positively tame. Under her proposed reforms, refugees in Britain who arrived on small boats will have to wait up to 20 years for permanent settlement and could be deported if the situation in their home country improves. Those with valuables will be forced to fund the cost of their own accommodation. The tribunal appeals system, which features judges prominently, will be replaced with a streamlined system staffed by “professionally trained adjudicators.” And ministers are promising to ramp up the forcible removal of entire families to their countries of origin, if they do not accept “financial support” to go voluntarily. The home secretary is “beginning to sound as though” she is applying to join Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK, his gleeful deputy Richard Tice told a Westminster press conference Monday. With Mahmood clearly spoiling for a fight with her own ranks, some colleagues to her left flank are making the same comparison. Yet despite the backlash, many other Labour MPs now believe measures like this necessary to confront a rising public backlash over immigration in many European nations. Mahmood, said one official, is concerned that public anger is turning into hate. Labour aides also argue they could be running out of time, as opinion polls project a victory in 2029 for Reform — whose immigration plans would go far further. One government frontbencher (granted anonymity, like others in this piece, to speak frankly) argued the change had been driven by the “the visibility and tangibility of policy failures” on small boats, and the growing use of hotel accommodation for asylum seekers. They added: “We may be in a world where we have to deliver a system we’re not quite comfortable with — or surrender the right to deliver a system to people who don’t think the system should exist. That’s a really uncomfortable place to be.” ‘LIKE A DROWNING MAN’ None of this eliminates the very real anger from Labour’s left-wing MPs — who were already concerned about votes bleeding away to the Green Party — and the likely uproar from its left-leaning grassroots. “The Starmer administration is like a drowning man,” a discontented Labour MP said Monday. “It just doesn’t have the ability to be able to make the argument that it is doing this from a progressive perspective. Where they’ve landed themselves politically, it’s not a place where you can bring people with you.” “The party won’t wear this — not just MPs, the wider party,” a second MP on the party’s soft left said. “The rhetoric around these reforms encourages the same culture of divisiveness that sees racism and abuse growing in our communities,” backbench Labour MP Tony Vaughan, who was only elected in 2024, argued on X. On one highly emotive point, officials were forced to clarify Monday that the Home Office would not seize migrants’ sentimental jewelery. That came overnight news stories suggested such items could be taken to contribute to migrant accommodation costs. The clarification did not come before MPs took to social media to speak out. “Taking jewellery from refugees” is “akin to painting over murals for refugee children,” another backbench MP, Sarah Owen, said, referencing a controversial order under the Conservatives to cover up cartoons at an accommodation centre for unaccompanied child migrants. The first Labour MP quoted above said that while many of his colleagues were seeing voters switch to Reform UK, a “hell of a lot of people” are going to the center-left Liberal Democrats and the Greens. “The tone that we’ve taken on immigration and asylum will hurt us as well,” the MP added.  ‘MORAL DUTY’ Government figures strongly disagree with the criticism — and think they have the public in their corner on this one. They sought to highlight More in Common polling that suggested even Green voters would support some individual measures that are used in Denmark — such as only granting asylum seekers temporary residence (50 percent support, 25 percent oppose.) A third, supportive MP on the right of the party pointed out there were “no surprise names” among those who had broken ranks to criticize the government’s plans. Mahmood insisted Monday the government has a “moral duty” to fix Britain’s “broken” asylum system. “Unless we can persuade people we can control our borders, we’re not going to get a hearing on anything else,” former Minister Justin Madders told Times Radio. It is an “existential test of whether we deserve to govern this country,” a serving minister said. They warned that if Starmer fails, the outcome in policy terms could be “a whole lot more drastic.” Noah Keate contributed reporting

LONDON — The British government will impose visa bans on countries that refuse to take back migrants who enter the U.K. without authorization, as part of widespread reforms to the immigration system. Shabana Mahmood, Britain’s chief interior minister, will announce Monday afternoon sweeping changes to the asylum system, including making refugee status temporary and requiring claimants to wait 20 years before applying for permanent settlement. She will also bar the entry of people from Angola, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo if their governments do not improve cooperation on removing people who are judged not to have a right to remain in the U.K. The three countries have collectively refused to take back more than 4,000 unauthorized immigrants and foreign criminals from Britain. They will have a month to start cooperating before a sliding scale of penalties is introduced. These would include the removal of fast-track visa services for diplomats and VIPs, and end with a ban on all citizens getting visas. Mahmood said: “In Britain, we play by the rules. When I said there would be penalties for countries that do not take back criminals and illegal immigrants, I meant it. “My message to foreign governments today is clear: Accept the return of your citizens or lose the privilege of entering our country.” The visa bans mirror similar measures introduced by U.S. President Donald Trump in his first term, when he imposed tough measures on some African and Asian nations. British Border Security Minister Alex Norris refused Monday to rule out India being subject to similar penalties despite the free-trade agreement struck between the two nations earlier this year. “We are looking at all of our agreements with every country,” Norris told Times Radio. “If we do not think we’re getting that right engagement, that right commitment, then of course, we reserve all opportunities to escalate that.”