‘Obviously cruel policies’: U.K.’s proposed asylum rules draw pushback from critics

Tough new asylum rules proposed by Britain’s Labour government have sparked debate not just in Britain, but within the governing party as critics accuse the leadership of donning a hard-right mantle to counter a rise in the polls by the populist anti-immigration party, Reform UK.

Before presenting the proposals at Westminster on Monday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood previewed them in a series of interviews where she said the U.K. has become a “golden ticket” for would-be refugees and that the immigration debate is “tearing the country apart.”

The solution, she later told Parliament, is to emulate Denmark and its strict policies of deterrence that she says have been responsible for a 40-year low in asylum claims there.

“If we fail to deal with this, it will draw more people down a p