DELEGATES at the Labour Party conference may have arrived full of hope as 14 years of Conservative government come to an end, but what hope does the refugee community have that life will be better under a Labour government?

The early days of the Labour government have been a mixed bag on migration.

The relief of the Rwanda plan being scrapped is tempered by speculation of alternative third-country processing agreements.

The comfort that the Bibby Stockholm will soon end is tempered by the continued use of the former RAF military base in Wethersfield as asylum accommodation despite the mountains of evidence of the despair and anxiety the camp inflicts on its residents.

The peace of mind our caseworkers get in witnessing the time it takes to process asylum claims being sped up, tempered by Labour choosing to frame this as a step towards a record number of deportations rather than an increase in asylum grants, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announcing the reopening of two detention centres.

To give an honest assessment of Labour’s start in government, we need to acknowledge that Britain’s asylum system was completely broken by the Tories. Its foundations need to be rebuilt.

What Labour needs to understand is that our asylum system hasn’t been on the verge of collapse because the Tories weren’t “tough” enough on migration; it was because they completely removed any compassion and humanity from it.

If our asylum system is to be fixed, Labour must reinject that sense of compassion and humanity back into it.

As a refugee charity that works on both sides of the Channel, we acknowledge that even in a short period of time, there has been some progress.

However, it’s clear that Labour is not allowing themselves to celebrate their early wins because, fundamentally, the Labour government is choosing to still be actively engaged in a proxy war that seeks to demonise the refugee community. We believe that’s a political strategy that is destined to fail.

The political space for Labour to win such a proxy war is non-existent. Labour cannot win a race to the bottom on migration against the Tories or a political opportunist like Nigel Farage, who thrives off division. Then there’s Britain’s right-wing media, who are already tallying up the number of people who have crossed the English Channel since the general election.

One could see the overwhelming rejection of the Tories’ hostile environment at the ballot box in July as reassurance that there is little appetite among the public for the anti-refugee rhetoric of the last few years, and it is the case that those of us in the refugee sector long argued that the British public didn’t support brutal policies such as Rwanda.

But that sort of complacency will take us down a very dangerous path. This summer’s far-right riots are a stark reminder that a zero-sum contest that demonises refugees rather than treating them as human beings has very real implications for communities.

Even in these early days of the new government, the warning lights are flashing. Regrettably, unless there’s a change in the government’s public approach to migration, any positive progress will be overlooked because of their negative framing of the refugee community. The rise of the far-right across the Channel in France illustrates the potential ramifications.

As one of the leading refugee charities in the country, we urge Labour Party members to demand that their government change the national conversation on migration by making the positive case for it.

Party members could start by making the case for safe routes to claim asylum.

The growing regularity in which lives are being lost in the English Channel should act as a catalyst to end the futile investment in security measures on our border.

Not one of the Tories’ so-called deterrents worked. The hundreds of millions of pounds spent on security measures haven’t stopped people from crossing the Channel, it has just forced them to take more risks to do so.

Labour, through its Border Security Command, is making the same mistakes and, as a result, risk overseeing a record number of deaths in the English Channel.

Safe routes would solve all of this overnight.

Every day, our volunteers in Calais speak to people hoping to reach safety in Britain. They are people who have had no choice but to flee their homes. Every one of them has told us if they had another way to claim asylum in Britain, they wouldn’t get in a boat.

We witnessed the effectiveness of safe routes with our own eyes. In 2022, a Ukrainian community fleeing the danger of Russia’s war was gathering in Calais in the hope of reaching Britain. Then, overnight, the community dispersed.

They had been given a safe route to Britain via the Ukrainian visa scheme. There was no need to pay a gang to cross the English Channel.

If we can do it for Ukrainians, why not other refugees?

For every refugee, hope is safety. Whether the Labour government offers that hope will be determined by its political will to make the case for a new approach based on humanity.