Joe, 32, came to the United Kingdom from Malaysia when he was four years old. Last week he found himself being escorted out of a theatre in central London after heckling the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, over proposed immigration rule changes he said would have left him — and thousands of children like him — in legal limbo. “Imagine being a child growing up and not knowing whether you’re going to be deported out of this country?” he said.
Joe, who did not give his surname, told Mahmood he wanted to “personally thank you for out-Reforming Reform” during an on-stage interview with comedian Matt Forde for The Political Party podcast at the Duchess Theatre. The Home Secretary responded by telling the hecklers — whom she labelled “white liberals” — to “fuck right off”. Two other audience members shouted “refugees welcome” as security removed Joe from the room.
Joe, who is a person of colour, described Mahmood’s characterisation as “laughable”. He argued that citizenship had changed the trajectory of his life: “The fact that I had been allowed to come to the UK and that I had been able to become a British citizen has meant that I’m somebody who is contributing in taxes. I am involved in civil society, volunteering, and giving back to the community in both tangible and intangible ways.”
He said he had exhausted what he considered the usual democratic routes before resorting to heckling — writing to his MP, signing petitions and responding to consultation forms — but had received no response. “I’ve not heard back from my own MP for the last three or four emails, and nobody else in our south-east London organising team has heard from theirs,” he said. “We feel completely shut out of a national conversation, pushed to the point where we have to do things like this to have our voices heard.”
The policy changes and their impact on young migrants and refugees
The reforms that prompted Joe’s protest were announced by Mahmood’s Home Office in late 2025 and early 2026, drawing inspiration from Denmark’s approach to asylum. Under the new “core protection” model, refugee status is no longer granted permanently. Instead, recognised refugees receive a 30-month period of protection, which will be reviewed every 30 months. If conditions in their home country are deemed safe, they may be expected to return. This replaces the previous system where refugees were granted five years of leave to remain, with a clear pathway to indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
The standard qualifying period for ILR for most migrants is being doubled from five to ten years under a new “Earned Settlement” framework, which also considers factors such as financial contribution, National Insurance payments, and English language ability. Exceptions exist for high earners — who may qualify in three years — and key public sector workers such as doctors and teachers, who may remain on a five-year track. Some health and care visa holders who are not deemed “net economic contributors” could face a 15-year wait.
For refugees, the path to settlement is even longer. Under the new rules, refugees will only qualify for permanent settlement after 20 years. They will also be barred from bringing their families to the UK until they can afford to live self-sustainably, and the Refugee Family Reunion route has been closed to new applications entirely.
One of the most controversial aspects of the reforms concerns children and young people. While some rule amendments from July 2025 allow more children and young people to apply for settlement after five years, the wider policy shift means that UK-born children of parents without lawful status can now be removed with their families. Being born in the UK no longer automatically safeguards a child from deportation if their parents have no right to remain. Joe pointed to recent statistics suggesting that 90,000 vulnerable young people could be kept in poverty by the changes to indefinite leave to remain. “It’s just cruel,” he said.
Alongside these changes, the government has introduced a “Visa Brake” from March 26, 2026, halting new study visas for citizens of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, and Skilled Worker visas for Afghan nationals, as a response to what the Home Office described as “widespread visa abuse”. The government is also changing the law to remove its legal duty to financially support asylum seekers, stopping payments for those who work illegally, have criminal convictions, or have independent financial means. A voluntary return scheme now offers up to £40,000 to families of asylum seekers whose claims have been refused — a significant increase from the previous £3,000 incentive — with deportation as the alternative. From March 26, 2027, the English language requirement for settlement will increase from B1 to B2 level for most visa categories, including Skilled Workers.
Broader political critique
Joe, whose protest was part of a coordinated action by the youth-led climate campaign Green New Deal Rising (GND Rising), argued that the Labour Party was “willing to throw migrants under the bus to try to pander to Reform voters rather than actually trying to make any material change to their lives that would help ease the cost of living crisis and reduce inequality in this country.” He described it as “sad” that instead of engaging with these criticisms, one of the most powerful women in the country had chosen to “resort to childish swearing and personal identity attacks that aren’t even correct”.
Mahmood, speaking on the same podcast, rejected claims that she was copying Reform UK, calling them “just a way of delegitimising the point of view that I bring to the table”. She told Forde she believed there was an element of racism in the accusations: “How dare you, a brown woman, say a thing that we white liberals think you’re not allowed to say? Well I’m saying it.”
Joe countered that Mahmood’s characterisation of him as a “white liberal” was inaccurate given his background as a person of colour who migrated as a child. “She’s calling me, a person of colour, a white liberal. But what she’s doing is incredibly illiberal,” he said. He stressed that his concerns were not limited to the substance of the policy but also the process — the lack of meaningful consultation and the feeling that even contacting his MP had proved futile.
GND Rising, which uses an online tool called “My Election Map” to support progressive candidates in local elections in a twin bid to tackle the climate crisis and fight the far right, said Joe’s protest reflected the deep connection between climate justice and migrant rights. “It is us in the global north that are producing [greenhouse gases], which will disproportionately affect those in the global south the most,” Joe said. The group remains committed to campaigning on both issues, arguing that the Labour government’s willingness to “out-Reform Reform” on immigration was a sign of its desperation to regain popularity rather than a genuine attempt to improve the lives of ordinary people.
