Labour chickens out on migrant rights crackdown a year after promising it

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood promised a crackdown on migrant rights nearly a year ago. She has not delivered it. Three outlets report the delay this morning, with GB News and the Mail both using the word "chickening out".

The numbers frame the question. According to GB News, 1,100 people are being handed permanent stay every working day. The Express reports that Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Mahmood have both stepped back from the reforms Labour promised before coming to power. The Mail says Mahmood vowed action but has not acted.

The pattern is older than this government. Promises on immigration tend to arrive in opposition and depart in office. The mechanism that converts a pledge into policy - primary legislation, regulations, Home Office guidance, the appeals system - moves slowly when it moves at all. And the question of whether the government controls the question at all, or whether the courts and international instruments do, remains unresolved. That tension predates Labour and will outlast them.

What to watch: whether Mahmood brings forward any legislation this session, and whether the gap between the promise and the delivery costs Labour votes in seats it won from Reform. The pressure is coming from the right, not from the opposition frontbench.