You can learn a great deal about a government by who it chooses to fight. In the 16 months since this shambolic, soulless rabble were handed power by Tory collapse, they have trained their fire on pensioners and disabled people. Their latest target: refugees fleeing violence and persecution.

In time-honoured fashion, a desperately unpopular government lacking answers to the country’s multiplying problems opts to kick asylum seekers. No 10 is plainly in a panic. Barely one in 10 voters are satisfied with its performance – a figure comparable to the proportion of the public who believe the moon landings were staged.

The government has no moral compass, but some of its remaining supporters do. Where, exactly, is their red line? They surely did not vote for Labour expecting a refugee policy so extreme that one Reform MP offered the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, an application form to switch parties. Nor did they imagine their vote would help produce an immigration stance applauded by Tommy Robinson.

No wonder Reform spots a potential recruit in Mahmood. She’s willing to spout the most deceitful claims about vulnerable people. “We have become the destination of choice in Europe,” she claims, “clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world.” This is false. There were more than twice as many asylum claims in Germany last year, and about 1.5 times as many in Italy, Spain and France. Detected irregular arrivals are significantly higher in all of these countries excepting France, which does not publish figures. Adjust for population, and the UK sits 17th on the table of its former EU partners for asylum applications. The UK offers no “golden ticket” for asylum seekers, as Mahmood claims. The home secretary decries how “divisive asylum has become in our country” when it’s the sorts of myths and deceit that she’s peddling that are fuelling the fury.

What noble cause can Labour’s remaining loyalists believe these fabrications serve? Under the government’s plans, refugees will spend two decades in limbo before even being allowed to apply for permanent status, leaving them unable to set down roots. This answers pleas for integration how, exactly? Indeed, with refugee status now temporary, people embedded in communities for years will be uprooted, and children who have known no home but Britain could find themselves deported to countries they have never set foot in. When the former shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, asked for an assurance that no child would be placed in detention under the policy, Mahmood declined. “Vote Labour to throw screaming children in the back of vans” might never have graced a campaign leaflet, but at least it would have been honest.

Our rulers also plan to steal the “assets” of asylum seekers to pay for accommodation. Originally, the government briefed that this could include jewellery. No politician believes any meaningful revenue will be raised this way. This has been proposed merely to appeal to the most sadistic impulses.

These last few years, politicians of all stripes have crassly exploited identity politics to justify imposing more misery on those who are already suffering. Mahmood’s allies brief that her background as the child of migrant parents leaves her with “an authentic outrage over illegal migration”. Why, then, as a backbencher just a few years ago, did she support “a general amnesty for all people so they can regularise their status and start playing a full part in British society”? She spoke then of “undocumented workers”, not “illegal immigrants”. When did this “authentic outrage” arising from her heritage bloom, exactly?

Keir Starmer – her boss, for now – pledged to back free movement when he campaigned to become leader, denounced the “hostile environment” for migrants, and reprimanded his party for being “a bit scared of making the positive case for immigration for quite a number of years.” What these people genuinely believe is anyone’s guess; it is unclear whether they themselves know. Here is a government with no moral anchor, no guiding purpose, no overarching vision. It is a government in power for its own sake.

Successful governments shape the political culture of their nation, as Margaret Thatcher’s, regrettably, did. A Labour administration is supposed to drive the country in a vaguely progressive direction. Having taken the scalpel to the winter fuel payment and disability benefits, Labour is now constructing one of Europe’s harshest asylum systems. It clearly presumed its previous callousness would buy it respect: it did the opposite, and this will have the same result. Across Europe, mainstream parties that raided the rhetoric and policies of anti-migrant parties succeeded only in legitimising them, and Labour has already catapulted Reform to the top spot.

Denmark is cited as the exception; there, the Social Democrats maintained the cruel anti-refugee policies of their predecessors. Leaving aside that this is a tiny Nordic country with a different political system, the Social Democrats secured support by committing to the expansion of the welfare state: the exact opposite of British Labour.

Which brings us to the real dilemma for anyone who still considers themselves progressive. Is this government, in any meaningful sense, consistent with your values? You are undoubtedly willing to compromise on some of the beliefs you hold dear – but what is the limit, exactly? Is staving off Reform by introducing its policies logically or morally consistent? The surge in support for the Greens, under Zack Polanski, suggest many have stopped believing these grim fairytales.

The truth is that Labour has boxed itself into a corner. Having ruled out tax rises even as our public services crumble, it now scrabbles for cash, too frightened to ask an affluent class to contribute fairly. Playing to voters’ worst instincts is a desperate act of distraction from this dire failure. This is no way to run a country, and we will all pay the price.