Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently announced “the most sweeping reforms to tackle illegal migration in modern times”, similar to the hardline Danish model.
Based on the claims that the asylum system is “broken”, is “tearing our country apart” and dividing communities, her proposals would end the permanent status of refugees, enforce returns to so-called ‘safe’ countries and change how international legislation is applied. These shockingly cruel policies are so far to the right that they have been praised by Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson.
Reading Mahmood’s plans in detail, what is striking is the underpinning implication that asylum seekers, even those she calls “genuine refugees”, are gaming the system: “Many now ‘asylum-shop’ their way across the continent in search of the most attractive place to seek refuge”. I found this implication about desperate people seeking refuge profoundly offensive.
Another striking aspect of the policy paper is the (perhaps deliberate) conflation of refugees with economic migrants and those who have overstayed work or study visas. This creates a really unhelpful confusion which will only serve to muddle the issues further.
Refugee status to become temporary
One of the main proposed changes is that refugee status will become temporary. Currently, those granted asylum can apply for permanent residence after five years. Under Mahmood’s plans, they will have their status reviewed every 30 months and have to live in the UK for 20 years before applying to settle permanently. She calls this “core protection”, though it hardly sounds like protection at all. The change will give rise to considerable uncertainty for those hoping to make their lives here and make it less likely that they will be able to put down roots.
Practically, it’s hard to see how such regular checks would be carried out. Although the government has reduced the backlog of asylum applications, it has failed to clear them completely, which is why so many refugees are still living in hotels – the main cause of unrest about asylum seekers. To add a substantial layer of further bureaucracy would be almost impossible to fulfil.
There has been an outcry from campaigners against the changes, which essentially alter refugee status from a right to a privilege that can be removed. Amnesty calls the plans “cruel and divisive”, a serious weakening of refugee protection. Lord Dubs, who came to the UK as a child on the Kindertransport, argues that the temporary status of refugees would increase tensions and reduce community cohesion, encouraging people to say: “Well, you’re only here for a bit, why should we help you to integrate?”
Families to be returned to ‘safe’ countries
In addition, the government plans to carry out “enforced returns” to countries of origin now deemed to be ‘safe’. This includes countries like Syria, despite the Foreign Office advising against all travel there “due to unpredictable security conditions”. Such returns would push the boundaries of the UK’s commitments under the Refugee Convention (1951), a key principle of which is “non-refoulement”: “that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom”.
Furthermore, Labour will escalate the removal of families whose asylum claims have been refused, including children. Shamefully, Mahmood implies that refugee families are using their children in order to “thwart removal”: what she calls a “perverse incentive to remain”. Lord Dubs rightly criticises this – “to use children as a weapon as the home secretary is doing I think is a shabby thing” – and claims that the government is moving in completely the wrong direction.
Reinterpreting international law
Even more worryingly, Mahmood plans to ‘reset’ Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) – the right to family life – by redefining and restricting ‘family’ to immediate family members. She also aims to narrow the application of Article 3 on inhuman and degrading treatment by stopping multiple appeals against asylum refusals. Whether the government can legally make such changes is debatable, but it is shameful that they are being considered at all and there is likely to be international pushback.
Many Labour MPs condemn these plans. Stella Creasy states that they will not act as a deterrent and may make it more likely that refugees will be dependent on state support by making it harder for them to find permanent homes or work. She also warns that enforced returns would see brutal ICE-style raids to remove families and children, an horrendous prospect.
Safe routes – but only for a few
Towards the end of Mahmood’s policy paper – almost as an afterthought – she discusses the importance of safe, legal routes to asylum, but immediately qualifies this by confirming that these will be capped and restricted to skilled workers and displaced students.
Refugees will be encouraged to move from the ‘core protection’ route on to a new ‘Protection work and study’ route, though it is not clear how. This will be based on the sponsorship model, as used in the scheme for Ukraine. “These reforms will enable the UK to support vulnerable people in need of protection, while doing so in a way that is controlled”, writes Mahmood.
Asylum claims already only represent a very small part of UK immigration – 111,000 in the last 12 months and just under 42,000 for small boat arrivals – compared to 800,000 visas granted for work and study, but this is completely overlooked in the Home Secretary’s brutal rhetoric.
Ironically, net migration has also been falling since before Labour came into office in 2024, reducing the reason for such drastic curtailment of immigration. But Mahmood is too busy placating Reform and the rightwing media to consider the implications of these figures, cynically using her own story as the “child of immigrants” as justification.
Depressingly, her plans will only make life in the UK more precarious for refugees and divide communities yet further into ‘us’ and ‘them’.
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