UK poised to overhaul asylum system as political storm brews

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LONDON — The British government plans to tighten its asylum system through a series of sweeping changes modeled on Denmark that are aimed at cutting immigration and quelling the political storm over migrants making the dangerous Channel crossing to enter the country without permission.

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The policy changes, which Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will announce in the House of Commons on Monday, are another attempt to make the UK less attractive to asylum seekers and make it easier to remove migrants who do not qualify for asylum.

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Mahmood said it was a moral mission to control the borders and reunite a divided country over the hotspot issue that has fueled the rise of the far-right UK Reform Party, although as the daughter of migrants she denied that the ruling centre-left Labor Party was embracing far-right talking points.

“People can see the enormous pressure in their communities and also see a system that is broken and where people can flout the rules, abuse the system and get away with it,” Mahmood told the BBC.

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Successive governments have failed to stem the flow of migrants to British shores through various efforts, including the previous Conservative government's plan to send arrivals to Rwanda to have their asylum claims processed, which never materialized. The policy was reversed when Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who leads the Labor Party, was elected last year and vowed to crack down on migrant smuggling gangs.

More than 39,000 migrants have arrived in the UK by boat this year, more than the nearly 37,000 who will arrive in 2024, according to the latest Home Office figures. However, that number still falls short of the nearly 40,000 who arrived at this point in 2022, the highest ever.

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Although the number of arrivals on small boats has increased, they make up only a fraction of the total number of immigrants, with the majority of people entering the UK legally on visas. Net migration – the number of people who entered the UK minus those who left – topped 900,000 in the year to June 2023, official figures show. The surge was driven in part by hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the war in Ukraine and China's crackdown on Hong Kong.

Net migration in the year to June 2025 was 431,000, down 49.9% from 860,000 the year before, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The migration issue became more politically volatile this summer as protests, which sometimes turned violent, were held outside hotels housing asylum seekers after a migrant was arrested – and then convicted – of sexual assault for trying to kiss a 14-year-old girl.

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The new reforms include ending the UK's legal duty, introduced under EU law in 2005, to provide support to asylum seekers, allowing the government to withdraw housing and weekly benefits that are now guaranteed. Benefits may also be denied to people who are entitled to work but do not have it, as well as to those who break the law or work illegally.

Refugee status will also be reviewed regularly to determine whether people can be safely repatriated.

Migrants will be offered safe ways to claim asylum without having to pack into overcrowded inflatable rafts and risk crossing the choppy canal.

Chris Philp, a Conservative MP, criticized the policy for being “fake” around the edges. He said the changes would have no impact on the reversal of Rwanda's policy and said any migrant entering the country without permission should be deported within a week.

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“I don't mind it in principle, but it won't work,” Philp told the BBC. “These are stunts. This is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It won't stop people from getting on boats.”

The Home Office said the new policy models Denmark's success in reducing asylum applications to their lowest level in 40 years and removing 95% of those seeking to settle there.

Denmark was once a haven for refugees. But as Europe and the Western world struggle to cope with mass migration of people fleeing conflict, hunger and poverty, they have imposed strict restrictions on new arrivals, drawing international criticism for discouraging people from seeking asylum.

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