By Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain on Monday said it would make refugee status temporary and speed up the deportation of those who arrive illegally, in a major overhaul aimed at stemming the rise of the populist Reform UK party and tackling abuse of the current system.
Interior minister Shabana Mahmood outlined changes to how the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) should be interpreted by UK courts to give the government greater control over who can remain in Britain.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, said Britain’s current asylum regime “is a significant pull factor” to asylum seekers, was more permissive than other countries in Europe, and was not designed to deal with the large number of people moving across the globe.
MOST SWEEPING ASYLUM POLICY OVERHAUL OF MODERN TIMES
In what the centre-left Labour government says is the most sweeping asylum policy overhaul of modern times, Mahmood announced changes that include quadrupling to 20 years the time refugees will have to wait to settle permanently.
The government also threatened visa bans on Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo unless those countries accepted the return of illegal migrants and criminals.
Immigration has become the most important issue for voters in recent months, with those arriving in small boats from France the most visible sign of illegal arrivals. The issue has helped propel Reform UK, led by veteran anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage, into a commanding opinion poll lead.
Zia Yusuf, a senior member of Reform, said the public were sick of being told there was no way to prevent people from arriving illegally on beaches, but said existing laws and likely opposition from Starmer’s lawmakers meant Mahmood’s proposed changes were unlikely to ever happen.
Tony Vaughan, a Labour lawmaker and senior lawyer, was one of the first to publicly criticise the proposals, adding the rhetoric would encourage “the same culture of divisiveness that sees racism and abuse growing in our communities”.
In the year to the end of March, 109,343 people claimed asylum in Britain, up 17% on the previous 12 months. Still, fewer people claim asylum in Britain than in its EU peers France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
Most migrants arrive legally. Net migration reached a record high of 906,000 in the year to June 2023, before it fell to 431,000 in 2024, partly reflecting tighter rules.
MAHMOOD WARNS ‘DARK FORCES’ AT PLAY ON MIGRATION
Mahmood said Britain had always been a tolerant and welcoming country to refugees, and she realised that her proposals might receive backlash from some in her own party, who said it was wrong to deport people recognised as refugees.
But she said an asylum system prone to abuse was allowing “dark forces” to stir up anger, such as protests outside hotels housing migrants.
“Unless we act, we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all,” Mahmood, whose parents moved to Britain from Pakistan in the late 1960s and 1970s, wrote in the Guardian newspaper. “A country without secure borders is a less safe country for those who look like me.”
Under her proposals, the government wants to change the interpretation of Article 8 of the ECHR, governing the right to a family life. It would make clear that a family connection means immediate family, such as a parent or child, preventing people from “using dubious connections to stay in the UK”.
It added that Britain would also work with like-minded countries to review the application of Article 3, which prohibits torture. It argued the “definition of ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ has expanded beyond what is reasonable”, making it too easy to challenge deportations.
The government also said it would take a “far more hard-headed approach” to removing people, including families, who had their claim for asylum refused.
The changes stop short of leaving the ECHR altogether, as Reform and the Conservative Party have advocated. But human rights charities still criticised the moves.
Sile Reynolds, head of asylum advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said the rules would “punish people who’ve already lost everything,” adding this is “not who we are as a country”.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout; additional reporting by Michael Holden, Sarah Young and Sam Tabahriti; writing by Kate Holton and Alistair Smout; Editing by Elizabeth Piper, Peter Graff, Conor Humphries)
