UK govt defends refugee shakeup in face of hard right

LONDON: Britain’s interior minister on Sunday defended plans to drastically reduce protections for refugees and end automatic benefits for asylum seekers, insisting that irregular migration was “tearing our country apart.”

The measures, modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system, aim to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats — crossings that are fueling support for the anti-immigrant Reform UK party.

But the proposals were criticized as “harsh and unnecessary” by the Refugee Council charity and are likely to be opposed by left-wing lawmakers within Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s embattled Labour government, which is trying to counter the hard right.

“I really reject this idea that dealing with this problem is somehow engaging in far-right talking points,” Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told BBC television.

“This is a moral mission for me, because I can see illegal migration is tearing our country apart, it is dividing communities.”

Presently, those given refugee status have it for five years, after which they can apply for indefinite leave to remain and eventually citizenship.

But Mahmood’s ministry, the Home Office, said it would cut the length of refugee status to 30 months.

That protection will be “regularly reviewed,” and refugees will be forced to return to their home countries once they are deemed safe, it added.

The ministry said it also intended to make people granted asylum wait 20 years before applying to be allowed to live in the United Kingdom indefinitely.

It also announced that it would create “new safe and legal routes for genuine refugees” through “capped work and study routes.”

Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with around 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures.

The Home Office called the new proposals, which Mahmood will lay out in parliament on Monday, the “largest overhaul of asylum policy in modern times.”

It said the reforms would make it less attractive for irregular migrants to come to Britain, and make it easier to remove those already in the country.