Migrants wade through the sea to board a small boat leaving the beach in an attempt to reach the UK by crossing the English Channel, in Gravelines, France, on May 31, 2025. Gareth Fuller/PA
The UK on Nov. 17 announced the biggest overhaul of its asylum and returns system in decades to cut illegal immigration and remove more people whose claims fail.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a policy paper published on Nov. 17 that the new approach was designed to restore “order and control” at the border while preserving the principle that people fleeing genuine danger should still find refuge in the UK.
The reforms come after asylum claims in the UK hit record levels. Home Office figures show that 108,138 people claimed asylum in 2024, 18 percent more than in 2023, even as applications across the European Union fell by about 13 percent in the same period.
More than 100,000 people now live in asylum accommodation, funded by the taxpayer, according to Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
Starmer said the existing system had become a “pull factor” for people who cross the English Channel in small boats or arrive legally and then claim asylum, arguing that Britain’s more generous rules compared with European neighbors were drawing migrants north and west across the continent.
“There is nothing compassionate about allowing the vile trade in people-smuggling to persist,” he said in the policy paper.
Reforms
The UK asylum system, according to Mahmood, was designed for “an earlier and simpler era” and had left the country as “the destination of choice in Europe” for asylum seekers.
Under the new “core protection” model—a basic and temporary level of protection for asylum seekers—refugees who are granted asylum will get 30 months of permission to stay, instead of the current five years.
Their status will be renewed only if the government decides they still need protection. If not, they could be removed from the UK.
The path to permanent settlement will also become much longer.
Refugees will have to spend 20 years in the UK before being allowed to apply for settled status, rather than about five years today. They will have to meet extra “earned settlement” requirements that will be decided later, according to the UK government.
Refugees receiving core protection will no longer have an automatic right to bring family members to the UK.
Asylum seekers will no longer be guaranteed housing and weekly payments, and people who can work or have savings will need to contribute to their own living costs.
This change follows protests across the UK in the summer over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.
“I know this country is an open, tolerant and generous place. But the public also rightly expect that we can control our borders,” Mahmood said in an X post on Nov. 17. “Unless we act, we risk losing popular consent for having an asylum system at all.”
Removals
Between June 2024 and June 2025, about 58,000 people had their asylum claims refused, but fewer than 11,000 were removed, leaving tens of thousands in limbo, according to the Home Office paper.
The UK government now plans to expand a French “returns pilot” under which some people who arrive by small boat can be detained and returned to France.
The government is also considering forcibly returning Syrians who have no legal right to remain in the UK, following the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime.
The government also plans to legislate to narrow how British courts apply Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights—the right to private and family life—in immigration cases, to define more tightly who counts as “family” and to prescribe when and how Article 8 claims can be made.
The plans have been met with resistance from a number of Labour backbenchers.
Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Nadia Whittome described the policies as “cruel,” and MP Tony Vaughan said the reforms’ rhetoric encourages a culture of “divisiveness.”
The leader of the opposition, Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch, welcomed the changes and offered her party’s support for the government’s reforms.
