UK to cut protections for refugees under asylum ‘overhaul’

• PM Starmer announced the cuts amid mounting pressure in the face of soaring support for the hard right
• More than 39,000 people, many fleeing conflict, have arrived this year in the UK

LONDON: Britain will drastically reduce protections for refugees under plans to overhaul its asylum system, the Labour government said on Saturday.

The measures were announced as Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure over irregular migration in the face of soaring support for the hard right.

“I’ll end UK’s golden ticket for asylum seekers,” interior minister Shabana Mahmood declared in a statement. 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, known as 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 also said that it intended to make those refugees who are granted asylum wait 20 years before applying to be allowed to live in the UK long-term, instead of the current five. The Home Office called the proposals the “largest overhaul of asylum policy in modern times.”

Starmer, elected last summer, is under pressure to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats from France, something that also troubled his Conservative predecessors. More than 39,000 people, many fleeing conflict, have arrived this year following such dangerous journeys — more than for the whole of 2024 but lower than the record set in 2022.

The crossings are helping fuel the popularity of Reform, led by firebrand Nigel Farage, which has led Labour by double-digit margins in opinion polls for most of this year. Asylum claims in Britain are at a record high, with some 111,000 applications made in the year to June 2025, according to official figures.