Last Monday, the government quietly added a few short lines to Home Office guidance that amount to a huge change in refugee policy. By amending the “good character” guidance for immigration staff processing asylum applications, ministers have effectively removed the right of refugees to apply for British citizenship if they arrived in the UK illegally or via a dangerous route, such as in a small boat or stowed away in a lorry.
This cruel change means that refugees fleeing conflict, torture and human rights abuses, and who have long been granted protection and the right to live and work in the UK, will no longer be able to become British citizens. There is no justification for it. Although the government has said that the home secretary retains the discretion to grant citizenship on an exceptional basis, that is likely to be highly unusual. While immigration caseworkers have the discretion to disregard illegal entry for refugees who arrived in the UK as children, there is far from any guarantee that this will happen, and, given the high citizenship application fee, this measure will ensure that even child refugees are penalised as adults for their method of arrival. The immigration lawyer Colin Yeo has said these changes amount to a contravention of the 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Britain was a founding signatory.
It is a worrying signal that there is more continuity between the punitive refugee policy of the Labour government and its Conservative predecessor than might have first appeared. One of Keir Starmer’s earliest actions in government was to scrap Conservative policies that detained anyone arriving in the UK through irregular means and prevented them from applying for asylum, with the intention that a small fraction would be deported to Rwanda, where their claims for asylum would have been heard and potentially granted by the Rwandan government. This effectively restored the rights of refugees to apply for asylum regardless of their means of arrival, in line with international law.
This latest policy – not even debated by MPs prior to its introduction – is a step in the opposite direction, presumably designed to make the government look tough on refugees through undermining Britain’s international obligations. The government undoubtedly hopes that removing the right to ultimately seek citizenship in this way may deter desperate people from attempting the dangerous Channel crossing. But in recent years the number of deaths in the Channel has risen even as ministers have tried to make Britain a more hostile place for asylum seekers.
The truth is that, in a world where conflict and abject poverty act as strong push factors to increase the irregular movement of people across borders, the number of people making the Channel crossing is largely out of the government’s control. To the extent that it can influence these flows, enforcement to crack down on the human traffickers charging individuals thousands of pounds for dangerous journeys needs to be accompanied by the establishment of safe and legal routes that enable those who are in mortal peril to apply for asylum in the UK and other safe countries.
For example, the Biden administration’s combination of restrictions on entry into the United States along its border with Mexico, together with the introduction of a sponsorship process for South American refugees to legally enter the US, were followed by a significant drop in the number of irregular arrivals in 2024.
The government should also look to build public confidence in an asylum system beset by delays, by redoubling its efforts to process asylum applications quickly and efficiently, deporting those whose applications have been rejected and who do not have a right to stay in the UK.
This intervention to prevent refugees from fully integrating into British society appears to be a wrong-headed political strategy to try to undermine Reform UK’s buoyancy in the polls. But there are serious political risks. A plurality of the public supports all refugees being able to apply for citizenship regardless of how they arrived in the UK; for those who voted Labour last year, it is 62%. In trying to appeal to Reform voters, there is a danger that Labour repels voters who might next time decide to vote Lib Dem or Green.
In misleading the public by suggesting that reducing the number of people arriving on small boats to claim asylum is within the gift of politicians, Starmer risks building further support for Reform in the medium term if he cannot deliver on his pledge to “smash the gangs” and bring down the number of small boat crossings. He would do better to have an honest conversation with the public about the fact that we live in an unstable world where the irregular movement of people is likely to increase, and that reducing this requires a long-term strategy involving not just deterrence but strategies to reduce conflict, poverty and climate change, alongside the provision of more safe and legal routes to the west. This would undoubtedly take bravery and leadership. Ultimately, however, it is both the morally correct and the politically wise thing to do.
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