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Britain to Overhaul Asylum System With Review of Human Rights Laws and Refugee Status
French gendarmes on a boat approach a group of migrants travelling on an inflatable dinghy leaving the coast of northern France in an attempt to cross the English Channel to reach Britain, from the beach of Petit-Fort-Philippe in Gravelines, near Calais, France, Aug. 25, 2025. REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Britain will set out an overhaul of its asylum system on Monday, making refugee status temporary and reinterpreting human rights laws to make it easier to deport migrants who arrive illegally, in bids to stem the rise of the populist Reform UK party.
Interior minister Shabana Mahmood will outline 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.
“These reforms will block endless appeals, stop last-minute claims and scale up removals of those with no right to be here,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, said in a statement.
In what the center-left Labour government says is the most sweeping asylum policy overhaul of modern times, Mahmood will announce 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.
GOVERNMENT SETS OUT TOUGHER STANCE ON ASYLUM
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 criticize 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 percent 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 realized that her proposals might receive backlash from some in her own party, who said that it was wrong to deport people recognized 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 that the “definition of ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ has expanded beyond what is reasonable,” making it too easy to challenge deportations.
The changes stop short of leaving the ECHR altogether, as Reform and the Conservative Party have advocated. But human rights charities still lamented 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.”
Polls suggest the country is divided on the issue. However, a YouGov survey in August found 45 percent of Britons would support admitting no more new migrants and requiring large numbers who had arrived in recent years to leave.
“I can understand why there’s been protests,” Jenny Fenwick, 56, a personal assistant, told Reuters at London’s Charing Cross train station. “I think asylum seekers come here because they know that they’re going to get given accommodation, money, you know, a good life.”
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.