Britain rolled out a major hardening of its rules for handling asylum seekers on Sunday, reflecting the rapidly changing politics of immigration as successive British governments have failed to curb a rising influx of migrants crossing the English Channel in often unseaworthy boats.
Under the new rules, drafted by the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, people granted asylum status would have to wait 20 years, rather than the current five, before they can apply to settle permanently in Britain.
The government plans to review the status of these migrants more regularly, and if it determines at any point that their countries have become safe, they will be ordered to return home. Asylum seekers will also no longer be entitled to automatic aid, including housing and weekly allowances. Those who have a right to work in Britain will be expected to find jobs while their claims are being considered, something they are not allowed to do under the existing rules.
“Illegal migration is causing huge divides here in our own country,” Ms. Mahmood said in an interview Sunday with the BBC. “I do believe we need to act if we are to retain public consent for having an asylum system at all.”
The Labour government’s proposed changes emulate a much tougher asylum policy put in place by Denmark. The Danish system, devised like that in Britain by a center-left government, grants asylum seekers residence permits of only one or two years, with no guarantee of permanent residence. To gain permanent status, new arrivals must learn Danish and find work.
Since the rules were tightened, the number of people granted asylum in Denmark has plummeted, ending an influx of migrants, mainly from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other once war-torn countries.
Denmark’s policies have been criticized by human rights groups and challenged by the European Court of Human Rights. Its system has nevertheless become a model for other European governments, which are struggling with what many citizens view as uncontrolled immigration. Britain’s home office, which polices borders, said it had sent a delegation to Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, last summer to examine the Danish system.
But the British government’s proposals got a mixed reaction at home, where immigration has again become a salient issue in the years since Britain left the European Union. The government said that, since coming into power in July 2024, it had deported 50,000 people who had entered Britain illegally.
The opposition Conservative Party said it would deport people without valid asylum claims even more quickly than under the Labour plan. The center-left Liberal Democratic Party said it would scrutinize the plan’s details, with its leader, Ed Davey, emphasizing the need to give more asylum seekers the right to work.
Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigrant party Reform U.K., had rare praise for Ms. Mahmood’s tough tone. But he said the new policies would have little effect if, as he predicted, British judges and the European Court of Human Rights uphold legal challenges to deportation orders. Reform has used its anti-immigrant appeal to establish a double-digit lead over Labour in the polls.
“Labour won’t stop the boats,” Mr. Farage posted on social media on Friday, as word of the plans began leaking out.
For the government, the new proposals underscore how swiftly the political landscape has changed. Prime Minister Keir Starmer once cast the flow of asylum seekers as primarily a law enforcement problem, vowing to break up the gangs that traffic people across the English Channel from France.
Now, though, the government is pledging to overhaul the asylum system, which handles those who land on its shores, arguing that it has turned the country into a magnet for people.
The home office said that from 2021 to 2025, asylum claims dropped across much of Europe but increased in Britain. Yet Britain continues to receive fewer claims than its European counterparts: 109,343 in the year ending in March 2025, compared with 218,550 in Germany, 164,830 in Spain, 159,260 in France, and 151,525 in Italy, according to statistics released by the British government.
Europe remains a favored destination for people fleeing war, political instability, economic deprivation and other hardships. In Britain, Pakistanis are the largest group of those seeking asylum.
Critics of the government’s plan said it echoed the language of far-right parties. Clive Lewis, a Labour member of Parliament, told the BBC the plan might drive left-wing voters to the Green Party. But with the Labour Party’s huge majority in Parliament, there is little doubt that it will become law.
Ms. Mahmood, 45, a rising star in the government who became home secretary in a cabinet shake-up in September, emphasized her immigrant roots in promoting the policy. Born in Birmingham to parents with Pakistani roots, Ms. Mahmood studied law at Oxford University and worked as a barrister.
“Immigration is absolutely woven into my experience as a Brit, and also that of thousands of my constituents,” she said on the BBC program “Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.”
“This is a moral mission for me, because I can see illegal migration is tearing our country apart, it is dividing communities,” she said.
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
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