Keir Starmer’s government refuses to accept the arguments of its internal critics within the Labor Party who accuse it of copying the strategy of the far right in its response to immigration. “Illegal immigration (sic) is destroying our country. Our task, as a Labor government, is precisely to unite it, and if we do not solve this problem we will be increasingly divided”, defended Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, who is preparing to announce this Monday a drastic and historic review of the conditions of access to permanent residence in the United Kingdom.
The minister began to illustrate many details of the proposal in an intense series of interviews through various media including the newspaper The times or the BBC all Sunday, aware that the Starmer executive has an intense parliamentary battle ahead of him to realize his plans.
With the new model that it intends to promote, all those who arrive in the United Kingdom irregularly and begin the asylum application procedure, as well as those who remain in the country once their entry visa has expired, will have to wait a period of 20 years before being able to acquire permanent residence. Until now the period was five years.
Furthermore, once acquired, this legal permanence status will not be permanent. The Government will reserve the right to review it every 30 months and, if it believes that conditions in the country of origin are safe again, it will be able to expel those who had previously obtained asylum.
The minister, herself the daughter of Pakistani immigrants who arrived irregularly in the United Kingdom and a practicing Muslim, assures that the government has taken inspiration from the Danish model, which since it was applied has achieved a drastic reduction of almost 95% in the granting of asylum to people who entered the country irregularly. However, Denmark establishes an eight-year period for acquiring permanent residency, so that Starmer’s Labor government will become, if its proposal is accepted, the one that uses the most heavy hand when it comes to establishing the conditions of access.
The new measures, in any case, will only apply to those who enter the country once they come into force.
According to data from the Office for National Statistics, a total of 111,000 people applied for asylum in the UK between June 2024 and June 2025. In turn, between March and March of these two years, 172,798 immigrants obtained this status.
Less help
The Starmer government is even preparing to increase the period required for people who have entered the country legally to acquire permanent residency from five to ten years.
But in a further twist that several Labor MPs and aid organizations see as an unnecessary display of cruelty, the minister announced that financial aid received by people waiting to be granted refugee status will also be drastically reduced.
All those who are able to work will no longer receive the contributions that were previously paid for housing and maintenance. And anyone who commits a crime will have their asylum status revoked.
“Currently there are people receiving support (from the state) due to their status as asylum seekers who can work and who have the legal right to do so,” Mahmood explained. “And the government wants them to work,” he added.
The Starmer government is trying to achieve a deterrent effect with its measures, convincing all those who intend to try to reach British territory that the journey will not be worth it. “I think it is important to send a clear signal to all those who are currently trying to get here via multiple routes through safe countries in Europe, with the idea of boarding a ship in northern France. It is a journey that is not worth it,” the minister told the newspaper. The times.
Downing Street has adopted the thesis put forward by Nigel Farage’s far right or by the Conservative Party itself according to which irregular immigration has caused unbearable tensions among British citizens. “I think people feel, rightly, that the pace and scale (of immigration) has gotten out of control and that, as a result, enormous pressure has been put on communities,” Mahmood said.
Faced with criticism from party colleagues such as MP Nadia Whittome, who accused the government of “copying the policies of the far right”, or from organizations such as the British Refugee Council, whose executive director, Enver Solomon, considers the measures “harsh and unnecessary”, the minister defined his task as a “moral mission”: “The system is broken. It is not about spreading far-right arguments or alleged disinformation, but rather about making it clear that we have a problem,” he said. said. he said.
