UK’s sweeping asylum law changes

Britain on Monday said it would make refugee status temporary and speed up the deportation of those who arrive illegally, in a major overhaul aimed at stemming the rise of the populist Reform UK party and tackling abuse of the current system.

Interior minister Shabana Mahmood outlined 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.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, said Britain’s current asylum regime “is a significant pull factor” to asylum seekers, was more permissive than other countries in Europe, and was not designed to deal with the large number of people moving across the globe.
In what the centre-left Labour government says is the most sweeping asylum policy overhaul of modern times, Mahmood announced changes that include quadrupling to 20 years the time refugees will have to wait to settle permanently.