Labor to deport more families under Mahmoud’s new asylum crackdown – latest

At the end of June 2025 there were 90,812 people in the UK waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application.

This is down 17 percent from 109,536 at the end of March and 24% from 118,882 at the end of June 2024 a year earlier.

The total number reached 175,457 at the end of June 2023, the highest figure since current records began in 2010.

The number of people waiting more than 12 months for an early decision was 27,998 at the end of June, down from 40,773 at the end of March and well below the recent peak of 91,741 in June 2023.

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A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK by June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.

The number is up 14 per cent from 97,107 by June 2024, according to the latest available Home Office figures.

Migrants who arrived after crossing to Britain English Channel By June, 39 percent of the total number of people claiming asylum came in small boats.

The Danish government drastically changed its migration system in response to a large influx of people in the 2010s. As a result, asylum seekers can only get a temporary residence permit for one to two years.

– Residency is subject to regular review, and can be canceled if the refugee’s home country is deemed safe.

– Refugees are generally eligible for permanent status after eight years, and to get it they must speak fluent Danish and be employed for several years. There are also supplementary requirements, including “active citizenship”.

– People refused asylum must live in “departure centres”, a basic standard of accommodation designed to encourage voluntary return home.

– Family reunification is also subject to strict tests, in which both the sponsor and their partner must be over 24 years of age to prevent forced marriages.

– A controversial policy known as the “Jewellery Law” allows Danish authorities to confiscate assets of asylum seekers, including jewellery, to finance the cost of their stay in Denmark. Property of “special personal importance” should not be taken.

– Authorities are also able to demolish and sell social housing in areas where more than 50 percent of residents are from “non-Western” backgrounds under so-called “ghetto laws” designed to prevent the formation of “parallel societies”.

– Denmark’s policies have had the effect of reducing the number of asylum applications to the lowest number in 40 years and removing 95 percent of rejected asylum seekers. However, it has been criticized by some opponents as racist, and elements of it were previously found to violate human rights law.

Here, we look at what’s in the policy document outlining the government’s plans, and what’s said in the Danish system that inspired it.

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There is an interesting irony that one of the key proponents of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, was deeply Conservative, and later one of the most reactionary post-war Home Secretaries, having opposed the Wolfenden Inquiry’s proposal to decriminalize homosexual sex between consenting adults.

Yet he played a central role in the fledgling Council of Europe, serving as Rapporteur on the committee that drafted the ECHR, which came into force in 1953. The apparent contradiction in Fife’s situation is less striking than it seems.

The Convention was designed as a restatement of the original liberties that the British believed they already enjoyed, even though it was uncodified and unconsolidated. Some people on the left or right will quarrel with the actual text of the convention.

For many continental states, emerging from tyranny and occupation, its articles became a template for modern statements of rights. But Britain opposed incorporation on a bipartisan basis for decades. The logic was simple: we already had these rights, incorporation would be an unnecessary, continental import.

Read former Home Secretary Jack Straw’s full analysis here:

sir keir starmer And his Home Secretary faces outrage over his plans to toughen Britain’s asylum system Labor MP described the new rules as “regressive” and “demonstrably cruel”.

Shabana Mehmood A series of tough measures were unveiled on Monday aimed at discouraging asylum seekers and making it easier to remove those who have no right to remain in the country.

Prime Minister The current system said It was not designed to deal with a “more unstable and insecure” world – but Ms Mahmood’s announcement went further than many in Labor had feared and is already facing resistance from backbenchers.

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Shabana Mahmood has rejected comparisons between those policies and Reform UK’s stance on immigration, saying they are like “night and day”.

“I don’t accept that these are equivalent in any way. And that’s because I think it’s right that we move forward at this time,” she told Sky News.

“Refugee status almost immediately unlocks automatic settlement. It’s right that we move away from that process. It’s right that we say to people, that if you arrive in this country illegally via a small boat, for example, then there will be a difficult and long path to settling in this country, and that will be reviewed regularly because we want to privilege people who come on a safe and legal route.

“It’s the complete opposite of the ‘Oh, you know, create a drawbridge approach’ that the Reform Party and others are taking.

“They have no interest in our international obligations to shelter those most in need. I want to fulfill them.”

A devastating new poll has indicated that almost half of all Labor voters want Sir Keir Starmer out of Downing Street by the next election.

The YouGov poll of 2,100 people found that 23 per cent of Labor voters believe the Prime Minister should step down now and allow the party to choose a new leader, while 22 per cent believe he should stand down at some point before the next election.

Only a third, or 34 percent, think he should continue to lead the Labor Party into the contest.

The results come after a difficult week for Number 10, after he insisted the Prime Minister would fight against any plans to remove him, with anonymous briefings revealing Health Secretary Wes Streeting planned to do the same.

in an interview with daily MirrorStarmer vowed he would lead Labor into the next election and attacked speculation about his future.

The Home Secretary has said she can “talk her way out” when questioned about her reaction to Nigel Farage over his asylum policy because she is “not interested in anything he says”.

While the Reform UK leader has said he is “undecided” about supporting Shabana Mahmood’s plans, he commented that it seemed as if she was “auditioning” for a place in his party.

Speaking to Sky News, Ms Mahmood said: “I will not let that live in my mind forever.

“Just because he said something doesn’t mean I have to respond to it because he’s being naughty.

“The Reform Party currently has a policy of eliminating indefinite leave for long-term residents of our country. It is immoral. It is extremely shameful, and it is the wrong policy.”

Challenged about far-right activist Tommy Robinson’s support for his reforms, she responded: “He’s a disgusting racist. He doesn’t believe I’m English, and he hates Muslims. And I’m a very proud British and English Muslim.

“I honestly find it incredibly insulting that people quote me, a person who doesn’t even think I belong in my own country.

“To be honest, he might as well be quiet.”