The UK is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Status of Refugees, which defines when an individual should be recognised as a refugee. The Convention does not create the status of being a refugee. A person, who is subsequently granted asylum, has been a refugee from the moment they left their country of nationality or habitual residence. The Convention also makes it clear that an individual can only apply for asylum when they arrive in a country in which he or she is seeking international protection.

An individual cannot apply for asylum before they set out on their journey or on their route to safety. As a consequence, until relatively recently an asylum seeker, who arrived in the UK, was granted temporary admission to the country until their application had been determined. This was a means of resolving a situation in which a person, who may subsequently be recognised as a refugee, should not under international law be deemed to have committed the offence of illegal entry. This is because the Refugee Convention provides for individuals facing persecution to be able to seek protection in other states. The current government has chosen not to restore this means to comply with international law. It has continued a system in which the vast majority of asylum seekers risk criminal penalties, if they seek to arrive in the UK in order to apply for asylum.
Despite media and government rhetoric, there are very few “safe routes” to UK for those experiencing persecution abroad. They are only accessible to certain small groups of very vulnerable refugees who are referred to the UK by UNHCR, are members of the family of an existing refugee or were Afghan nationals with strong connections to the UK after the fall of Kabul. The numbers said to be recipients of these safe routes are significantly inflated by the inclusion of two other groups, who have not actually applied for asylum under the Convention. The first group is made up of Ukrainians, who were initially granted visas to enter for three years after Russia invaded Ukraine; a scheme which mirrored the provisions of the EU’s Temporary Protection Directive and not those of the Refugee Convention. The second was those granted visas issued to holders of British Nationals (Overseas) passports in Hong Kong after the island was returned to China.
In addition, by insisting that refugees should claim protection in the first “safe” country they arrive in, the Government is ignoring the fact that many countries through which they may have journeyed also try to avoid their responsibilities under international law or are now ruled by those who are very hostile to asylum seekers and especially those who are Muslim and/or black or Asian. Other states are themselves suffering civil war, military dictatorships or famine.
Prior to Brexit, the Dublin Regulation provided a rational process for states within the European Union to share responsibility for asylum seekers arriving in Europe. The EU does not wish to enter into such an agreement now, partly on account of the UK’s current record for breaching international law. So now the government is reaching agreements with other states from which a significant amount of asylum seekers arrive. One such deal is with Albania. The assumption is that all Albanians arrive as merely economic migrants. This ignores the large number of women, children and men, who have been trafficked here from Albanian in the last three or four decades and who face persecution both before and after being trafficked.
The media demonises asylum seekers by erroneously blaming those coming across the Channel in small boats for the shortcomings in the provision of public services. Governments can do so more subtly by prioritising legislation, which places ever more stringent controls on those seeking international protection. This was a regular feature of the Blair years. For example, in the 1980s and 1990s asylum seekers usually arrived by aircraft or ferry to apply for asylum. Therefore, the then Labour government introduced the Immigration (Carrier’s Liability) Act 2000, which required carriers to make payments to the Secretary of State for the Home Department in respect of passengers brought by them to the UK without visas or entry clearance documents.
Now pre-departure controls, widespread fencing and advances in technology mean that for many the only remaining route to safety is a small and dangerous boat across the busiest shipping lane in the world.
The last government introduced a raft of criminal offences in an attempt to discourage crossings. This did not stop those fleeing from persecution and often seeking support here from family members. Smugglers bringing them across the Channel are profiting from the Government’s failure to comply with international refugee law. Restoring a lawful and humane asylum determination system would be a far more effective deterrent to the “small boats”.

As Amnesty International UK said in its briefing for the Second Reading (of the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill), it was “an opportunity for the Government and Parliament to set a new approach and tone as regards immigration policy – particularly as this relates to refugees and victims of modern slavery. Regrettably, if the Bill is passed in its present form that opportunity will be missed”. It also urged individual MPs to ask the Home Secretary whether “the Government (will) reconsider its position on refusing to develop safe and managed routes for people to seek asylum in the UK, particularly those with family or other strong connection here, or (whether it is) determined to perpetuate the current environment in which people smuggling and human trafficking gangs are thriving by exploiting the absence of safe alternatives for people who need and are compelled to make journeys”.
No such steps appear in the Bill, which received its Second Reading on 10 February 2025, and which will enter its committee stage on 27 February 2025. Instead, during the Second Reading debate the Home Secretary announced that “the government have strengthened the powers to ensure that small boats arrivals cannot get citizenship by strengthening the rules”.
In a move that could be likened to Trump’s use of executive orders, her department had already amended page 49 of the Home Office Guidance to Case Workers Nationality: Good Character Requirement Version 6.0, 11 February 2025 to read:
“A person who applies for citizenship from 10 February 2025 who has previously arrived without a required valid entry clearance or electronic travel authorisation, having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship”.
A dangerous journey was defined so that it “includes, but is not limited to, travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance. It does not include, for example, arrival as a passenger with a commercial airline”.
There will be no parliamentary discussion about the legality of this amendment. Also, if an individual is refused British citizenship, despite being recognised as a refugee under international law, they will have no right of appeal against such a decision, as the grant of citizenship is purely at the discretion of the Home Secretary. Furthermore, when Lord Blunkett, himself a former Labour Home Secretary, questioned the scope of this discretion, a current Home Office Minister was told that “the presumption is that those who have arrived illegally will find their application turned down, unless they can provide a range of circumstances which are exceptional, compelling or mitigating”.
Despite the government rhetoric, it is once again those fleeing persecution who are being penalised and criminal prosecutions are being prioritised over the protection of the human rights of some of the most vulnerable of individuals.