Britain’s government Thursday will announce plans to end a scheme which allowed family members to join refugees already in the country, as it tries to curb immigration levels under pressure from the far-right.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to outline plans to scrap the family reunion scheme as well as automatic settlement rights for refugees at a EU leaders’ summit in Copenhagen. Applications for family reunions had already been paused last month.
“The fundamental reforms will be the basis of a fairer system where… the route to settlement should be longer, and be earned via contribution to the country,” the UK government said in a press release late Wednesday.
Starmer’s Labour government has tried to take a tougher stance against record-levels of legal and irregular immigration to head off the rise of the anti-immigration, hard-right Reform UK party and quell a bitter national debate.
It suspended new family reunion applications at the start of September, hoping to disincentivise thousands of migrants crossing the Channel from France to the UK on small boats.
Home Office figures showed there were almost 21,000 refugee family reunion visas issued in the year to June 2025, the vast majority handed out to women and children.
Migrants given refugee status will not be granted automatic resettlement under the policy change, instead facing a “new, longer route to settlement requiring them to contribute” and without the automatic right to family reunion, the government said.
“We’re making fundamental changes to what those granted asylum are afforded in the UK,” Starmer said in a statement.
“The UK will continue to play its role in welcoming genuine refugees fleeing persecution. But… there will be no golden ticket to settling in the UK, people will have to earn it.”
On Wednesday, Starmer said the government would review how UK courts interpret human rights law to curb immigration levels and deport more migrants.
Over 111,000 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest-ever number of applications since records began in 2001, Home Office data showed in August.
And more than 30,000 migrants have made the dangerous Channel crossing from northern France so far this year, with at least 27 people dying attempting the crossing, according to an AFP tally based on official French data.
Jon Featonby from the Refugee Council charity said the new refugee rights policies would “damage integration”, make refugees feel unsafe and force “children to grow up without their parents.
“In reality, restricting family reunion only pushes more desperate people into the arms of smugglers in an effort to reunite with loved ones.”
Earlier this week, interior minister Shabana Mahmood announced new requirements for legal migrants looking to remain indefinitely including having a job, not claiming benefits and undertaking volunteer community work.
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© Agence France-Presse
