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Home secretary Shabana Mahmood is preparing an overhaul of the UK’s asylum system based on stringent rules in Denmark to make it tougher for refugees to settle in the country, a person briefed on the plans has said.
The proposals will further limit the rights of people seeking asylum or refugee status than plans announced in May by Yvette Cooper, who was home secretary until a cabinet reshuffle in September.
Mahmood is expected to base her proposals on the findings from officials who visited Copenhagen last month to examine the success of measures introduced under Social Democrat Prime Minister Mette Fredriksen in 2021.
The plans mark the latest effort by Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government to recapture the initiative on immigration as it faces a growing rightwing challenge from Reform UK. The government’s credibility has been strained by the continued arrival of large numbers of migrants on small boats from France.
The Home Office confirmed on October 22 that clandestine small-boat arrivals in the UK for 2025 had already surpassed the 36,816 for the whole of 2024, although that was fewer than the more than 45,000 recorded in 2022.
The person briefed on the plans said on Saturday: “Since coming into office, the home secretary has explored the policies implemented in Denmark closely and is considering introducing a range of policies in Britain modelled on their success.”
Denmark has made it harder for people granted refugee status to be joined by family members. Most people arriving in Denmark fleeing dangers such as civil wars are granted only temporary leave to remain while the threat persists.
The person briefed on the proposal said that Denmark’s tougher rules had driven down asylum claims in the country to the lowest level in 40 years.
According to EU statistics, the most common home countries for asylum seekers in the 18 months to June 2025 were Venezuela, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Syria. People who can show they have a well-founded fear of danger or persecution at home are generally granted asylum.
In the year to June 2025, 48 per cent of people seeking asylum in the UK were granted a form of protection following an initial assessment, according to the Home Office. Those rejected also have a high success rate on appeal. In the year to March 2023 — the last year for which statistics are available — 53 per cent of asylum appeals were successful.
Tensions over irregular migration to Europe have stoked support for populist parties and many governments have tightened restrictions.
Danish officials revoked the residence permits of some refugees from Syria as early as 2021 — well before the end of the country’s civil war — because they said their home country was safe again.
The person briefed on the proposals said Mahmood hoped to meet her Danish counterpart soon and added: “The home secretary is expected to set out a major shake-up of the asylum system in the coming weeks to remove incentives that draw people to Britain and scale up the removals of illegal migrants.”
Sunder Katwala, director of the British Future think-tank, questioned on Saturday whether proposals developed for Denmark would work in a British context.
He said: “We are different societies in our experiences of immigration and integration is different in increasingly diverse democratic societies.”