UK to end automatic family reunion rights for refugees

PM Keir Starmer to set out plans to extend process for long-term settlement in Britain

A group of migrants on board a small boat off the coast of Dunkirk, France, during an attempt to cross the Channel to the UK. PA

The UK government intends to end automatic family reunion rights for those already granted asylum in the country, as it tries to curb immigration levels under pressure from the populist right.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said there will be no “golden ticket” to settling in the UK. While the UK would continue to welcome “genuine refugees fleeing persecution”, the “pull factors” driving illegal small boat crossings must be addressed, he said.

He will outline plans to tackle illegal migration by scrapping the family reunion scheme as well as long-term settlement rights for refugees at an EU leaders' summit in Copenhagen. Applications for family reunions had already been paused last month.

“I believe that if you want to come to the UK, you should contribute to our society,” Mr Starmer said. “That is the tolerant and fair approach to migration that our communities are built on, but the current system is not fit for purpose.

“That is why we’re making fundamental changes to what those granted asylum are afforded in the UK. Settlement must be earned by contributing to our country, not by paying a people smuggler to cross the Channel in a boat.”

The number of migrant arrivals on small boats has topped 34,000 so far in 2025, marking a record for this point in the year since data on Channel crossings was first reported in 2018.

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, meets with Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in Copenhagen. AP

“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 statement late on Wednesday.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will set out reforms in full later in the autumn that will see refugees face a longer route to resettlement.

It will require them to contribute to the UK and remove the automatic right to bring their families to join them.

Refugees will still be entitled to “core protection” and not returned home under the changes, the government said, but a “new, longer route to settlement requiring them to contribute, replacing the current five years” will apply.

Earlier this week, Ms Mahmood announced new requirements for legal migrants looking to remain indefinitely including having a job, not claiming benefits and undertaking volunteer community work. They would also need to have a high standard of English and no criminal record.

Mr 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.

“The UK will continue to play its role in welcoming genuine refugees fleeing persecution,” Mr Starmer said. “But … there will be no golden ticket to settling in the UK, people will have to earn it.”

On Wednesday, Mr Starmer said the government would review how UK courts interpret human rights law to curb immigration levels and deport more migrants.

More than 111,000 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number of applications since records began in 2001, Home Office data showed in August.

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.”

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp called the changes a “gimmick” and said Mr Starmer should repeal the Human Rights Act for immigration matters as the Conservatives have proposed.