Since the start of 2025, over 36,000 people have crossed the English channel on small boats this year, up from around 28,000 this time last year, many of them hoping to claim asylum in the UK. Pressure has been growing on Keir Starmer over the Labour government’s handling of the influx of asylum seekers, with particular concerns around the use of hotels as accommodation and the growing cost to the taxpayer. A report published by the Home Affairs Committee this week found that from 2024 to 2025, the Home Office spent £4 billion on asylum support, of which £2.1 billion was spent on hotels. Both Reform UK and the Conservative Party have heavily critical of Labour’s government over what they perceive to be a loss of control over the UK’s borders, while Labour MP’s point out that migration to the UK peaked in 2023 under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, arguing that the previous government left them with an ineffective asylum system, and wasted money on the Rwanda Asylum Plan, which is estimated to have cost £700 million and relocated just four migrants.
So what are Kier Starmer’s options? One of Labour’s manifesto pledges was to “smash the gangs” of people smugglers profiting from funnelling people into the English channel. While Starmer has attempted to draw attention to arrests by immigration enforcement of people smugglers in the UK, opposition MPs have questioned how effective their efforts have been in reducing numbers of small boat arrivals. However, The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill introduced by the government in January is currently being considered in the House of Lords and if passed will create broader counter terror powers to identify and control smuggling gangs. Labour will be hoping that this bill will help disrupt the smuggling gangs and relieve pressure on the strained asylum system.
Starmer also recently negotiated what he described as a “Ground-breaking deal” with France – a ‘one in, one out’ scheme in which the UK can declare asylum seekers arriving from France to be “inadmissible”, for example if they have no family links to the UK, and return them to France in exchange for another asylum seeker in France which the UK deems to be more suitable. In theory, the deal would allow the UK greater scrutiny to decide who can remain in the UK, meaning the asylum seekers that do make it onto Britain’s shores will be more likely to integrate, and may also act as an additional layer of deterrent to those considering crossing the channel. However, since the deal was agreed in August, just 42 asylum seekers have been returned to France, with 23 being brought into the UK from France, which pales in comparison to the tens of thousands who have entered this year alone. There have also been reports that one asylum seeker removed from the scheme has returned to the UK via the channel, harming the credibility of the deal’s ability to deter people from making the crossing.
Labour are also hoping to reduce the number of asylum seekers in hotels by speeding up the asylum appeals process. Currently, the government houses asylum seekers in hotels or other accommodation until their asylum claim is either accepted, or rejected, in which case they can be deported. In August there were still 51,000 asylum appeals waiting to be heard, during which time they must still be housed at the government’s expense. The government is hoping to set up an independent body to review asylum appeals with stricter deadlines to make a decision on asylum appeals, which it is hoped will lead to fewer people being needing to be housed in hotels and for shorter periods.
While Labour’s approach so far has been to try to work within international frameworks and established practices on migration and asylum, there have been calls from the other side of the political spectrum to withdraw from agreements that oblige the government to house asylum seekers in the UK while their claims are being processed. Nigel Farage of Reform UK has advocated for leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), a move unprecedented among European countries. Russia was expelled from the convention in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine. The ECHR creates obligations to party states regarding asylum seekers. Building on the principle of non-refoulement outlined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, Article 3 of the ECHR prevents the UK and other signatories from returning asylum seekers to countries where they may face torture, degrading or inhumane treatment. Article 8 also provides protections for asylum seekers to remain in cases where they may already have family residing in the UK.
Suggestions of leaving the ECHR have been roundly rejected by the Labour party, citing the protections it provides for UK citizens and the potential damage to the UK’s international credibility were it to leave the convention. However, the government has accepted that there are issues with the way the ECHR is applied in immigration cases, and in March promised a review of how Article 8 is applied and interpreted in UK courts, and the Home Secretary in September later promised to ‘pursue international reform’ of the ECHR, despite any changes requiring the consent of all 46 member states of the Council of Europe, with previous attempts at reform taking many years to agree to and implement. This afternoon, MP’s voted down a bill by Farage to withdraw from the ECHR, showing that there is not enough broad support for a bill to be passed at present even if it were to be considered. For now, it seems that Labour is opting for greater scrutiny in the way in with the ECHR is interpreted with regard to asylum seekers, but is not entertaining the idea of withdrawing from it entirely, hoping that this, along with their other measures, can help gradually bring numbers back under control.
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