Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to end “the golden ticket” of migrants who are granted asylum in the UK getting automatic rights to settle in the country or bring family members with them, as part of the government’s latest immigration crackdown.
The measures, which will see an end to automatic family reunion rights and alter the requirements for long-term settlement in the UK, are aimed at reducing the “pull factors”, which the government says are “driving high levels of illegal migration to the UK”.
It comes after the prime minister made a dramatic U-turn over international human rights laws that have been criticised for making it harder to deport asylum seekers.
On Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer said the government will review the way British courts apply European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) rules, which could mean asylum seekers are no longer able to avoid being sent back to their home country by claiming they could face torture as a result.
And they may be barred from demanding the right to stay in the UK on the grounds that it would separate them from their families.
It marks another major policy reversal by Sir Keir, a former human rights lawyer, who has defended the ECHR in the past. It also comes as the prime minister steps up his attacks on Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, dubbing the small boats he is trying to stop crossing the English Channel “Farage boats”.
Meanwhile, Shabana Mahmood announced a major crackdown on migration through a radical overhaul of the main route for immigrants gaining British citizenship in the UK.
Under tougher measures unveiled by the home secretary, migrants who want to remain in the UK will have to learn English to a high standard, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community to be eligible for indefinite leave to remain.
They will also have to be working, paying national insurance and not be claiming benefits under the proposed changes.
Charities and human rights campaigners attacked Sir Keir over the planned changes to the way human rights laws are applied, warning that he risked turning “from a human rights lawyer to a human rights shredder”.
And Liberty director Akiko Hart said any changes were “unlikely to make a material difference to migration figures and risk setting us on a path to undermining the rights of every person in Britain”.
But the chair of Migration Watch UK, Alp Mehmet, said Sir Keir’s comments are “meaningless and suggest nothing will happen”.
In an interview with the BBC, Sir Keir denied he is “tearing up” the ECHR but stated: “We need to look again at the interpretation of some of these provisions and we have already begun to do that work in some of our domestic legislation.”
He said the review concerns articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR concerning “cruel and inhumane treatment” in an asylum seeker’s home country and the “right to a family life”.
The government is also reviewing other conventions relating to “refugees, torture and children’s rights”, he said.
“All international instruments have to be applied in circumstances as they are now,” the prime minister said. “We are seeing mass migration in a way we have not seen in previous years. Those genuinely fleeing persecution should be afforded asylum. That is a compassionate act, but we need to look again at the interpretation of some of those provisions – not tear them down but look at the interpretation.”
The move was backed by former Labour home secretary Jack Straw, who told The Independent it was “very sensible”.
But Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti, the former director of Liberty, said: “Any debate about our fundamental rights and freedoms needs to begin with facts and law rather than political spin. As for the politics, we won’t achieve ‘decency’ over ‘division’ by trying to be Reform Lite.”
Steve Smith, CEO of refugee charity Care4Calais, said: “Going from being a human rights lawyer to a human rights shredder would be the final stage in the prime minister’s makeover from humanitarian to authoritarian.
“As humans, we should all be concerned when a politician threatens to rip up human rights. Even more so when it’s driven by the vindictiveness of targeting survivors of torture. No one is safe from a politician who can act with such callousness.”
Just yesterday, Sir Keir laid into Mr Farage’s claims, saying the Brexiteer had been “wrong” to claim that leaving the EU would make no difference to migration policy, pointing to the Dublin Regulation that allowed pre-Brexit Britain to return some asylum seekers to the continent.
Sir Keir told GB News: “I would gently point out to Nigel Farage and others that before we left the EU, we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU and he told the country it would make no difference if we left. He was wrong about that.
“These are Farage boats, in many senses, that are coming across the Channel.”
The decision to review legislation is a major victory for Ms Mahmood, The Independent understands, who has been lobbying for such action since her appointment.
Ms Mahmood has only been in the job a few weeks, but has been lobbying to be allowed to bring in a law which will change the effects of legislation on modern slavery and the Refugee Convention, as well as articles 3 and 8 of the ECHR.
It came after the prime minister’s speech at Labour’s conference in Liverpool, in which he took the fight to Reform UK and said Nigel Farage, who advocates leaving the ECHR altogether, does not believe in Britain.
The prime minister is under pressure to go further in his efforts to bring down the number of migrants arriving in Britain via small boats. The number of migrant arrivals on small boats has topped 33,000 in 2025 so far, marking a record for this point in the year since data on Channel crossings was first reported in 2018.
Announcing the changes to settlement and family reunion rights for asylum seekers, the prime minister said: “Settlement must be earned by contributing to our country, not by paying a people smuggler to cross the Channel in a boat.
“The UK will continue to play its role in welcoming genuine refugees fleeing persecution. But we must also address the pull factors driving dangerous and illegal small boat crossings. There will be no golden ticket to settling in the UK; people will have to earn it.”
The prime minister is set to discuss the changes, as well as other ways European countries can work together to tackle the shared challenge of illegal migration, at the upcoming European Political Community Summit taking place in Copenhagen.
In a meeting with Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen, the leaders are set to announce a new partnership backed by up to £3m to tackle the causes of migration upstream in Western Balkan countries, including by encouraging people to stay in the region and take up jobs there.
The UK will also contribute as much as £5.75m to Italy’s “Rome Process” to tackle migration upstream in key African source and transit companies, reducing movements of migrants towards Europe and supporting the voluntary return of people to countries of origin, the government said on Thursday.
In September, the government announced it would temporarily suspend new applications for refugees looking to bring their family members to the UK while ministers reviewed the rules.
