Month: November 2025

26 November 2025: We are called to love our neighbour.

Instead, the Home Secretary has announced further harsh restrictions on the right to sanctuary in the UK.

Our faith and common humanity demand we recognise that all people are precious, unique, a child of God. Instead, we are told our country can no longer afford mutual aid or shared humanity and must rely on punishment and exclusion.

Quakers across Britain, many working alongside refugees and people seeking asylum, utterly reject these inhumane, divisive and unworkable measures. The cost of such cruelty is far too high for our communities, our economy and the wider world.

Continue reading “Quakers in Britain reject inhumane and divisive new asylum restrictions”

25 November 2025: Dear Friends,

We are asking you to help Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network to find out what Friends are doing alongside refugees and people seeking sanctuary in the UK.

We hope to learn more about activities by individual Friends and our Local Quaker Meetings, so that we can put people in touch with each other and strengthen our collective witness. We will also be sharing a report drawing on the responses next year. We’re keen to hear about any type of activity – from one-time learning sessions, to running larger projects.

Please complete this short questionnaire: https://forms.gle/7mo31mrYobeSgZZp8

If you have any questions, please contact Ginny Baumann of the QARN steering group: ginnybaumann15@gmail.com.

After the statement in Parliament on Monday, the Home Office released a consultation document which you can access via the Free Movement website (see below), and also the Government website, at the end of this post.

Please read and complete the consultation document. Our voices must be heard!

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Free Movement: Home Secretary opens consultation on “earned settlement”

The consultation on extending the period people in certain immigration routes will need to wait before being able to apply for settlement (also referred to as indefinite leave to remain) has been opened. The Home Secretary also made a statement in the House of Commons. The changes were first trailed in the immigration white paper in May.

The consultation document is called “A Fairer Pathway to Settlement: A statement and accompanying consultation on earned settlement”. The consultation is open until 11.59pm on 12 February 2026. The Home Secretary said today that the intention is to start implementing the changes in the April 2026 statement of changes.

In the foreword, the Home Secretary says that “It is clear the pace and scale of migration in this country has not just been unprecedented but also destabilising” and refers to an “open border experiment” and says that “Fraud, as any constituency Member of Parliament can tell you, was rife”. Putting aside these inaccurate and offensive comments, let’s move on to the proposals.   

Continue reading “Government consultation – ‘earned settlement’”

Together With Refugees: Communities Together With Refugees

Build mass visibility through thousands of posters and creative community actions across the UK on 5th-7th December

There’s no doubt: the government’s chilling new plans to erode asylum rights are devastating to those seeking sanctuary in the UK.  People who have fled the horror of war and persecution, suffering terrible trauma, need support to get back on their feet. Instead, this Government is choosing cruelty over compassion. 

The majority of the people in the UK are welcoming. We see every day how communities across the country show warmth and kindness to refugees.  And we know when given a chance, refugees do so much to enrich our communities. From our high streets to our hospitals, from our schools to our community spaces, Britain is stronger because of those who’ve come here seeking safety. 

The Government’s new plans do not represent us.  It isn’t who we are as a country. That is why it is more important than ever to show that not only are refugees welcome here, but that our communities stand wholeheartedly together. 

This winter, as part of Communities Together With Refugees, we are coming together to demonstrate unignorable public support for refugees and asylum seekers. We will:

Read more: https://togetherwithrefugees.org.uk/communities-together-with-refugees/

22 November 2025: JPTI Response to asylum reforms

Leaders of the Baptist, Methodist and United Reformed Churches have issued the following statement in response to the government’s announcements this week on proposed changes to its asylum and returns policy:

“Let us keep loving our neighbours.

Public debate around migration has increasingly been shaped by voices that trade in fear, resentment, and the scapegoating of those who already carry heavy burdens. We fear that the tone and content of the Home Secretary’s recent announcement on asylum policy reform risks deepening these fractures rather than healing them.

What threatens our social fabric is not the presence of vulnerable people seeking sanctuary, but rhetoric and policy that sets neighbour against neighbour and encourages suspicion instead of solidarity. The solution is not to try and appease those who seek to divide us, but to build a fair, compassionate and well-managed asylum system, that reflects Britain’s values and responsibilities.

Read more: https://jpit.uk/response-to-asylum-reforms

18 November 2025: Migrant Voice: The downward spiral of political hostility.

The downward spiral of hate and hostility against those seeking asylum and other migrants did not start with this government, it didn’t even start with the previous one, however it has been turbocharged with the current rhetoric.

During party conferences in September and October, and in interviews since, we have seen politicians from different parties try and outdo each other on the levels of inhumanity they can throw at us. Talk of mass deportations for those who already living and working here have been effectively “normalised” in some quarters.

With its hostile anti-asylum proposals yesterday, this government has thrown more petrol on the fire . We know from our experience working with other migrants how the current 20-year-route, which those who have “fallen out of status” have to go through, increases the risks of exploitation, along with causing significant mental and physical harm.

Continue reading “The downward spiral of political hostility.”

18 November 2025: Guardian: Asylum changes seek to use children as a weapon, says Labour peer Alf Dubs

Dubs, who was a child refugee, says Shabana Mahmood’s ‘shabby’ plans will increase community tensions

The home secretary is seeking “to use children as a weapon” in her changes to the asylum system, a veteran Labour peer who came to Britain as a child refugee has said.

Alf Dubs, who arrived in the UK aged six in 1939 fleeing the persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, described Shabana Mahmood’s proposals as “a shabby thing”.

Mahmood faced a backlash from Labour MPs and refugee charities on Monday as she set out plans for the biggest shake-up of asylum laws in 40 years.

Continue reading “New anti-refugee laws put asylum rights under more threat than ever”

17 November 2025: Together With Refugees – TWR: Together With Refugees new report ‘Welcoming Growth: The economic case for a fair and humane asylum system’ 

Britain’s refugee policies have been uncaring, chaotic, and costly for too long. They aren’t working for refugees, and they aren’t working for communities across the country. 

The politically mismanaged and unnecessarily costly asylum system, along with unfounded narratives that refugees are a drain on public services and damage the economy, have led to febrile debates and violence. 

In reality, short-sighted, headline-grabbing, and incoherent Government policies are not only hindering the integration of refugees, damaging their well-being and economic stability, but also disturbing societal cohesion and values.

Together With Refugees new report, in partnership with the Public and Commercial Services Union, makes the economic case for a fair and humane asylum system. Read the press release here.

Continue reading “TWR: Welcoming Growth: The economic case for a fair and humane asylum system “

15 November 2025: UK charities condemn ‘immoral’ plans to force asylum seekers to volunteer

Making volunteering compulsory for refugees slammed as exploitative, bureaucratic and un-British

Hundreds of charities have said they will refuse to cooperate with “immoral” government plans to force refugees to undertake mandatory volunteering as a condition of being allowed to settle in the UK.

The charities said that compelling refugees and asylum seekers to volunteer would be exploitative, bureaucratic and un-British – and would undermine a fundamental principle that volunteers give their time and skills freely.

The government is expected imminently to publish outline detailed proposals for mandatory volunteering as part of a formal consultation on a wider “contribution-based settlement model” aimed at reducing immigration.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said in a speech to Labour party conference in September that in future people would have to prove they had made a social “contribution” – such as volunteering for local causes – to qualify for leave to remain.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/14/uk-charities-condemn-plans-to-force-migrants-to-volunteer

Tragic … following Denmark

Update 17 Nov 2025:

15 November 2025: BBC: UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays

People granted asylum in the UK will only be allowed to stay in the country temporarily, in a major change of policy to be announced by the home secretary on Monday.

Shabana Mahmood is expected to declare that the era of permanent protection for refugees is over, as she seeks to reduce asylum claims and small boat crossings.

Under the plans, those granted asylum will be returned to their home country when it is deemed safe and their status will be regularly reviewed.

Continue reading “UK set to limit refugees to temporary stays”