Britain's 'Core Protection': A temporary visa in asylum limbo

“I am the one who is regularly called a ‘fucking Paki’ and told to ‘Go back home’. I know through personal experience and through the experience of my constituents just how divisive the issue of asylum has become in our country.” Those were the words of the UK’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood before the House of Commons on Nov. 17, 2025.

Mahmood’s distinctly unparliamentary language followed her announcement of the UK government’s plans for the most radical overhaul of the country’s asylum system in modern times. Not yet law, or even a bill, the Home Secretary was presenting a 30-page “policy paper” outlining the government’s proposals for dealing with what has become the most contentious issue of the day: immigration and asylum.

The paper, “Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy,” is explicit in its intent to set out “an entirely new asylum model.”

The fundamental change, and one which may not comply with the UK’s obligations under the UN 1951 Refugee Convention, is to offer those granted asylum (refugees in international law) only temporary and limited protection, which the UK calls “core protection.”

A series of changes flow from this. The current five-year leave to remain will be reduced to 30 months. After which a review will take place, and if the refugee’s home country is deemed safe, they will have to return. Settled status will only be granted after 20 years, during which those with “core protection” are effectively in limbo.

The changes to come will have a significant effect on those from the Arab and Islamic world, including Egypt. The top five countries of origin for people seeking asylum in 2024 were Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh, and Syria. Given the fall of the Assad regime, there is already talk of Syria being designated a “safe country.”

Egyptian asylum claims represent a relatively small proportion of the total, rising to over 400 per year during the last four years. Once the new rules come into effect, they will apply to those granted protection and those whose claims fail. The new rules will also apply to those Egyptians who come to the UK legally to work or study and then overstay and request asylum. 

Since 2021, over 400,000 people have claimed asylum in UK, and of the “111,800 who have claimed asylum this year, 39% (43,600) arrived in a small boat. A further 37% (41,100) arrived first by legal means, on a visa, before claiming asylum. Around 15,000 arrived by other means,” according to the policy paper. 

While the numbers might seem large, in 2024, asylum seekers and refugees made up around 13% of immigrants to the UK, the remaining 87% including foreign students and workers. In terms of the number of applications per head of population, the UK ranks 17th highest in Europe. For the UK, though, the trend seems to be going in the wrong direction: “In 2024, the number of people seeking asylum in the UK rose by 18%. In the same period, the EU saw claims fall by 13%.”

Making removal easier

The new policy proposals also aim to deal with those whose asylum claims are rejected. Measures outlined include making it easier to deport them once routes to appeal are exhausted; streamlining the appeals process itself; limiting the use of the right to family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights as a ground to prevent removal; and reinterpreting Article 3 prohibiting inhuman or degrading treatment to make removal easier.

The backlog in the UK’s asylum system over recent years has meant those who make an application for asylum may wait years before their application is finally refused. Even then, the government says that as of mid-2023 there were more than 41,000 failed asylum seekers in the UK. Efforts to remove them will be enhanced (without detraction from the principle of non-refoulement). Safe countries refusing to take back their citizens may face UK visa restrictions, and third countries may be used as return hubs. 

In an echo of the repatriation policies of the far right parties of the 1970s and 1980s, the National Front and the British National Party, failed asylum seekers will be offered cash incentives to return home beyond the current 3,000 pounds sterling maximum.

Politics and small boats driving the changes

Aside from the statistics, there are other significant political factors at play as to why the current UK Labour government is keen to act tough on “irregular” migration. The title of the policy paper itself echos the “Take back control” slogan credited for the 'Yes' vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum, when the UK voted to leave the EU. 

Taking back control, sovereignty over laws and borders, were key promises of the Leave campaign. Since the touted benefits of Brexit have largely failed to materialize, one of its key architects, leader of the Reform UK party and MP, Nigel Farage is riding high in the polls on a populist, anti-immigration program.

Farage and Reform, together with the official Conservative opposition, have made hay with the surge in arrivals by small boat across the English Channel since Labour came to power in July 2024. Between 2018 and 2024, some 68% of such arrivals were granted protection—a higher rate than for all arrivals. 

Several thousand Egyptians crossed on small boats between 2018 and 2024, representing 2% of the total. Only 10% of them have been granted asylum, meaning that the others will face the removal mechanisms the government is proposing.

Attempts to “stop the boats” have vexed this and the previous government, and successive policy initiatives have had little effect. The current proposals do not explicitly prohibit such arrivals from claiming asylum (on the grounds that they have passed through a safe country on the way) or deny them the right of ever obtaining settled status—policies touted by parties to the right of Labour.

A YouGov poll this month on voting intentions, puts Reform on 27%, Labour on 19%, and the Conservatives on 18%. Although the next general election is several years away, the major parties are running scared and being pulled ever rightwards in a bid to attract Reform-leaning voters, particularly on the migration issue. In addition, for the first time since 2016, the issue of immigration and asylum has overtaken the economy as the most important issue facing the country.

The founding myth of the modern history of British xenophobia is Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech from 1968. Earlier this year, PM Keir Starmer faced criticism when introducing a new policy paper on immigration, warning that the UK risked becoming “an island of strangers”; an echo of Powell’s 1968 speech.

The new asylum regime is also responding to the resurgence of the far right in the UK, under the figurehead of Tommy Robinson (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon), who gave his support to the government’s plan.

Community tensions and violence

As Home Secretary Mahmood told the House, “The pace and scale of change have destabilized communities. It is making our country a more divided place. There will never be a justification for the violence and racism of a minority, but if we fail to deal with this crisis, we will draw more people down a path that starts with anger and ends in hatred.”

The UK witnessed violent disorder over the last two years, with a particular focus on asylum seekers, real or perceived. Hotels housing asylum seekers were often targeted during these riots and protests.

The UK government has already pledged to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by the end of this parliament, claiming it acts as a pull factor for migrants. At a daily cost of some 6 million pounds sterling, and in the context of a housing and cost of living crisis, the issue has been stoked by the right and is now government policy. Former army camps and other large-scale sites are set to be the replacement.

As part of its new proposals, the government will end the current legal obligation to support asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute, replacing it with a discretionary power that will deny support to those who have the right to work. There are also plans to make those with assets pay a contribution to the cost of their accommodation, under the influence of the Danish model.

In the end, what Mahmood presents as a necessary reset of a “broken” system is better understood as a high-stakes gamble with people’s lives and with the UK’s own legal and moral foundations.

Temporary protection, ever-receding prospects of settlement, harsher removal mechanisms and the deliberate erosion of welfare rights may satisfy an angry electorate in the short term, or blunt the rise of Farage and the radical right. But they also risk normalizing a politics in which refugees are treated as a problem to be managed rather than as rights-holders, and in which Britain edges further away from the spirit—if not yet the letter—of the Refugee Convention it helped write.

For thousands of people already in the UK, including Egyptians with pending or rejected claims, the proposals mean deeper insecurity and a future lived in the shadow of return. For the country as a whole, they pose a stark question: whether “restoring control” will come at the cost of the principles of protection, fairness, and restraint that once underpinned Britain’s asylum system—and whether, in trying to contain a backlash, the government is in fact helping to write its script.