Cruelty isn’t a solution – nor is it a distraction we should fall for. While the government pushes for harsh asylum changes that create fear and instability, the real issues facing our communities remain untouched: fixing the NHS, building affordable housing, reducing staggering wealth inequality. None of these problems are solved by making life harder for people seeking safety. Politicians should focus on what the public actually cares about and invest in a fair, functional system that strengthens communities instead of dividing them.
The End of Permanent Protection
The proposed changes to the UK’s asylum system represent a fundamental shift away from protection toward permanent insecurity. By replacing five-year refugee status with temporary 30-month permits, with the threat of returning people to their home country if it were to become safe, and extending the pathway to permanent settlement from five to twenty years, the government is creating a precarious limbo that strips people of the certainty they need to rebuild their lives.
When someone knows they will never be truly accepted in this country – when every two and a half years their status, their home, their right to stay hangs in the balance – what incentive exists to invest in community, to work hard, to put down roots? This is not a system designed to help people settle and contribute. It is designed to keep them in perpetual precarity, vulnerable to exploitation, and more likely to slip through the cracks of our safety nets.
Cruelty Should Not be the Solution
These plans are harsh and unnecessary, this will not deter people who have been persecuted, tortured or seen family members killed in brutal wars. It is consistently shown that deterrents like these simply do not work to stop people fleeing persecution. They do, however, cause catastrophic human harm.
Removing the legal duty to provide housing and weekly allowances to asylum seekers – people who are not allowed to work while they wait for decisions – pushes vulnerable individuals into destitution. It creates the conditions for exploitation, trafficking, and modern slavery. It forces people further into the shadows, making communities less safe, not more.
These measures will not heal divisions in our communities, they will deepen them. When we strip people of dignity, security, and hope, we fuel the very hostility and fear the government claims to be addressing.
Building Truly Welcoming Communities
At City of Sanctuary UK, we work with communities across the country who understand that welcome is what creates cohesion. Our networks are made up of tens of thousands of ordinary people who step up to make their streets, workplaces, and community institutions places of welcome, support and opportunity for everyone. We see every day that when people seeking sanctuary are given the chance to contribute, to work, to build relationships, everyone benefits.
A system that denies people the ability to plan for their future, that keeps them in uncertainty for decades, that removes basic support, is not compatible with the welcoming communities we are building. It is not compatible with the values of compassion and fairness that define us at our best.
We urge the government to reconsider this approach. Real solutions require safe routes, fair decisions made promptly, and pathways that allow people to rebuild their lives and give back to the communities that welcome them. Cruelty dressed up as deterrence is no solution at all.
We call on the government to:
- Maintain meaningful pathways to permanent protection for refugees
- Ensure people seeking asylum have adequate support and the right to work
- Make decisions fairly and promptly
- Invest in integration, not deterrence
- Listen to the communities who are building welcome, not those stoking division
City of Sanctuary UK is a network of communities across the UK committed to building a culture of welcome for people seeking sanctuary.