Refugees who arrive in the UK after making a “dangerous” journey or via irregular routes will not be allowed to claim citizenship under a change to immigration rules rolled out by the Home Office this week.
New guidance for staff assessing naturalisation claims states: “Any person applying for citizenship from 10 February 2025, who previously entered the UK illegally will normally be refused, regardless of the time that has passed since the illegal entry took place.”
It also states that “a person who applies for citizenship from 10 February . . . having made a dangerous journey will normally be refused citizenship”.
A dangerous journey includes travelling by small boat or concealed in a vehicle or other conveyance, according to the guidance.
The quiet change to the rules comes as Sir Keir Starmer’s government seeks to present a hard line on migration and border security to fend off the growing threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The rightwing populist party is alarming the main political parties, with a number of opinion polls showing it close to or just ahead of Labour and ahead of the Conservatives.
On Wednesday Starmer said the government was working to close a “legal loophole” after a court granted a Palestinian family of six the right to live in the UK, following an application to join a relative already based in Britain through a scheme designed for Ukrainian refugees.
He was pressed on the case at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who labelled the decision “completely wrong” and “crazy”. Starmer agreed it was the “wrong decision”.
Badenoch urged Starmer to review the application of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to a family life, in the UK.
Badenoch’s intervention came after she made her first major policy announcement last week since taking the helm of the main opposition party: to double the period before any migrant can claim indefinite leave to remain in the UK to 10 years.
The Illegal Migration Act, passed by the previous Conservative government, stated that anyone who arrived in the UK via irregular routes would be barred from obtaining citizenship.
The legislation is being repealed by Starmer’s government, but the new guidance serves to replace some of its provisions that were never brought into force.
Previous government guidance said it would normally be appropriate to refuse naturalisation where illegal entry had taken place in the previous 10 years.
A person close to home secretary Yvette Cooper said the move was part of a package of policies relating to the new border security bill, illegal working and returns.
“I can’t remember Reform or the Tories proposing this workable change,” the person said. “Instead the Tories brought forward the Illegal Migration Act, which was unworkable and most of it, including clauses on citizenship, was undeliverable.”
More than 70 per cent of people granted asylum in 2013 went on to naturalise as British citizens, according to data from the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, a think-tank.
Immigration barrister Colin Yeo, who first spotted the change in guidance, described it as “bad full stop”.
“It creates a class of person who are forever excluded from civic life no matter how long they live here,” he wrote on Bluesky, adding that it was a “clear breach of the Refugee Convention”.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council charity, said the change “flies in the face of reason” and called on the government to reconsider the change.
“The British public want refugees who have been given safety in our country to integrate into and contribute to their new communities, so it makes no sense for the government to erect more barriers,” he said.
The Home Office said there were “already rules that can prevent those arriving illegally from gaining citizenship”.
“This policy guidance further strengthens measures to make it clear that anyone who enters the UK illegally, including small boat arrivals, faces having a British citizenship application refused,” the department added.
