The British government has introduced stricter immigration policies, making it nearly impossible for undocumented migrants who arrive in the country via small boats or concealed in vehicles to acquire citizenship.
Under new directives, individuals entering the UK through these means will generally have their citizenship applications denied.
“This 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,” a Home Office spokesperson stated.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is facing mounting pressure to curb migration, particularly after Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party garnered approximately four million votes in the last general election—an unprecedented achievement for a far-right group.
However, the policy shift has drawn criticism from some Labour members of parliament.
If we give someone refugee status, it can’t be right to then refuse them a route to become a British citizen,” MP Stella Creasy wrote on X, arguing that the policy would relegate them to “forever second class” status.
Free Movement, a legal blog focused on immigration, warned that the revised guidelines could “block a large number of refugees from naturalising as British citizens, effective immediately.” The platform described the changes as “incredibly spiteful and damaging to integration.”
This development follows recent parliamentary discussions on the government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which seeks to equip law enforcement with “counter-terror style powers” to dismantle smuggling networks responsible for transporting migrants across the Channel.
Both legal and irregular migration have reached historic levels, becoming a key issue in the July 2024 general election that led to Starmer’s victory. Upon assuming office, he scrapped the Conservative government’s controversial plan under Rishi Sunak, which aimed to deter undocumented migration by deporting arrivals to Rwanda. Instead, Starmer vowed to “smash the gangs” facilitating illegal crossings.
Provisional figures from the interior ministry revealed that 36,816 individuals were detected crossing the Channel between England and France in 2024, marking a 25 per cent rise from the 29,437 recorded in 2023.
