UK plans sweeping reforms to tighten asylum system

Reforms allow govt to withdraw housing and weekly allowances of asylum seekers; Shabana says it is a moral mission to control the borders and reunite a divided country.

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The British government plans to tighten its asylum system in a series of sweeping changes modelled after Denmark that aims to reduce immigration and quell the political storm over migrants making dangerous English Channel crossings to enter the country without authorisation.

The policy changes to be announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood on Monday in the House of Commons are yet another an attempt to make the UK less attractive to those seeking refuge and easier to remove migrants who don't qualify for asylum.

Mahmood said it was a moral mission to control the borders and reunite a divided country on the flashpoint issue that has helped fuel the rise of the hard-right Reform UK Party, though as the daughter of migrants she denied the ruling center-left Labour Party was adopting far-right talking points.

"People can see huge pressure in their communities and they can also see a system that is broken, and where people are able to flout the rules, abuse the system and get away with it,” Mahmood told the BBC.

The new reforms include revoking the UK's legal duty, introduced under EU law in 2005, to provide support for asylum seekers, allowing the government to withdraw housing and weekly allowances that are now guaranteed.