politics
Keir Starmer’s migrant U-turns come back to haunt Andy Burnham as damning asylum stats corner PM
Mark White reports as hundreds of illegal migrants make their way to Britain
TL;DR
- Asylum seeker numbers in the UK have surged beyond 73,000, with settlement applications at a 16-year high.
- Labour has U-turned on or dropped several immigration policies since taking office in 2024, including the Rwanda deportation scheme.
- The number of foreign criminals subject to deportation orders has increased by over 2,000 in the past year.
- The number of migrants granted indefinite leave to remain has climbed by 24% to 199,628 in the year to June 2026.
- Critics express skepticism about the effectiveness of current reforms due to the government's past policy reversals.