UK government defends asylum crackdown, PM Starmer under pressure from far right

Britain’s interior minister on Sunday defended plans to drastically reduce protections for refugees and end automatic benefits for asylum seekers, insisting that irregular migration was “tearing our country apart”. The measures, modelled on Denmark’s strict asylum system, aim to stop thousands of migrants from arriving in England from northern France on small boats — crossings that are fuelling support for the anti-immigrant Reform UK party. But the proposals were criticised as “harsh and unnecessary” by the Refugee Council charity and are likely to be opposed by left-wing lawmakers within Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s embattled Labour government. Story by Charlotte Lam and details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in London, Bénédicte Paviot.