Britain will begin accepting new refugees through a reopened government resettlement program before the end of 2026, with about one-quarter of referrals expected to involve Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees as the Labour government expands capped legal migration routes.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Britain is reopening a government refugee resettlement program and will give priority to Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced Monday as the Labour government moves to expand legal refugee pathways while continuing efforts to reduce illegal crossings of the English Channel.
Mahmood unveiled the policy during her address to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, saying the UK Resettlement Scheme will again accept referrals in partnership with international refugee organizations.
The Home Office said referrals are reopening immediately and the first arrivals are expected before the end of 2026. Approximately one in four referrals will consist of Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees, while the remainder will involve refugees from other parts of the world.
“We will take vulnerable refugees from across the world and give them the chance of a new and better life here in Britain,” Mahmood said.
The government has not announced a fixed overall number for the reopened program. It said arrivals across the UK Resettlement Scheme and three additional sponsorship pathways are expected to number in the hundreds initially before potentially increasing into the low thousands as illegal migration declines. An annual cap will be established.
Mahmood said the government considers the expansion possible alongside reductions in unauthorized Channel crossings, presenting controlled legal resettlement as an alternative to people-smuggling routes.
She said approximately one-quarter of referrals will focus on Afghan women and girls facing persecution under Taliban rule and Palestinians who have fled Gaza.
The Home Office said the United Nations Refugee Agency and International Refugee Assistance Project will identify and refer people through established screening procedures. Those admitted through the resettlement and sponsorship routes will be placed on a five-year path toward permanent settlement.
Mahmood also promoted the policy as part of a broader immigration strategy that she says combines enforcement against unauthorized migration with capped pathways for refugees.
The announcement comes as British public attitudes toward immigration remain predominantly negative when voters are asked about levels over the preceding decade.
An August YouGov survey found that 69% of Britons believed immigration during the previous 10 years had been too high. Forty-three percent said immigration had been mostly bad for Britain, compared with 21% who described it as mostly good and 29% who considered it both good and bad.
Those findings measured attitudes toward immigration generally and did not specifically ask respondents whether they supported Mahmood’s newly announced refugee program.
The decision is also being scrutinized over security vetting following reports involving people previously admitted to Britain through asylum or relocation programs.
The Sunday Times reported over the weekend that a man who previously served as a bodyguard to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was granted asylum and later British citizenship after entering Britain more than a decade ago. The man was arrested in London in November 2025 and is accused by German authorities of involvement in a Hamas-linked plan targeting Jewish and Israeli interests in Germany and Austria. The allegations have not been adjudicated.
That case arose under previous Conservative governments and is separate from the newly reopened resettlement program.
Questions have also been raised about earlier Afghan relocation programs.
The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy, known as ARAP, was established in 2021 for Afghan citizens who worked with or alongside the British government in roles that placed them at risk after the Taliban takeover. It closed to new principal applications in July 2025, although existing cases continue to be processed.
Critics have cited a previous Freedom of Information disclosure involving ARAP beneficiaries designated as “cases of interest.” Reports on the disclosure said 28 cases fell into a government “criminality” category and one involved a referral to the Prevent counter-extremism program.
The government definition of that criminality category includes a person who has been arrested for offenses involving violence, weapons, terrorism or extremism, or sexual offenses. An arrest or designation as a case of interest does not by itself establish that the individual was ultimately convicted.
Mahmood’s announcement prompted immediate opposition from Reform UK.
Reform leader Nigel Farage said his party would attempt to reverse the policy if it forms the next government.
“I want to be extremely clear. Britain is not obligated to take in more migrants, and under a Reform government these people will not be able to stay,” Farage said.
“If Labour are so sure the public wants their open borders policies, they’d call a general election to get a mandate. Without it, Andy remains unelected, and his government’s policies remain illegitimate,” Farage declared.
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf also opposed the program.
“Nobody voted for this. It is illegitimate. Let Labour know this: As Home Secretary, I will not allow anyone brought in on this scheme to stay in Britain.”
Professor Matt Goodwin, a Reform UK supporter, argued against admitting Palestinian refugees while citing the record of a group of Palestinians granted residence in another European country in 1992.
The historical case Goodwin referenced involved Denmark, not the Netherlands.
Denmark granted residence under a special 1992 law to 321 stateless Palestinians who had been living in Lebanon. Danish government statistics later showed that 204 of the original 321 had received at least one criminal conviction by 2019, while 337 of 999 children of that cohort had received a conviction.
However, the Danish fact-check examining those figures found important qualifications in the data. Of the 204 original refugees who had convictions, 133 received fines rather than prison sentences. Of the 337 descendants with convictions, 183 received fines. Seventy-one members of the original cohort had received prison sentences, including 33 suspended sentences, while 132 descendants had received prison sentences, including 67 suspended sentences.
The same 2019 figures showed that 176 of the original 321 refugees, or 55%, received some form of government transfer payment. Among their 999 children, 372, or 37%, received such payments. The Danish analysis noted that 194 of those 372 descendants were receiving SU, Denmark’s financial assistance for students in education, rather than unemployment or disability benefits.
Mahmood’s program differs from both that Danish initiative and Britain’s earlier Afghan relocation program.
Under the reopened UK scheme, refugees will be referred through the UN-backed process and subjected to security and eligibility screening before entry. The government says the program will remain capped and controlled rather than operate as an unrestricted asylum pathway.
The government is simultaneously introducing additional legal routes based on community, university and eventually employer sponsorship.
Beginning in October, charities and nonprofit organizations will be able to apply to sponsor refugees through community programs, while universities will be permitted to sponsor refugee students. Those pathways are expected to produce their first arrivals in fall 2027. Employers are scheduled to begin applying for a separate work sponsorship route in spring 2027.
Mahmood framed the expansion as part of a broader effort to distinguish between refugees admitted through government-controlled pathways and migrants who enter illegally.
Her conference speech said small-boat arrivals had declined and that the government had prevented more than 48,000 attempted crossings since taking office. The Home Office said the summer of 2026 recorded the lowest number of small-boat arrivals since 2021.
The reopened refugee route now places Labour between two competing political pressures: demands for tighter immigration controls from voters and opposition parties, and calls to preserve humanitarian pathways for people fleeing war and persecution.
Mahmood’s approach is to pursue both simultaneously — restricting and deterring unauthorized migration while allowing a capped number of refugees to enter through government-approved channels.
The first refugees under the reopened UK Resettlement Scheme are expected to arrive before the end of the year, with Afghan women and girls and Palestinians accounting for approximately one-quarter of referrals.
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