On September 8, 2025, the United Kingdom’s new Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, made headlines with a stark warning: the UK will suspend visas from countries that refuse to cooperate in taking back migrants who have no right to remain in Britain. This hardline stance, announced just three days into her new role, marks a significant shift in the government’s approach to tackling illegal immigration and comes amid record numbers of Channel crossings and mounting political pressure from both the right and left.
According to The Independent, Mahmood declared, “For countries that do not play ball, we’ve been talking about how we can take much more coordinated action between the Five Eyes countries. For us, that means including possibly the cutting of visas in the future, just to say, you know, we do expect countries to play ball, play by the rules, and if one of your citizens has no right to be in our country, you do need to take them back.”
This announcement was made as Mahmood hosted a meeting in London with her counterparts from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance—namely, the United States, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Among those present was Kristi Noem, the US Secretary of Homeland Security, who has been a key figure in the Trump administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations. The Five Eyes group, renowned for its close intelligence-sharing, agreed to work more closely on tackling irregular migration and returning people with no right to remain in their host countries.
The timing of Mahmood’s statement is no coincidence. The UK has seen a surge in small boat crossings this year, with more than 30,000 people arriving by this route—a 37% increase compared to the previous year, according to Home Office statistics cited by BBC News. On September 6 alone, 1,097 people made the dangerous journey across the Channel, one of the highest daily totals on record. Mahmood called this number “utterly unacceptable,” underscoring the urgency of the situation.
Mahmood’s approach signals a willingness to go “further and faster” than her predecessor, Yvette Cooper, in cracking down on illegal immigration. “I’m not the sort of person that hangs around,” she told reporters, as quoted by The Independent. She defended the visa suspension proposal as a “Labour policy,” emphasizing, “This is a Labour government with Labour policy and Labour proposals. We’ve been looking at this for some time. It’s been discussed already across the government and I’m very clear that there has to be a strong approach to maintaining our border, and that does mean saying to countries who do not take their citizens back that we’re not simply going to allow our laws to remain unenforced.”
Currently, the UK has returns agreements with several countries, including Albania, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Iraq, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Georgia, Somalia, Serbia, and Algeria. A recent deal with France was also reached, though its future may be in jeopardy if the French government collapses, as some expect. But there remain “quite a few countries where returns of refused asylum seekers are low and demand for UK visas is also high,” said Dr. Madeleine Sumption, director of Oxford University’s Migration Observatory, in comments published by BBC News. She noted that countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Nepal might respond differently to threats of reduced visa access, depending on their priorities.
The Labour government’s new stance comes as Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, has pledged to deport 600,000 people over five years, including through the use of possible visa restrictions to secure returns agreements. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously supported a “much more transactional” approach on visas, linking them directly to cooperation on issues like taking back failed asylum seekers. During a G7 meeting in June, Starmer indicated that the UK could limit visas for countries that do not do enough to tackle irregular migration.
Monday’s agreement among the Five Eyes allies to cooperate on illegal migration was described by the prime minister’s spokesman as “another tool in our armoury” and evidence of the UK’s determination to “use every lever at our disposal to crack down on illegal migration, to return people with no right to be here.”
Mahmood’s hardline reputation within Labour is already shifting the party’s image on immigration. Her appointment as home secretary followed a major cabinet reshuffle triggered by Angela Rayner’s resignation and was widely interpreted as a signal that the government is prioritizing the issue. According to BBC News, Mahmood’s top priority is “securing” the UK’s borders, and she has expressed support for changes to domestic legislation and guidance on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to strike a better balance between human rights and border security. “The balance isn’t in the right place at the moment,” she remarked, though she reiterated that Labour would not seek to leave the ECHR, warning that such a move would have “other consequences” not in the national interest.
Mahmood also indicated her backing for ID cards—though she sidestepped the question of whether they would become compulsory—as part of a broader crackdown on illegal immigration. In addition, she is expected to unveil plans this week to move asylum seekers out of hotels and into military barracks, following a summer of protests over migration. Defence Secretary John Healey confirmed that military planners are currently scoping out potential sites for this purpose, according to The Independent. Officials are also considering other types of non-military accommodation as part of this policy shift.
Not everyone is convinced by the government’s new rhetoric. Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused the Labour government of only “talking tough” rather than “acting tough.” He insisted, “Any country that won’t take back its own citizens who have committed a criminal offence in the UK or who have no right to be here should see visa issuance suspended.” Philp also called for the government to cut overseas aid to countries not taking back their nationals, adding, “This Labour government is too weak to take the steps necessary to protect our borders, and I see no sign of that changing any time soon.”
Meanwhile, Reform UK has gone even further, pledging to leave the ECHR and other international conventions it claims prevent “mass deportations.” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has asked her shadow attorney general to examine the practicalities of leaving the ECHR ahead of the upcoming party conference.
As the UK faces record migration numbers and heated political debate, Mahmood’s new approach is being closely watched by both allies and critics. The coming weeks will reveal whether her promises of swift, decisive action translate into real changes on the ground—or whether the government’s tough talk will be enough to stem the tide of small boat crossings and restore public confidence in Britain’s border controls.
The stakes are high, and the world is watching as the UK tries to balance compassion, security, and international cooperation in its response to one of the defining challenges of the era.
