CAMPAIGNERS accused the Home Secretary of pandering to the far right today as she outlined plans to overhaul the asylum system.

Yvette Cooper announced a crackdown on refugees bringing family members into Britain, prompting backlash for restricting the last safe route for women and children.

Reforms will be made to the interpretation of Article 8 of the  European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to private and family life.

New applications under the existing refugee family reunion route will be temporarily suspended this week, the Home Secretary added.

A new framework will be introduced in spring, but until then, “refugees will be covered by the same family migration rules and conditions as everyone else,” Ms Cooper said.

Care4Calais CEO Steve Smith said: “We are forever hearing cries that refugees seeking protection should do so through official channels, but here we have the government restricting the last available safe route for women and children.

“Shutting off the hope of family reunification will only force more women and children to take dangerous journeys to seek sanctuary, including risking their lives by crossing the Channel.

“This is an ill-conceived approach from a government that won’t stand up to the rhetoric of Reform, nor the far-right hate we are witnessing on our streets, but is instead mimicking it and making things substantially worse for refugees, communities and themselves.”

Stand Up To Racism also slammed the decision.

Co-convener Sabby Dhalu said: “The right to asylum and to a family life are basic human rights that the government should be protecting. 

“Instead it is making concession after concession to an emboldened far right.” 

Ms Cooper reiterated the government’s pledge to close refugee hotels “for good,” boasting that it had already cut costs by £1 billion in the last financial year. 

It comes following a summer of demonstrations organised by the far right outside asylum accommodation up and down the country. 

“ We are reconfiguring sites, increasing room sharing, tightening the test for accommodation, and working at pace to identify alternative, cheaper and more appropriate accommodation with other government departments and with local authorities”, she said.

Migrants Rights Network CEO Fizza Qureshi said: “Conditions in these hotels are not suitable for people awaiting asylum decisions, particularly when we know of people who have been waiting for six years or more for an outcome. 

“However, the decision to end the use of asylum hotels should be made on the basis of welfare for those seeking asylum, not pandering to the far right.”

Ms Qureshi urged the Home Office to create sustainable solutions that allow asylum-seekers to be part of communities, rather than “basing policy decisions on the demands of racist demonstrations.”

The Home Secretary also gave an update on a pilot scheme with France, which will see some refugees arriving by small boats returned to the country, saying that the first returns will begin “later this month.”

She blasted the previous Tory government for leaving an asylum and immigration system in “chaos” with a soaring asylum backlog.

But Amnesty UK’s Steve Valdez-Symonds said the condemnation “rings hollow because she pursues largely the same ambitions.” 

“She does so by applying the very misguided rules her predecessors introduced, and the dismal results are clear for all to see.

“The clear reason for the appeals backlog, of which she complains, is that she is refusing asylum to people who are refugees, but who cannot meet the flawed rules in the Nationality and Borders Act 2022.

“The Home Secretary may say she is standing against hate, division and chaos, but yet again she has reacted to precisely these evils by doing more harm to refugees — the very people most targeted by them.”

Freedom from Torture’s Sile Reynolds said: “For survivors of torture, reuniting with their wives and children enables them to move on from the horrors of their past in the knowledge that their loved ones are safe.

“The solution that the Home Secretary is failing to grasp is so simple: improve initial asylum decisions and stop punishing refugees so that they stand a chance of rebuilding their lives amongst friends and family in our communities.”