The growth of far right parties like Nigel Farage’s Reform may further keep refugees from reaching European shores.
By Sasha Abramsky ,
March 10, 2026
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage visits anti-Iranian government protesters during a gathering outside the Iranian Embassy in central London, on January 12, 2026.HENRY NICHOLLS / AFP via Getty Images
Earlier this week, as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran intensified, U.K. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage doubled down on his anti-immigrant and anti-refugee stances. If, he declared, refugees start leaving Iran in large numbers, they will have to be housed in the Middle East; Britain simply can’t take in any more.
Farage spoke about the U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran in glowing terms. One outcome his country should celebrate, he argued, was that if the theocratic regime falls, large numbers of Iranians currently living in the U.K. will likely return home. Consider it a twofer, he was basically saying: a bad regime falls, and the U.K. may also rid itself of some of its Muslim immigrants.
Anti-immigrant tirades could well become official British policy in the not-too-distant future. The Starmer-led Labour government has disappointed the British public since coming to power in a landslide victory in the summer of 2024, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself is toxic with the electorate: Latest YouGov numbers show that 69 percent of the public views him unfavorably. (Amazingly, that’s an improvement on his January numbers, when fully 75 percent viewed him negatively.) Farage’s Reform U.K., a right-wing party backed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, now has a good chance of being the largest grouping in Parliament come the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029.
Amid outbreaks of violence aimed at asylum seekers housed in hotels around the country, the U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights. Their ability to work would also be restricted, and they would be subject to fast-track deportation proceedings should their refugee status — which will now be reviewed every 30 months — be revoked.
The U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights.
Now, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the U.S. could rain down “death and destruction from the sky all day long” on the Iranian regime (and by extension the 90 million residents of Iran) — European governments are caught in a vise. The Spanish government has explicitly decried the war as being illegal; the U.K. government initially refused the U.S. the right to use Diego Garcia and other bases in the region — though subsequently backpedaled on this; and even hard-right governments such as Giorgia Meloni’s in Italy are aware that their voters vehemently disapprove of Trump’s government and his wars in the Middle East.
Yet the disapproval of Trump’s wars, and the knowledge that European policymakers have been entirely sidelined in these momentous decisions impacting global security, global energy prices, and refugee flows, apparently doesn’t translate to a willingness to host those who might flee the bombs.
A Decade-Long Far Right Lurch Against Immigration
In 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrians who were fleeing the civil war in their home country sought asylum or refugee status in Europe. Germany and Sweden, in particular, admitted large numbers of these war refugees. But, in the years that followed, far right anti-immigration parties — including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France; the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in Germany; and Meloni’s Brothers of Italy Party — built their bases on campaigns of xenophobia, and support for them surged. Seeking to neutralize the appeal of the far right, more mainstream leaders began co-opting the latter’s anti-immigrant stances, acceding to arguments by the AfD, in particular, that millions of migrants should be “re-migrated” back to their home countries.
Seeking to neutralize the appeal of the far right, more mainstream leaders began co-opting the latter’s anti-immigrant stances.
In 2024, the European Parliament ratified the Pact on Migration and Asylum, making it easier for member states to deport would-be asylum seekers. In late 2025, the pact was amended to expand the list of third countries that asylees have transited through that they could now be deported back into. Cumulatively, these rule changes will allow for fast-track hearings (and deportations) for residents from a slew of poor, mainly southern hemisphere countries seeking refuge in Europe. The provisions of the new pact and the third country rule will kick in this summer. Amnesty International has denounced it as a “shameless attempt to sidestep international legal obligations.”
The EU alleges that, in retaliation for its support for Ukraine since the 2022 war began, Russia and Belarus are actively bringing asylum seekers in and then helping them evade EU border patrols and enter Poland and the Baltic States. In response, EU countries began rolling back the rights to claim asylum. In March of last year, the Polish government suspended this right for migrants entering the country via its border with Belarus. Finland also moved to limit the right to claim asylum for people entering the country over its border with Russia.
The moves on the eastern borders proved politically popular, and there is now a continent-wide effort to clamp down on asylum seekers.
Opinion polls in Germany show that the governing center-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the extremist AfD are tied for first place, each with support from a quarter of the electorate. In France, Marine LePen’s party is in pole position to win the next parliamentary and presidential elections in 2029. Italy is governed by Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy party, which has passed several anti-immigration policies. And in the U.K., with the electorate increasingly fractured and multiple parties breaking through in what has historically been a two party-dominated parliamentary system, Reform continues to lead in national polling. As politics moves rightward, with immigration proving to be a motivating force, mainstream governments are positioning themselves ever more against migrants.
In fact throughout all the large countries in Europe, only Spain, which has recently announced an amnesty for half a million undocumented immigrants, is bucking the trend and liberalizing many of its immigration laws. It’s likely that that action, as much as the Spanish government’s refusal to grant the U.S. rights to fly bombing raids from its bases, was what led to Trump’s recent threat to cut the country off from all trade with the United States.
The outlook is particularly bleak for those seeking safety from U.S. bombs.
Earlier this March, European ministers began holding a series of meetings to explore options should the war in Iran — a country of nearly 100 million that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates currently houses up to 3.7 million refugees, most of them from Afghanistan — result in a flood westward of refugees. In those meetings, Sweden’s migration minister declared that allowing entry to a new wave of war refugees — which would not only include Iranians, but also refugees who had sought shelter in Iran — “is not an option”for Europe.
With most of Europe now firmly committed to a lockdown model that keeps desperate people caught in war zones far from the continent’s shores, and with the United States having all but ended its admission of refugees and asylum seekers, the outlook is particularly bleak for those seeking safety from U.S. bombs. Caught between the theocrats of the Iranian regime and the bombs-away brigade running Washington, D.C., Iranian civilians in 2026 have nowhere to run. The result could well be a humanitarian calamity.
Earlier this week, as the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran intensified, U.K. Reform Party leader Nigel Farage doubled down on his anti-immigrant and anti-refugee stances. If, he declared, refugees start leaving Iran in large numbers, they will have to be housed in the Middle East; Britain simply can’t take in any more.
Farage spoke about the U.S.-Israeli operation in Iran in glowing terms. One outcome his country should celebrate, he argued, was that if the theocratic regime falls, large numbers of Iranians currently living in the U.K. will likely return home. Consider it a twofer, he was basically saying: a bad regime falls, and the U.K. may also rid itself of some of its Muslim immigrants.
Anti-immigrant tirades could well become official British policy in the not-too-distant future. The Starmer-led Labour government has disappointed the British public since coming to power in a landslide victory in the summer of 2024, and Prime Minister Keir Starmer himself is toxic with the electorate: Latest YouGov numbers show that 69 percent of the public views him unfavorably. (Amazingly, that’s an improvement on his January numbers, when fully 75 percent viewed him negatively.) Farage’s Reform U.K., a right-wing party backed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, now has a good chance of being the largest grouping in Parliament come the next general election, currently scheduled for 2029.
Amid outbreaks of violence aimed at asylum seekers housed in hotels around the country, the U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights. Their ability to work would also be restricted, and they would be subject to fast-track deportation proceedings should their refugee status — which will now be reviewed every 30 months — be revoked.
The U.K.’s Labour government is pushing through legislation that would require refugees and asylum seekers to wait 20 years before they could gain permanent residency rights.
Now, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the U.S. could rain down “death and destruction from the sky all day long” on the Iranian regime (and by extension the 90 million residents of Iran) — European governments are caught in a vise. The Spanish government has explicitly decried the war as being illegal; the U.K. government initially refused the U.S. the right to use Diego Garcia and other bases in the region — though subsequently backpedaled on this; and even hard-right governments such as Giorgia Meloni’s in Italy are aware that their voters vehemently disapprove of Trump’s government and his wars in the Middle East.
Yet the disapproval of Trump’s wars, and the knowledge that European policymakers have been entirely sidelined in these momentous decisions impacting global security, global energy prices, and refugee flows, apparently doesn’t translate to a willingness to host those who might flee the bombs.
A Decade-Long Far Right Lurch Against Immigration
In 2015, hundreds of thousands of Syrians who were fleeing the civil war in their home country sought asylum or refugee status in Europe. Germany and Sweden, in particular, admitted large numbers of these war refugees. But, in the years that followed, far right anti-immigration parties — including Marine Le Pen’s National Rally in France; the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in Germany; and Meloni’s Brothers of Italy Party — built their bases on campaigns of xenophobia, and support for them surged. Seeking to neutralize the appeal of the far right, more mainstream leaders began co-opting the latter’s anti-immigrant stances, acceding to arguments by the AfD, in particular, that millions of migrants should be “re-migrated” back to their home countries.
Seeking to neutralize the appeal of the far right, more mainstream leaders began co-opting the latter’s anti-immigrant stances.
In 2024, the European Parliament ratified the Pact on Migration and Asylum, making it easier for member states to deport would-be asylum seekers. In late 2025, the pact was amended to expand the list of third countries that asylees have transited through that they could now be deported back into. Cumulatively, these rule changes will allow for fast-track hearings (and deportations) for residents from a slew of poor, mainly southern hemisphere countries seeking refuge in Europe. The provisions of the new pact and the third country rule will kick in this summer. Amnesty International has denounced it as a “shameless attempt to sidestep international legal obligations.”
The EU alleges that, in retaliation for its support for Ukraine since the 2022 war began, Russia and Belarus are actively bringing asylum seekers in and then helping them evade EU border patrols and enter Poland and the Baltic States. In response, EU countries began rolling back the rights to claim asylum. In March of last year, the Polish government suspended this right for migrants entering the country via its border with Belarus. Finland also moved to limit the right to claim asylum for people entering the country over its border with Russia.
The moves on the eastern borders proved politically popular, and there is now a continent-wide effort to clamp down on asylum seekers.
Opinion polls in Germany show that the governing center-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the extremist AfD are tied for first place, each with support from a quarter of the electorate. In France, Marine LePen’s party is in pole position to win the next parliamentary and presidential elections in 2029. Italy is governed by Meloni’s hard-right Brothers of Italy party, which has passed several anti-immigration policies. And in the U.K., with the electorate increasingly fractured and multiple parties breaking through in what has historically been a two party-dominated parliamentary system, Reform continues to lead in national polling. As politics moves rightward, with immigration proving to be a motivating force, mainstream governments are positioning themselves ever more against migrants.
In fact throughout all the large countries in Europe, only Spain, which has recently announced an amnesty for half a million undocumented immigrants, is bucking the trend and liberalizing many of its immigration laws. It’s likely that that action, as much as the Spanish government’s refusal to grant the U.S. rights to fly bombing raids from its bases, was what led to Trump’s recent threat to cut the country off from all trade with the United States.
The outlook is particularly bleak for those seeking safety from U.S. bombs.
Earlier this March, European ministers began holding a series of meetings to explore options should the war in Iran — a country of nearly 100 million that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates currently houses up to 3.7 million refugees, most of them from Afghanistan — result in a flood westward of refugees. In those meetings, Sweden’s migration minister declared that allowing entry to a new wave of war refugees — which would not only include Iranians, but also refugees who had sought shelter in Iran — “is not an option”for Europe.
With most of Europe now firmly committed to a lockdown model that keeps desperate people caught in war zones far from the continent’s shores, and with the United States having all but ended its admission of refugees and asylum seekers, the outlook is particularly bleak for those seeking safety from U.S. bombs. Caught between the theocrats of the Iranian regime and the bombs-away brigade running Washington, D.C., Iranian civilians in 2026 have nowhere to run. The result could well be a humanitarian calamity.
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Sasha Abramsky
Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and a part-time lecturer at the University of California at Davis. Abramsky’s latest book, American Carnage: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Butchered the US Government, is available for pre-order now and will be released in January. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York Magazine, The Village Voice and Rolling Stone. He also writes a weekly political column. Originally from England, with a bachelor’s in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he now lives in Sacramento, California.
