Refugee groups condemn Tory plan to remove judges from asylum appeals

Conservative asylum plan

Refugee and legal groups have condemned a Conservative proposal to remove judges from asylum appeals, warning that it would strip away independent oversight at a time when the system is already under heavy pressure.

Shadow home secretary Chris Philp set out the plan in an address to Policy Exchange on June 16, 2026. He said a future Conservative government would abolish the judicial tribunal system used for asylum appeals, move asylum decisions into the Home Office and allow only a quick internal appeal.

Philp also said the party would quit the European Convention on Human Rights and scrap legal aid for all immigration cases. The Guardian reported that the Home Office is already replacing the two-tier tribunal system with a single independent appeals body in an effort to speed cases up.

Backlog and pressure

The policy push lands against a backlog that is already deep and slow-moving. The Times reported on the same day that asylum appeals had climbed to 87,400 cases, with average waits of 67 weeks.

Earlier reporting in March said the backlog had already exceeded 80,000 cases and that average waits were then around 63 weeks. The scale of the queue has become a central part of the political argument over whether the current system is failing to deliver timely decisions.

The Times also said the Conservative announcement came on a day when Home Office figures showed 710 people arrived in 11 boats across the Channel, the highest daily total so far in 2026. That added to the political pressure around small-boat crossings and asylum processing.

Reactions from refugee and legal groups

Freedom from Torture’s Sile Reynolds said the proposals were an attack on justice and equality under the law, and warned that wrongful decisions could be fatal for torture survivors.

The Refugee Council’s Imran Hussain said the plan would remove democratic safeguards and let the government mark its own homework. Law Society president Mark Evans said scrapping immigration tribunals would remove independent oversight.

The Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association said senior politicians were fostering a climate of hostility towards immigration practitioners and judges. Together, the responses centred on the same concern: that removing judges from the appeals process would weaken checks on Home Office decisions.

What happens next

The Conservatives have not yet published a fuller written policy document, so several practical questions remain open. It is not yet clear how a replacement system would work in practice if the UK left the ECHR and tribunal oversight was removed.

Labour has already been tightening asylum rules of its own, adding to the wider political pressure over migration, appeals and hotel use. The question now is whether the Conservatives turn Philp’s speech into a formal policy package and whether the Home Office or ministers issue a detailed rebuttal.

For now, the story has become a test of two competing claims: that judges are slowing a broken system, and that independent appeals are essential to prevent wrongful removals and protect vulnerable claimants.