The UK
wants to emulate Denmark’s hardline asylum model – but what does it actually
look like?
Denmark
has slashed asylum numbers by granting only short-term status and by targeting
‘ghettoes’, which critics say has damaged the country’s values
Miranda
Bryant
Miranda
Bryant Nordic correspondent
Fri 14
Nov 2025 05.00 GMT
Of all
the measures introduced to deter people from seeking asylum in Denmark over the
last decade, it is the impermanence of refugees’ status that is often cited as
the most effective.
Before
2015, refugees in Denmark were initially allowed to stay for between five and
seven years, after which their residence permits would automatically become
permanent. But 10 years ago, when more than a million people arrived in Europe
fleeing conflict and repression, largely from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and
Eritrea, the Danish government dramatically changed the rules.
Since
then, temporary residence permits have only been granted for one to two years
at a time and there is no longer any guarantee of getting a permanent visa. In
order to gain permanent status, refugees have to be fluent in Danish and are
also required to have had a full-time job for several years.
“It’s
about the attitude and feeling of being here as a visitor on a temporary basis.
You don’t know where your future is going to be,” said Michala Clante Bendixen,
who runs the refugee advisory group Refugees Welcome Denmark and is Denmark’s
country coordinator for the European Commission’s Migrant Integration Hub.
“Even a
speeding ticket can push that permanent stay many years into the future.”
Denmark’s
immigration policies have come into renewed focus after it emerged Britain’s
Labour government was seeking to emulate their approach in an attempt to make
the UK a less attractive destination for people seeking asylum.
Despite
attracting criticism from the UN and human rights organisations, the
restrictions – among the harshest in Europe – appear to have had the effect
politicians were hoping for.
In 2014,
a total of 14,792 asylum seekers arrived in Denmark, with the largest numbers
coming from Syria and Eritrea. By 2021, that figure had dropped to 2,099 and in
2024 it was 2,333. Of nearly 100,000 residence permits that were granted in
Denmark last year, just 1% were recorded as going to refugees. The 99% included
9,623 refugees from Ukraine, who are categorised separately, migrants from
other parts of the European Economic Area, family reunification and people on
work and study permits.
But the
reduction has come at a cost, critics say, to Denmark’s reputation and sense of
self. The incorporation of populist rightwing ideas into nominally centre-left
politics have, they suggest, eaten away at some of the ideals that Denmark is
internationally best known for.
“The
argument against it is that you get extremism in the centre – you have no
strong position from which you can legitimise human rights and protection of
minorities,” said Rune Lykkeberg, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper
Information.
When
Denmark’s Social Democratic prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, came to power in
2019, toppling the centre-right government amid a collapse in support for the
far-right Danish People’s party (DPP) and the Liberal Alliance, she said she
wanted to cut the number of asylum seekers in Denmark to zero.
The path
had been laid for Frederiksen by her predecessor, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who was
then leader of the centre-right Venstre party and is now the foreign minister.
The 2015 change to temporary residence permits came under his watch, as did the
“paradigm shift” of 2019, a series of rules that focused official efforts and
rhetoric on repatriation rather than integration.
Six years
later, Frederiksen is still in office as a centre-left leader who has
capitalised on an uncompromising approach to migration and doubled down on the
idea that Denmark is no place for refugees. “What Denmark has been doing is a
policy of deterrence, scaring people from choosing Denmark,” said Bendixen.
Denmark
has regularly attracted criticism from the UN high commissioner for refugees
about its asylum practices, but many of its integration policies have also
attracted international criticism.
Most
controversial is the so-called law against “ghettoes” (now known as “parallel
societies”), which allows the state to demolish apartment blocks in areas where
at least half of residents have a “non-western” background. In February, a
senior adviser to the EU’s top court found that the law constitutes direct
discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin.
The
criticism has done nothing, however, to shift the political agenda; in fact,
lately, domestic debate has become more extreme. The far-right DPP, which is
not in government but has seen an increase in support, is calling for
“remigration” – the mass deportation of people with immigrant backgrounds
living in Denmark.
Eva
Singer, the director of asylum and refugee rights at the Danish Refugee
Council, said it was politicians, not the public, driving anti-immigrant
sentiment: “The politicians say they follow the popular mood, but maybe the
popular mood is coming from what the politicians are saying, which is not based
on fact.”
Next
year’s general elections could give a clue as to whether or not the Social
Democrats’ approach is still popular with voters. Immigration is likely to be
one of many hot-button issues. Others include Donald Trump’s threats to
Greenland, a former Danish colony that remains part of the Danish commonwealth,
upheaval at two of Denmark’s biggest companies and the threat of hybrid war
from Russia.
Lykkeberg
said the Social Democrats’ handling of immigration followed a Danish playbook
dating back more than half a century. “The politics of it is part of what you
could call the Danish model: you don’t try to burn the so-called populists, you
try to steal their fire. You keep the so-called extremists from the centre of
power and thus defend the old political order.”
The
reality on the ground, critics say, is the government’s hardline policies are
often contradictory. “We hear from municipalities it is quite frustrating that,
on one hand, they have to tell refugees everything they need to do to integrate
and at the same time hare to remind them how temporary this is. They run
counter to each other,” said Singer.
The
temporary nature of refugee status is “poison for integration”, said Bendixen,
because it does not give people time to change their language career and
establish their lives in a new country.
Martin
Lidegaard, the leader of the Social Liberal party and Denmark’s former foreign
minister, believes some elements of the country’s integration policies, such as
helping new arrivals to access education and find work and “ensure they will be
a full member of Danish society”, are worth imitating. “Other parts of our
politics I am not so proud of,” he said.
As their
populations age, all European countries, the UK included, are facing a growing
dilemma, Lidegaard added: “We lack labour; we lack people. Because we get fewer
children, our fertility is declining. Our economy and our labour market
desperately needs some immigration. On the other hand, it is clear we have
populist rightwing parties who want to fight against it and people coming to
countries with different ethnic backgrounds.
“All of
us need to balance this in a clever way. No one can afford to walk into the
future without labour.”
The
Danish ministry of immigration and integration declined to comment.
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