14.01.2025
Ukrainian Refugees in Britain Face a Huge Problem in 2025
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James C. Pearce

Cultural historian of Russia.

The UK has been kinder than most countries to Ukrainian refugees since 2022. They are allowed to work, and most do. They can claim pensions and other social security benefits from the state, and have access to free medical care. That may all come to an end this year as Britain’s new Labour government faces up to several problems it inherited from the Conservatives. Unfortunately for Labour, immigration is the most delicate of all.

Last year, almost one million people entered the UK, the highest recorded. At present, the UK is home to about 160,000 people born in Ukraine. That figure is up from 40,000 before 2022, according to the Migration Observatory at Oxford University. Two-thirds of Ukrainian adults who arrived in the UK after the war started are women. Men are usually only allowed to leave Ukraine if they are old, medically unfit or have at least three children.

A survey by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 80% of the migrants have university degrees. They tend to live in wealthier parts of Britain, where homes are large and the natives are welcoming of refugees. Most, however, are ‘underemployed’. That is to say they are working in jobs well below their qualification level (mostly due to language abilities).

However, Ukrainian refugees have a peculiar legal status in Britain. Legally speaking, they are temporary guests, not fully fledged refugees. Most were allowed to stay only for three years, but were recently allowed to extend this by eighteen months. After five years, most refugees and foreign workers can apply for ‘settled status’ in the UK (effectively permanent residency). But Ukrainians cannot and their time already spent in the UK will not count towards that magical five year number. If their status is not extended, they will have to leave the UK and instantly lose access to their benefits.

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James C. Pearce
The UK goes to the polls later this year. The Conservative Party, which has been in power for fourteen years, is going to lose badly. Britain’s next government is likely to be headed by the Labour Party and Sir Keir Starmer. At some point, Britain’s next government will have to change Britain’s stance towards Russia – which has the upper hand. The question is how.
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It was the last Conservative government, which was responsible for the regulations on Ukrainian refugees. Now, it is creating a giant headache for Britain’s Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Ukrainian refugees alike. It is a multi-layered political headache that only gets worse with each layer we pull back and expose.

Let’s start with the refugees themselves. Ukrainians seem to be settling into Britain – and rather like it. The same ONS survey asked Ukrainians where they would prefer to live if Ukraine were safe: 68% said Britain. About half have not been back since they left and many have also started professional training and language courses. They are not intending to leave and will no doubt seek lawyers to help prevent that eventuality (though to what avail is dubious). 

The next layer is political. Starmer has had a tricky few months since the government announced its budget for the next fiscal year. Labour are down in the polls and the right wing, anti-immigrant Reform Party has surged. Reform has momentum going into 2025 and will be hoping for big wins in local government elections. Elon Musk is said to be mulling a huge donation of £100 million to Reform, as well. He recently met with the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, and many are now alarmed at the prospect that foreigners could simply be allowed to buy British elections.

Aside from being highly controversial and utterly unrealistic, Reform’s immigration policies tend to focus on illegal migration. Britain’s high immigration numbers are actually due to legal migration, Ukrainian refugees included and whom Reform are mysteriously silent about. Nevertheless, Reform has successfully attacked the Conservatives from the political right over the issue, taking huge swathes of voters from them in the last election. It is also eating into Labour’s vote share in its traditional heartlands of the northeast and northwest of England – where immigration is often the top concern. In Britain’s 2024 general election, Reform came second to Labour in around 90 seats.

Starmer, therefore, faces a tricky dilemma. He has to reduce migration for his own political survival and blunt the surge of Reform. If the war ends in 2025 after negotiations – something which Starmer has already hinted is on the cards – the Prime Minister would have every right to ask Ukrainians to leave.

He could fairly place the blame on the last government and say ‘my hands are tied’.

But here is the next layer of that problem: Ukrainians are highly educated and fill jobs in the economy that British workers are not. As also mentioned, they tend to live in parts of the country where immigration is not taboo. By contrast, most Britons absolutely riled up by immigration tend to focus their wrath on boat crossings on the English Channel, or those from Muslim countries (or both). Whilst not renewing Ukrainian’s status is unlikely to bring people out onto the streets, it will not exactly score Starmer and Labour any political points, either.

If ceasefire negotiations do result in peace agreements, where do Britain’s Ukrainian refugees go next if they cannot stay? Most are from the East and South, where the fighting continues. If they are told to return, the choice is between a return to Ukraine or to Russia. The partition of Ukraine has already happened. Many in Donetsk, Kherson, Zaparozhzhia and Lugansk feel betrayed and abandoned by Kiev. As reputable news outlets in the West have reported in recent months, many who fled these regions to western Ukraine have started going back (estimates vary and reliable data is tricky to come by). Either way, it leaves their lives hanging in the balance. Ukrainians kicked out of Britain may feel abandoned by it, too.   

If no peace agreement is reached, Starmer may become unstuck. How long to keep arming Ukraine, especially if it keeps losing? How many more refugees and ‘temporary guests’ can the UK and Labour afford? As well as bringing down the immigration numbers, the British government is trying to find savings and facing a depleted military. There have been several calls in the last year to increase defense spending by 50%. Yet, that figure would merely bring the military up to the level it was at before 2022. Something has to give.

Finally, the Ukrainian government faces problems in any outcome. If those who left do not return to Ukraine, its population will continue to dwindle as it has been since 1989. If they do return, many Ukrainian children have effectively grown up in Britain and attended British schools. They will feel lost and disillusioned in their birth country. As discussed above, the adults clearly prefer Britain and may not like what they come back to. How will that discontent manifest itself in a Ukraine that is neither in NATO nor the EU in the years to come?

No British politician envies Labour on this decision. Booting Ukrainians out of the UK could look cruel. Extending their temporary status is an expensive way to kick the can down the road. Granting them official refugee status could be political suicide if immigration numbers stay stubbornly high. Labour has not revealed its hand at the time of writing and likely will not for some time. If I were a gambling man, I would bet that Starmer does not even know.

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The evidence points to Labour’s Keir Starmer as the winner, but with a smaller majority than sometimes predicted. Unlike the recent elections in the European Union, there is no significant electoral challenge to the established political elites. Opposition will fall to the fringe political parties and groups. The UK may have a change of political leadership under Labour but there will be no significant shift in political direction.
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