ELECTORAL POLITICS| GOVERNMENT POLICY
23 January: The Times reveals that, last autumn, ministers suppressed a report titled Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security, collated with the joint intelligence committee, which warned that climate change could drive mass migration to Britain, because it was seen as too negative. (Times, 23 January 2026)
26 January: Proposed policing reforms in the White Paper launched by home secretary Shabana Mahmood include a new National Police Service focussing on serious crime, reduction of local forces from 43 to 12, an increase in neighbourhood policing, more mobile facial recognition units and more public order laws. (Gov.uk, 26 January 2026)
27 January: At a press conference, Matthew Goodwin, Reform’s candidate in Manchester’s Gorton and Denton byelection, refuses to disown his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British. (Guardian, 27 January 2026)
28 January: The Independent Commission on Neighbourhoods finds that conditions in England’s 613 most deprived areas will worsen by the end of this parliament, citing growing unemployment and higher crime rates. The government’s Pride in Place Scheme, under which 250 areas will each get £20m over 10 years for local regeneration, is criticised for not going far enough. (Guardian, 28 January 2026)
28 January: Reform UK is criticised for flyers handed out across the Washington and south Gateshead constituency suggesting that the rise in asylum seekers in Sunderland was linked to the city’s sanctuary status, gained in 2002. (BBC News, 28 January 2026)
28 January: French justice minister Gérald Darmanin proposes a three-year halt to all legal immigration for work, study or family reunion, with exceptions for doctors, researchers and some students. (Times, 28 January 2026)
29 January: In the run-up to April’s general election in Hungary, construction and transport minister János Lázá says that Roma people are for ‘cleaning shit-filled toilets’. In response, hundreds of toilet brushes are dumped outside his home. (EU Observer, 29 January 2026)
29 January: Under a new deal, UK law enforcement agencies will work with Chinese authorities to prevent boat engines and other equipment from reaching organised crime groups to stop small-boat migration. (InfoMigrants, 29 January 2026)
29 January: Edward Harris, the Reform chair of Tamworth council, Staffordshire, says he will sell his multi-occupation properties for asylum housing after resigning for illegally renting them out with no working fire alarms, inadequate cooking facilities, lack of central heating and hot water and unsafe access to outdoors. (BBC News, 30 January 2026)
29 January: The home secretary reportedly plans to deport many more people to Syria in the coming months, despite the government acknowledging ‘deeply concerning’ violence, mass displacement of civilians and a deteriorating humanitarian situation. (The I paper, 29 January 2026)
30 January: An academic study finds that Home Office policy targeting Albanian asylum seekers since 2022 employed racialised and gendered narratives depicting Albanian men as criminals and a security risk and Albania as a safe country. (EIN, 30 January 2026)
30 January: Sussex Police and Crime Panel say it has lost confidence in Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne (Conservative) after she attended a protest march against housing asylum seekers at an army base in Crowborough. Bourne alleges ‘harassment’. (BBC News, 30 January 2026)
30 January: Key figures in Reform UK including Farage’s senior adviser James Orr and London mayoral candidate are calling for a British version of ICE, a Byline Times report reveals. (Byline Supplement, 30 January 2026)
🟪 Supplement — Reform UK’s Plans For a British ICE
Key figures in Nigel Farage’s party are demanding a UK version of Trump’s immigration enforcement agency, in the wake of the killings of Alex Pretti and Renée Goodhttps://t.co/0JMKA7KKXq
— Byline Times (@BylineTimes) January 31, 2026
31 January: In France, several far-right candidates, including Reconquête MEP and candidate for Paris mayor, Sarah Knafo, join demonstrations organised by the Union Alliance Police Nationale under the banner ‘Citizens with the police, stop insecurity, stop impunity’. (RFI, 31 January 2026)
2 February: Reform-led Kent County Council urges the government to provide extra funding for looking after unaccompanied child migrants after its Ofsted rating for provision of children’s services was downgraded from ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’. (Times, 2 February 2026)
ANTI-FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT
23 January: The Nord and Pas-de-Calais prefecture announce a sweeping ban on British far-right activists from Operation Overload, a splinter from Raise the Colours, from travelling to France to attend a ‘stop the boats’ protest, on the grounds that they pose a ‘threat to public safety’. (Guardian, 23 January 2026)
25 January: In the largest demonstration of its kind in the area, thousands of local people, joined by far-right activists from groups across England including Advance UK, Homeland and Raise the Colours, march through Crowborough, East Sussex, protesting against a government plan to turn a former military camp into asylum accommodation. (Guardian, 25 January 2026)
26 January: In what is believed to be the first case of its kind, two unnamed British far-right activists, potentially involved in Operation Overlord, are arrested in France while live broadcasting discriminatory content on YouTube likely to incite hatred. (Guardian, 26 January 2026)
28 January: Far-right extremist Harry Whittaker is jailed for three years and nine months after police uncovered explosives, toxic chemicals and neo-Nazi material at his home. Officers discovered the stash after a medical emergency in April 2024, along with messages in which Whittaker called for a mosque in Luton to be attacked and for Muslims to be turned into ‘mincemeat’. (Mirror MSN, 28 January 2026)
30 January: The Palestine Coalition criticises the Met for rerouting a UKIP march to end in Trafalgar Square not far from a passing point for the national march for Palestine. UKIP’s original intention was to stage a ‘Walk for Jesus’ parade in in Tower Hamlets, but it was banned following concerted opposition. (Palestine Coalition, 30 January 2026)
30 January: Tommy Robinson joins a march of several hundred in Essex mobilised by the Braintree and Wethersfield Protest Group, to demonstrate against the accommodation of asylum seekers on the former RAF base. The Essex Coalition Against Racism says his aim is to ‘whip up hatred and division’. The local Conservative MP also calls for it to be shut down. (ITV News, 31 January 2026; Essex Live, 30 January 2026)
POLICING| PRISONS| CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
19 January: The Children’s Commissioner expresses deep concern after FOI data reveals that staff at YOIs in Feltham, Hounslow and Werrington, Staffordshire sprayed Pava on 18 children and young people during six incidents between April and November 2025. Muslim children are over-represented in YOIs. (Hyphen, 19 January 2026)
21 January: The inquest opens into the death of George Nkencho in Dublin, Ireland, in December 2020, with the Garda who shot him dead saying it was ‘absolutely necessary to use lethal force’. (Irish Times, 21 January 2026)
22 January: The Council of Europe, responding to overcrowding, poor conditions and record levels of inmate violence, says that France’s prisons risk turning into ‘human warehouses’. (Le Monde, 22 January 2026)
23 January: In Nice, France, Pro-Palestinian activist and mother Amia Zaiter is sentenced to 15 months in prison over tweets expressing support for Palestine and Hamas and is registered on the ‘S-list’ for individuals considered a threat to national security. (Press TV, 23 January 2026)
23 January: The council and academic freedom committee of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies write to the Met commissioner expressing concern about arrests of Palestine solidarity protesters in the Met and Greater Manchester areas for holding placards or chanting the slogan ‘Globalise the Intifada’. This appears to ‘reflect a troubling and unwarranted criminalisation of political speech and may contravene the Human Rights Act’. (BRISMES, 23 January 2026)
BRISMES has written to @metpoliceuk and @gmpolice expressing our serious concern regarding recent arrests of #Palestine #solidarity protesters for holding placards or chanting slogans that include the phrase “Globalise the intifada”.
Read our letter: https://t.co/VuCstv3o6O pic.twitter.com/YQF2rUZhOJ— BRISMES (@OfficialBrismes) January 23, 2026
24 January: Police arrest nearly 100 protesters gathered at Wormwood Scrubs prison in support of Muhammad Umer Khalid, one of the ‘Brize Norton Five’, who is on hunger strike. (Times, 25 January 2026)
28 January: The IOPC announces that gross misconduct proceedings for breach of the Use of Force standard against the Met firearms officer who killed Chris Kaba in Streatham in 2022 have been put on hold, on the grounds that the government is proposing changes to the law on police disciplinary cases. (INQUEST, 28 January 2026)
29 January: One quarter of women in prison have not been tried or sentenced, an Open Democracy investigation shows, with black and minoritised women disproportionately affected, as numbers of prisoners on remand awaiting trial in England and Wales increase by 44 per cent to over 17,000 in the decade to June 2025. (Open Democracy, 29 January 2026)
29 January Disability campaigners urge home secretary Shabana Mahmood to reconsider her plan to scrap ‘non-crime hate incidents’, set out in the policing white paper, arguing that recording and investigation of daily low-level abuse is vital to deter and prevent more serious attacks. (Guardian, 29 January 2026)
30 January: In Dublin, Ireland, a jury returns a narrative verdict and make a number of recommendations directed at the police at the inquest into the death of George Nkencho, who was shot and killed during a stand-off with gardaí in December 2020. (RTE, 30 January 2026)
31 January: Hundreds gather in Milan, Italy, to protest the deployment of US ICE agents in the city as protection for US participants in the Winter Olympics. Milan’s mayor says they are not welcome and interior minister Matteo Piantedosi is summoned to parliament to explain the deployment. (Morning Star, 1 February 2026)
2 February: Andy George, president of the National Black Police Association since 2020, who has faced five PSNI misconduct hearings over his media and social media interventions, says he is being victimised and discriminated against in an attempt to silence him and the 6,000 officers he represents. (Guardian, 2 February 2026)
4 February: Six Palestine Action activists are acquitted of aggravated burglary, which carries a life sentence, at Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems’ Filton site in Bristol in August 2024, and none are convicted of any offences, including criminal damage and violent disorder, after a trial at Woolwich crown court in which five defendants told the jury they had entered the factory and Elbit’s equipment including computers and drones, and the judge had told them that defendants’ belief that they were saving lives by destroying weapons used in genocide was not a lawful excuse. (Guardian, 4 February 2026)
ASYLUM | MIGRATION| BORDERS| CITIZENSHIP
Asylum and migrant rights
21 January: Official statistics reveal that authorities in Malta revoked the refugee status of 340 people in 2025 and granted status to only 87 people. (Times of Malta, 21 January 2026)
26 January: As individual Windrush cases continue to emerge, 69-year old George Campbell, who has lived and worked in the UK since his arrival 60 years ago, finds himself homeless and destitute following a discharge from hospital as the Home Office takes months to confirm his status and his pension application is refused. (Guardian, 26 January 2026)
27 January: The Spanish government announces a regularisation programme for around half a million undocumented migrants, starting in April, with conditions including a clean criminal record and five months’ residence in Spain before 31 December 2025. (BBC News, 27 January 2026)
Borders and internal controls
20 January: French officials intercept a small migrant boat in the water for the first time in a canal leading to the Channel following pressure from the British government to step up interventions to stop the boats. (BBC News, 20 January 2026)
26 January: The French defender of rights tells the French government that tear gas, rubber bullets and other forceful means to stop migrants embarking for the UK put people in danger and should not be used. (Times, 26 January 2026)
28 January: According to data from Sea-Watch, EU border agency Frontex withholds vital information about boats in distress from rescue NGOs’ vessels when issuing ‘Mayday’ calls, but passes it on to the Libyan coastguard, enabling ‘pull-backs’ to Libya. Around half of all boat passengers were intercepted by Libyan militias, and only one-tenth were rescued and taken to safe ports in Italy. (digit.site36, 28 January 2026)
29 January: Six border officers from immigration enforcement clandestine operations response teams based at Dover and Manston appear at Westminster magistrates’ court accused of stealing from people arriving on small boats, and are bailed to appear at Southwark crown court on 26 February. (BBC News, 29 January 2026)
29 January: It is revealed that the EU is considering allowing people rescued in the Mediterranean to be deported directly to coastal states outside the EU, in ‘place of safety arrangements’ which would mean asylum seekers never entering EU territory. Benghazi in Libya is planned to be a ‘maritime rescue coordination centre’. (EU Observer, 29 January 2026; Statewatch, 29 January 2026)
Reception and detention
21 January: An inspection by HMIP into holding rooms across the UK finds an inadequate focus on safeguarding, with little or no account of vulnerabilities in making decisions to detain an individual, inadequate healthcare provision, no routine health screenings, and delays in access to medication. The report also questions the use of restraint, including the regular use of handcuffs when escorting detainees to vans. (EIN, 21 January 2026)
21 January: Bolton Council votes unanimously not to participate in a government scheme to build or refurbish council homes for asylum seekers. (Bolton News, 22 January 2026)
22 January: Havering council firmly declines the government’s request to provide housing for asylum seekers. (The Havering Daily, 22 January 2026)
27 January: The Home Office scraps plans to house up to 70 asylum seekers in a former local authority sheltered housing facility in Plas yn Rhos, Rhosllanerchrugog, following objections raised by Wrexham council. (Daily Post, 27 January 2026)
22 January: The Home Office moves 27 male asylum seekers into the Crowborough Training Camp, with plans to accommodate up to 500 adult males, as Wealden District Council’s legal team seeks to bring a challenge. Hundreds protest every weekend against the housing of asylum seekers at the camp. (Guardian, 22 January 2026)
26 January: A report by Medical Justice into the impact of the ‘one in, one out’ policy on those detained for deportation finds that the government is fully aware of the harm caused by detention to survivors of torture, trafficking and other trauma, and calls for an end to the scheme, the release of those detained, and for those individuals to have their asylum claims processed in the UK. (EIN, 26 January 2026)
28 January: A report by Migrants Organise and Medact on the health impacts of asylum accommodation in the UK, Hostile Housing, concludes that asylum accommodation acts as a form of collective punishment, through inadequate conditions, loss of autonomy, privacy and safety, and food insecurity. (EIN, 29 January 2026)
28 January: Detainee despair, mental health crises, violence by staff, assaults, drug use and self-harm are revealed in an Independent investigation into Brook House IRC near Gatwick, which was subject to an inquiry into abuse of detainees in 2017. (Independent, 28 January 2026)
Deportations
20 January: IOM signs a ‘voluntary return’ partnership with Algeria as Alarm Phone Sahara reports that Algerian authorities deported over 34,000 people to the desert along the Niger border in official and unofficial convoys in 2025. (InfoMigrants, 20 January 2026; Alarm Phone Sahara, 31 December 2025)
Crimes of solidarity
20 January: 56 Greek NGOs publish a joint statement saying a draft law threatens to severely restrict their efforts to support people on the move in the country, criminalising those working for organisations registered with the Migration Ministry. (Refugee Support Aegean, 20 January 2026)
EDUCATION
28 January: A snap Ofsted inspection of a Bristol secondary school, conducted following the revelation that a visit from a local MP active in Labour Friends of Israel had been put off, finds no evidence of partisan political views and a strong commitment to inclusivity, diversity and equality. (Guardian, 28 January 2026)
29 January: New DfE guidance for schools in England stipulates that school suspension of pupils should be used only for the most serious cases of bad behaviour including violence, and asserts that ‘internal exclusions’ in supervised settings should be formalised. (Guardian, 29 January 2026)
30 January: The DfE publishes a full list of 93 schools and settings that will lead its work across England ‘to tackle the root causes of poor behaviour before problems escalate’. (Schools Week, 30 January 2026)
2 February: A Times Higher Education investigation suggests that universities are increasingly engaging with Reform, despite the party having no higher education spokesperson. Several vice-chancellors have met with Reform representatives over the past few months ,and universities in Reform-led councils regularly interact with Reform representatives. (THE, 2 February 2026)
HOUSING| POVERTY| WELFARE
25 January: A survey of 11,000 teachers finds that, with a record 175,000 children in temporary accommodation which is often far from school and lacks facilities, schools regularly refer homeless children to food banks, drive them to classes and wash their clothes. (Guardian, 25 January 2026)
27 January: Analysis by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds that the UK’s poorest families are getting poorer, with nearly two million people in ‘very deep poverty’ and 3.8 million people in destitution – unable to stay warm, dry, clean, clothed and fed, in 2023-24. No progress had been made in reducing poverty since 2010. (Guardian, 27 January 2026)
“Households on the lowest incomes were still experiencing a cost of living crisis four years on, with millions of people forced to go without food, falling behind on household bills and having to borrow to survive, said JRF.”https://t.co/aJAmPyWQFZ
— Greater Manchester Law Centre (@gmlawcentre) February 3, 2026
EMPLOYMENT| EXPLOITATION| INDUSTRIAL ACTION
20 January: Unravelling the Nets, a report by Focus on Labour Exploitation launched in parliament, highlights how visa loopholes and salary thresholds push migrant fishermen out of skilled worker regimes into transit visas, enabling their exploitation – a situation also encountered in agriculture, social care and domestic work. (Fishing Industry News, 22 January 2026)
21 January: The European Committee of Social Rights finds the UK in breach of the European Social Charter on workers’ rights, particularly those of domestic and gig economy workers. (UK Human Rights Blog, 26 January 2026)
22 January: The High Court orders the UAE to pay over £260,000 to a victim of human trafficking exploited by a diplomat in London, the first time a foreign state is held liable for domestic servitude by its envoy. (Guardian, 22 January 2026)
2 February: 46 drivers employed by a Royal Mail-owned courier company delivering blood and tissue samples to and from NHS hospitals take legal action to challenge the company’s treatment of them as self-employed rather than workers. The claim is supported by the Independent Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) union. (Guardian, 2 February 2026)
CULTURE| MEDIA| SPORT
23 January: Health advocate Athika Ahmed is targeted for racist and misogynistic abuse from across the world in posts misidentifying the 23-year-old volunteer and medical student at Cardiff university as holding a senior position in the Welsh government. One AI-generated image depicts her eating with a Palestinian flag emblazoned on her chest. (Nation Cymru, 23 January 2026)
31 January: Welsh folk singer Dafydd Iwan says he is trolled with ‘very personal’ and ‘nasty’ comments after urging organisers of a far-right protest to stop using his song Yma o Hyd to promote anti-immigration marches. Iwan says the anthem is about Welsh survival and culture, not ‘hate-driven campaigns’. (BBC News, 31 January 2026)
2 February: The band Chumbawamba demands that the far-right Spanish Vox party stop using their 1999 song Tubthumping as a sound track for an anti-migration video, saying their ‘vile, racist’ message is the opposite of what the song is about. (Guardian, 2 February 2026)
3 February: Tariq Ali claims the BFI froze him out of a new season on multicultural television despite his role as editor of Channel 4’s groundbreaking Bandung File, saying he is shocked not to be invited and that the programme is being presented without proper context. The BFI says that it always intends to involve him and that contact is delayed rather than refused. (Guardian, 3 February 2026)
RACIAL VIOLENCE AND HARASSMENT
For details of court judgements on racially motivated and other hate crimes, see also POLICING | PRISONS | CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.
20 January: Humberside PC Mourad Karaouani, who works in Bridlington, West Yorkshire, says he has been the victim of more than 21 racially aggravated assaults and hate crimes from the public over the last three years. (BBC News, 20 January 2026)
22 January: The owner of the Dream Turkish Kitchen and two Turkish takeaways in Kingsbridge, Devon, says he no longer feels safe after a series of racist attacks stirred up by Union Jack activists, with the latest incident resulting in attacks on staff who were told to ‘leave our country’. (Devon Live, 22 January 2026)
This calendar is researched by IRR staff and compiled by Sophie Chauhan, with the assistance of Graeme Atkinson, Sam Berkson, Margaret McAdam and Louis Ordish. Thanks also to ECRE, the Never Again Association, Research Against Global Authoritarianism and Stopwatch, whose regular updates on asylum, migration, far Right, racial violence, employment and policing issues are an invaluable source of information. Find these stories and all others since 2014 on our searchable database, the Register of Racism and Resistance.