The current asylum system is built on a culture of disbelief that inherently lacks compassion, is not competent and therefore does not control immigration in the way the government aspires to. As a nation, the people of the United Kingdom have lost confidence in it.

Recent experiments in different systems responding to the geopolitical events in Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong have started to develop new models to be more proud of. This paper argues that the UK Home Office should lose its responsibility for immigration, with a new arm’s-length body named Sanctuary UK set up to overhaul the system and create a new, more humane system, learning from the best of the recent innovations.