Challenging Conventions

The Case for a Firm yet Humane Asylum System Part 3

What Can We Do?

Taking Australia’s example, they did something the Conservatives are trying to do here (or appearing to try): process asylum seekers offshore. Their agreement, rather than with Rwanda, is with Papua New Guinea and Nauru and began in 1958. In the 1990s under PM Paul Keating, Australia began compulsory detention of claimants - both inside and outside its territory - while their claims were being processed. Temporary protection visas were given once claims were approved, and those individuals could not settle easily in the country. Later, under John Howard, Australia asserted itself within the UN Refugee Convention, and through its Immigration Act pursued what was called the ‘Pacific Solution’. This involved towing and coercing back any seaworthy vessels to Indonesia, where the sea crossings would usually start from. Those people in non-seaworthy vessels it would detain in Papua New Guinea, Nauru or on its own islands, Christmas Island and Offshore Reef. At one point a large ship continuing over 400 asylum seekers was intercepted and escorted to Indonesia. Though controversial, these policies acted as a deterrent. 12,000 asylum seekers came in by boat from 1999 to 2002. From 2002 to 2007, only 300 came.     

The efficacy was further demonstrated when Kevin Rudd abandoned the policy in 2008, along with the temporary visa scheme. In his term, before the policy was scrapped, 25 asylum seekers had come on boats. By August 2010, 7800 asylum seekers had come. Rudd attempted to cooperate with Indonesia to tackle the problem, as our government constantly tries with France, but this wasn’t successful and was politically costly. In opposition, the Liberal Party’s Tony Abbott pushed for a return to the Pacific Solution. Julia Gillard took a more robust approach in response as she challenged Rudd for the Labour leadership, becoming PM in August 2010. She didn’t favour towing boats back and the controversial Papua New Guinea and Nauru camps, but wanted new detention centres in Australian territory, East Timor and Malaysia. She reached an agreement with Malaysia (to swap 800 unprocessed asylum claimants for 4000 of Malaysia’s processed claimants), but because Malaysia had not signed the UN Refugee Convention it was struck down by the Australian High Court. Papua New Guinea and Nauru, incidentally, are signatories of the Convention since 1986 and 2011 respectively. In the end Gillard relented and went with Papua New Guinea and Nauru again. Rudd continued this when Gillard was ousted and he briefly returned. There was a decrease in the numbers as a result, but 2012 had seen 19,000 arrivals.

Tony Abbot returned to the Pacific Solution when he came into office in 2013. When he took charge there were five to seven boats reaching Australia a month. When he left there had only been one (carrying 157 people) in nine months. The policy has remained in place until the present day, and despite humanitarian criticisms from inside and outside Australia, despite being mightily expensive, it has been successful.

If an Australian approach is possible for the UK, it might be wise not to emulate them fully. There have been many concerns about the conditions in the offshore (and indeed onshore) detention centres. It’s hard to know the truth because of all the conflicting agendas at play. Let’s just say we should take great care to make sure the conditions in offshore centres are humane. This was one of the doubts (although not necessarily based on evidence) about our government’s Rwanda agreement. Ideally, British staff should be running these centres, or the facilities should be located in remote British territory so we can properly control them. We could lease land in other countries to do it. There should be adequate food, showers, toilets and exercise areas. There should be privacy and access to healthcare, translators and counselling. There needn’t be luxury in these places, but we are a civilised society, and we treat even the most hardened criminals with basic decency. Again, we need to remember that some asylum seekers will be genuine, traumatised victims, and if so they deserve a break. Of course, authentic claimants will surely be glad of such shelter and treatment, no matter where that facility is.

If we go beyond these basic provisions, however, there is no deterrent to people making the Channel crossing. Whether these asylum seekers are genuine or not, we have to discourage that dangerous trip in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. They need to see Britain detaining, offshoring and toughly scrutinising claimants, and they will choose another destination. Offshoring in particular should be a component, because if the first thing that happens to an asylum seeker is a flight to a place other than the country they’ve chosen, that will send a powerful message to others.

We needn’t offshore everyone. One of the criticisms of the proposal is that there would not be enough places in the facilities (200 currently available) and it would cost too much (the unused Rwanda scheme has so far cost £140 million, with the accommodation of each migrant costing £20-30 thousand on top of that). But again, it is a deterrent – if there is even an outside chance it will happen to them, less people will come. The cost would be an investment to achieve that end, and anyway, what of the cost of countless hotel rooms? Hotels are estimated to be costing £7 million pounds a day. That’s £2.6 billion a year. What of the extra costs to welfare and services once they have been given permission to stay? And besides, at what price should national security and quality of life be set at? Such things do not belong on a balance sheet.

Also, as Home Secretary Suella Braverman has suggested, the process has scope to be scaled up. It should be pointed out once their claims are approved, it is intended those sent to Rwanda will not be allowed to live in the UK. Rwanda will give them permanent residency, and from there begin the citizenship process. This is the aspect that could be most contested in the courts. Rwanda will not accept families, children or anyone with a criminal record.

What’s in it for Rwanda? Well, firstly there is the money they’re making from the deal. The other is that they can build their economy by sourcing more workers and taxpayers. Rwanda’s GDP has grown massively in recent years, and is it has one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. Perhaps the Rwandan people should have a say on the process, but that’s a discussion for another time.

If I’m wrong, and the proposal won’t work, what is to be lost in at least trying it for a limited time and seeing the results? The trouble is much of the political class, the media, the ECHR and all those NGOs do not want to allow this, and they are hobbling any progress in fixing the problem. 

The Rwanda scheme got to the stage where the first plane was on the tarmac ready to leave on 14^th June 2022. The ECHR hastily stopped it, leaving the government red-faced. The scheme’s very legality had been questioned by critics, but the agreement had made it through ministerial and Civil Service scrutiny, and via the Nationality and Borders Act was passed by Parliament. Only the ECHR struck the plan down. The government appealed it, and have taken the scheme to the High Court, where it was recently ruled legal. They are set to try again, in conjunction with their proposed Illegal Migration Bill. Braverman has recently visited the proposed site for the centre, much to the chagrin of opponents to the policy, unleashing a torrent of appalling memes comparing the facility to Auschwitz. For the government, Rwanda has become more about their political reputation with their base than the issue itself. Nevertheless, it will probably never happen while we are in the ECHR. The chances are no flights will ever leave, especially if Braverman (who ‘dreamed’ of these flights) is dispatched by the establishment as Truss was. This will probably continue until the next General Election, when whichever party that wins will ditch the policy entirely.

We should not give up on the idea in principle, however. We should consider other locations and other opportunities for deals, and especially consider remote British territories. Once again, though, we must be sure the accusations levelled against Australia cannot be made against us. We owe it to our own honour to keep such standards, and of course, any lapse will be used as devastating propaganda.

Quite how the ECHR arrived at its decision last year has not been adequately explained. The judge who made the intervention has remained nameless. The nub of the argument, as far as I can make out, is that shifting the responsibility of care to Rwanda would mean that the human rights of the asylum seekers would be at risk. Rwanda is not a member of the Council of Europe, but has been a signatory of the UN Convention since 1980. Why should this mean it is a violator of rights? Australia and the USA are also not Council of Europe members but are humane countries. Rwanda has also recently joined the Commonwealth. It has by many accounts come on leaps and bounds since the brutal civil war which has been informing the opinions of its detractors. Twenty-nine years ago did indeed see the violent conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis, with many atrocities committed, in particular the Rwandan Genocide perpetrated by Hutus against (mainly) Tutsis. The current President, Paul Kagame, was involved in the war and commanded the Tutsi side during the time of the genocide. Kagame’s government still doesn’t have a spotless reputation, with some allegations of rights breaches, but it seems rather unfair to let this cloud judgement of the country. None of the asylum seekers being sent there would be Hutu or Tutsi, so would be unlikely to attract the animosity of Rwandans. This ‘acceptable bigotry’ of the left ignores the economic and social progress made in Rwanda. It also presupposes the Rwandans would not honour an agreement which presumably came with strong demands from our government to treat the claimants humanely.   

There is nothing within the European Convention or the UN Refugee Convention which says a nation cannot process or shelter asylum seekers in another country, or send them to live in another nation. Provided that country is deemed to be safe, it is allowed. If we had decided to sign a deal and send them to a nation within the Council of Europe, would that be acceptable? If we had sent them to another non-Council nation other than Rwanda with no scary genocide connotations, would that have been OK? The opponents to the scheme (who are often opponents to border control entirely) claim that the very act of offshoring has been deemed illegal by the ECHR’s decisions. They might be correct that future rejections are a foregone conclusion, because the court simply doesn’t want offshoring to happen; but again, there is nothing to say offshoring can’t be done. Therefore we should not abandon the notion.

A policy of towing boats back is more difficult. Indonesia is 2000 miles away from Australia, so anyone intercepted would not find it so easy to make another attempt. In our situation it is only 21 miles to France. They could try again the next day, and repeat until they succeeded. France would have to give permission, which they would be unlikely to do – certainly without (more) considerable payment. If we did it without permission it could jeopardise other cooperation with the French. If any fatal accidents were to happen while we were towing them, or any zealous decisions were made allowing dangerous boats to be towed, publicity would be dreadful and the ECHR would intervene. We could only pursue this policy outside of the ECHR.

If we simply had to repel people on a land border, we could perhaps get away with it. Indeed member states of both the Council of Europe and the EU have just lined up personnel along the border and pushed back anyone trying to come in. Poland did it in 2021 when Belarus flew asylum seekers to their Polish border to use them as human weapons. Hungary, Bulgaria and Balkan states did it during the 2015 ‘Merkel madness’. The Spanish are often filmed shoving uninvited guests back into the sea or defending the small land border between Spanish enclaves and Morocco. Hungary still defends its border rigorously, with the result that only 38 asylum claims were made in the country in 2021. When the EU tried to push a quota on member states in 2015, Hungary was asked to take 1,294. Viktor Orban called a referendum on the matter, which saw over 98% reject the proposal. Large sturdy fences topped with razor wire were put up along the borders with Serbia and then Croatia from June 2015 (a temporary one was on the Slovenian border). These are defended by police, sometimes using tear gas and batons. After construction the effect was plain to see. Asylum seekers entering the country dropped from 99,497 in October 2015 to 315 in November and the numbers have never risen above 4,000 since.  

Hungary is often criticised for this, not least because it is not showing solidarity with fellow EU states. You might say Hungary is rather authoritarian about protecting not just its borders but its culture, partly because it was invaded and repressed by the Soviets in the Cold War. But are we at the stage where Mr Orban’s approach on this is becoming vindicated? Perhaps we in this country are too meek where our increasingly besieged heritage is concerned. Criticism aside, Hungary has never been thrown out of the EU, the ECHR or the UN. None of the EU members have been. This shows where there can be leeway for anyone willing to test the boundaries (literally).

Fans of the EU conveniently overlook the fact the bloc (along with the UK) has been ‘offshoring’ asylum seekers for decades – namely by paying outside countries such as Libya and Turkey to detain people or stop them crossing the border. In recent years the EU, in conjunction with the UN, have moved 3,000 African asylum seekers from Libya to Niger. The EU fans also overlook how ‘Freedom of Movement’ suddenly ceased to be an important principle during 2015, and up came the fences and paperwork checks across the Schengen zone. There is quite a lot of hypocrisy abounding. As usual to the Remain intelligentsia, if Britain asserts itself, or even expresses a desire to want to, it is because we’re crude bullies lacking in continental sophistication.

Offshoring is not the only thing we can do, and nor should it be. There are plenty of fundamental policies we should employ, most of which do not even require disobeying or leaving the Council of Europe. As mentioned earlier, we should consider negotiating bilateral returns policies with other countries, to try and replace the Dublin Agreement – which although ineffective was part of our arsenal, and a psychological deterrent. Perhaps we can even improve on it. Of course, we must bear in mind that under these schemes we’d have to accept some claimants from other countries.

We have to bolster the existing border infrastructure with some good old fashioned public spending. Security does not come cheap. We need to build secure detention centres in suitable areas. Asylum claimants must stay there while assessed. As we saw earlier, there is nothing in the current rules against it, so long as their claim is being processed at the time. This is what we would be doing anyway – or at least we’d put them in a residential facility – but the vast numbers have meant the use of thousands of hotels. Building such centres will be expensive, but as we discussed, the hotels are also costing a huge amount – all that money pocketed by hotel owners and private sector contractors Serco, Mears Group and Clearsprings Ready Homes. Staff are being fired before the contractors move in. Guests are having their reservations cancelled. Local residents are feeling intimidated and concerned, especially young women and their parents. This policy is affecting local economies and breeding contempt. It must not continue.

Locals might be opposed to processing facilities in their neighbourhoods, but the point is the inhabitants would be kept securely. I’m typically what you might call a ‘NIMBY’, but there must be ex-industrial or unused government property that can be adapted. It is also essential for public safety, not just a meal-ticket for developers as many construction projects are. Such centres could also provide work for local people, and perhaps their establishment could be the subject of local referendums, with council tax and business rate rebates if residents vote for them.  

Recent suggestions from the government have been using old military bases or large ships or barges moored offshore. The latter was attempted briefly in the 1980s until an incident where the ship slipped it moorings and floated away, without anyone harmed. These are both workable – but again, secure detention is vital wherever the facility is.

The importance of detention is underlined not just by crimes and antisocial behaviour perpetrated by some asylum seekers, but also by the disappearance of 391 children (under 18s) from insecure hotel accommodation. Some of them may have fled from the authorities, but some will undoubtedly have fallen into the hands of abusers. If those children had been securely detained in a centre, this would not have happened. Those on the pro-asylum side obviously make a lot of this situation – and they have a point. Many of us are accused of not caring about the missing children, but of course we care. No child should be at risk under our watch and it’s just another level on which this whole mess has been mismanaged. Another failure which detention would address is the fact that some asylum seekers have been tagged rather than detained, and have been simply cutting the tags off to avoid monitoring. 65% of tagged individuals have done this.  

As well as building detention centres, we must also have a recruitment drive for more Border Force and Home Office personnel, and the former could be drawn from veterans of our armed forces, many of whom see a lot of hardship after serving, including homelessness. Training schemes for unemployed and young people could also bring workers into the sector. We need to step up the physical patrols of our waters and beaches. At the moment there are only five Border Force vessels, with three operating away from the Channel. The government did have a phase of putting the military in overall charge of the Channel operation and using personnel on the ground. This was often scoffed at, but it does make sense, and would certainly appear more serious than a few fluorescent-jacketed police officers handing out silver blankets. What else is our military for but defending our borders? Military spending in general, cut to the bare bones by previous governments, needs to be increased. Of course, we’d have to enforce strict rules for our forces handling asylum claimants, and they should not be armed (although armed response teams should be on standby if needed). Our intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, need to wage war against the smuggling gangs, and work to shut them down wherever they can.

In our collaboration with the French, we need to address why asylum seekers are allowed to cross France in the first place. We should work out between us how we can stop them from entering France. Perhaps we could co-fund detention centres on the French border (not the Calais side) – or even work together to negotiate offshoring schemes. The government has already announced we will be co-funding one centre. Our intelligence services (and France is world class in this department) also need to collaborate on taking on the smuggling gangs. It’s fair enough to be cynical about the motivations of the French, but we have to try and make common cause. Broadly we should work with as many EU countries as we can. This problem affects us all, and any differences arising from Brexit have to be put aside. If we can encourage robust defence of borders across the continent, the potentially dreadful problems of the future can be avoided.

A peculiarity of our system is that even when someone is denied asylum, they can manage to stay on in the country as a ‘failed asylum seeker’. Some go on to commit violent crimes. An example of this is the Iranian, Shahin Darvish-Narenjbon, who stabbed an 87 year old woman who had taken him into her North Yorkshire home. Another example is Eltiona Skana, an Albanian asylum seeker whose claim had been refused. However, she appealed this and was given leave to remain. Two years later in a Bolton park, Skana stabbed a seven year old girl, Rachel Jones, to death in an unprovoked attack. Oddly this outrage did not have as much media interest as one might have thought. Yet another instance is the 2020 death of Lorraine Cox in Exeter. Azam Mangori, an Iraqi, had been denied asylum in 2018 - yet two years later he was still in the country and able to lure Cox back to his room, give her a fatal drug, then dismember her body and dump it around the city. Egyptian Hani Khalaf, who had been denied asylum (applied for using a fake name) beat a man to death in Hyde Park. One of the 2017 London Bridge terrorists, Rachid Redouane, was also a failed asylum seeker. The Libyan (or is it Moroccan?) had his asylum claim denied nearly a decade prior to taking part in the notorious slaughter in and around Borough Market.

It’s not always clear how ‘failed’ asylum seekers have managed to stay around. Sometimes it is just incompetence, where the individual has escaped the attention of the authorities. Other times it is because we don’t know where to deport them to, because they have destroyed their ID. It can be because of a legal appeal (as with Skana) or because the ECHR and domestic human rights legislation has ruled out deportation, as the individual might be harmed or persecuted as a result. In a Kafkaesque twist, the basis for granting asylum is used to justify the continuing presence of someone who has been found not to qualify for asylum. In this instance we should be within our rights to unilaterally deport, and we must resolve simply to do so.

For more examples of the potential for so called ‘asylum seekers’ to commit violence, we can look at the recent case of Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, who stabbed a 21 year old British student to death in Bournemouth. The Afghan ‘refugee’ had murdered two people in Serbia, been refused entry by Norway and was pretending to be 16 years old (he was really 21). Another Bournemouth attack occurred when Iraqi asylum claimant Rebaz Mohammed stabbed an 18 year old in the back, puncturing the young man’s lung, simply because he was ‘bored’ and wanted to get deported home. Quite why he couldn’t just renounce his claim is a mystery – and testifies to the perversity of the individual. He had already been convicted of assault, criminal damage and racial harassment, and should not have been here. The 2020 Reading terror attack was also carried out by a ‘refugee’. A Libyan ex-militant, Khairi Saadallah, stabbed three gay men to death in a park, and seriously injured three others. The Liverpool hospital bomber, Emad al-Swealman, was a Jordanian posing as a Syrian refugee. Fortunately all he managed to blow up was a taxi and himself, and not the maternity ward.

Violent offenders will of course comprise a low proportion of asylum seekers/refugees – just as they make up a low proportion of the UK population. Nevertheless, there are an awful lot of these incidents. The difference is, of course, there is no way of deporting British citizens, and no easy way of vetting them before they offend. For migrants, especially those entering in an irregular way from troubled regions, there is no such excuse. There should certainly be no excuse for letting them stay once they have killed or harmed our citizens.  

A common point the other side of this debate keeps making is that there are no ‘safe legal routes’ for asylum seekers. This is broadly, although not technically, true. It’s possible to claim asylum in any embassy around the world, although it is not encouraged and an individual might not be granted it. An example would be Donald Woods, the South African journalist who broke the Steve Biko scandal in 1978. He claimed asylum in the British High Commission (effectively an embassy) in Lesotho, and from there was flown to London. Another instance was Julian Assange, who was granted asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for seven years, although was eventually given up by Ecuador after (so they say) breaching the terms of his asylum.

For ‘refugees’ from Syria, the UK goes to the refugee camps in the region, selects individuals (presumably clear cut cases or vulnerable people) and flies them here. ‘Refugees’ from Afghanistan – mainly those who had helped the British military – were flown to the UK during and after the fall of Kabul. 21,450 were given shelter in this manner. Ukrainian people are allowed to apply for refugee visas in hubs in Poland and elsewhere, and are then flown to the UK. There was initial outcry following the Russian invasion that it wasn’t possible for Ukrainians to do this, so the government allowed it. Before 10^th Jan 2023, the number of refugee visas issued to Ukrainians numbered 212,600. We have also been allowing citizens of Hong Kong, albeit ones who have ‘overseas British national’ status, to escape the authoritarian clutches of the Chinese Communists and move here. 153,708 have been resettled so far. For everywhere else, though, it is perfectly true that there is no way of remotely applying. Again, we have to accept this and not be ambushed by ‘ackchurleys’.

Whether or not it would be a good idea to remedy the situation is another matter. In one sense it would mean there was no excuse for anybody to be making the crossing. If there was a legitimate and accessible way to apply, this would make it easier to justify deporting those who did not. On the other hand, many would apply who were not genuine, and we would have the same problems verifying their claims as we do now. We would also be bound by the same legal obligation to allow them in. What’s more it would be an illuminated sign for all to see saying ‘Britain is open’. It might even encourage more people to make the crossing – just as illegal immigration amnesties or drug legalisation can have the reverse affect. The fact a huge amount of criminal money is involved in people smuggling might mean the problem would not go away. The average cost of an individual migrant crossing is thought to be £4000, and it can be as high as £13,000. It is believed each boat can raise the criminals up to £350,000.

Without widely trying remote application, with all the risk that entails, it’s impossible to know how it would work out. There might be a case for allowing a limited amount of application centres, in British embassies in and around war-torn areas, or allowing online applications if people meet certain criteria. However, having one in every country in the world would be a step too far, and certainly while the numbers of claimants are so high it is not a viable proposal.

It would perhaps be a good idea to increase the selection of genuine refugees in the camps around Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. There could be a capped amount each year. Alongside her proposals to stop the crossings, Braverman has said she will do this – something her critics of course overlook. Priority should be given to women, children and vulnerable people. Indeed, one of the reasons the public is more accepting of Ukrainian asylum claimants is that they are usually women, children and elderly men, because Zelensky has insisted on men under 60 staying to fight the Russian invaders. There is also a sense Ukrainians might return home (although of course some won’t).  Once again, we are not devoid of compassion. We just believe in fair play, and we have to realise there is only so much one country can do. Our compassion has to be practical.

We could also help fund the existing refugee camps to make them more humane and better policed, so that international selections of genuine refugees can happen. In the case of the ISIS campaigns in Syria and Iraq, I often advocated the West setting up buffer zones so that fleeing people could be protected from ISIS and (in Syria) Assad’s forces, and they would not actually need to seek asylum elsewhere. The Russian involvement in Syria complicated that, of course, although it could still be done in agreement with them, or in future conflicts. Another common notion is that if we improved conditions in the developing world, the need for people to seek ‘asylum’ would be much decreased. This is a fair point, although it would not stop it entirely - people always try to improve their lot, and even if there was world peace and relative prosperity, there would still be inequality and borders. Thus there would always be people looking to breach those borders (by falsely claiming asylum) in search of a better life. Helping the developing world to progress with trade and constructive assistance is a worthy endeavour in itself, and should be done, but it is not necessarily relevant to this discussion. Neither is the line ‘well stop bombing their countries, then’. As we have seen, many ‘refugees’ are not coming from countries the West have militarily targeted in recent years. Also, non-Western societies are more than capable of fighting each other without our help. Another standard view is we deserve the crisis because of ‘colonialism’ and should just put up with it. Why should British people pay for something that finally ended 70 years ago, a (much misunderstood) project mounted by our long dead ancestors? If there had not been European colonialism, these migrants might still be coming anyway.

Another common line of the other side, and the lynch pin of Labour’s argument, is that the asylum claims are not being processed faster. Again, there is truth in this. There are stories of claimants waiting for years for a decision. It was bad enough when the numbers were relatively manageable. Now the backlog is gargantuan. Only 4% of 2021 arrivals had a decision made on their case by the end of 2022. Between Q1 2019 and Q3 2022 the number of applications rose by 273% while the backlog rose by 400%. In 2015, 90% of applications were processed within six months. In 2018 it was down to 25%. The target for six month turnarounds was scrapped in 2019, probably because the government realised it was a tall order. The average time for a decision in the UK is now 15.5 months, comparing poorly with Germany (6.5) and France (8.5).

The government has taken efforts to recruit more caseworkers to work on applications. Between 2021 and 2022 there were 600 caseworkers. The government set a target of 2,500 by September 2023, but for some reason that has since been scrapped.

We do need to speed up significantly, but not so much that scrutiny is put aside (if indeed the scrutiny was that great to start off with). That is the nagging doubt with Labour’s policy of ‘just process the applications faster’, which up until recently appeared to be the only policy they had on the issue. As with the idea of ‘safe routes’ the notion might be more appealing if the public had more confidence in the procedures themselves. Do these people getting asylum actually need asylum? Is security paramount? Do the authorities care? If the answer is no, making the asylum process easier and quicker seems like the opposite of a solution.

The Conservatives also do not inspire confidence when they come out with certain policies. Recently they announced they would be allowing 20,000 asylum seekers to make their claims by filling in forms, and not have the previously required face-to-face interviews. In a world of international terrorism, in a climate of rising violent crime and grooming gangs, this is an abdication of responsibility in the name of making the government’s numbers look better. When they weaken themselves with policies like that, their wider ‘tough’ stances on immigration do not stand a chance.  

Nevertheless, if we assume things will be done properly, and more claims will be rejected than approved, it stands to reason that upping the pace of processing claims is essential. To do it, we do not need timesaving brainwaves – we need more staff. Again, we have to invest in the border infrastructure. Security is essential, and the public will support money being spent on it. This is another way in which the Tories let themselves down, as they do with most public services. They are simply not prepared to fund things - or at least basic things, rather than silly new initiatives or quangos (often benefitting their friends). The Tories are economically flawed, and Labour is ideologically flawed. Neither party is to be trusted.

While we’re at it, the Conservatives have lost their credibility on immigration. A big part of the Brexit vote was a desire to bring down immigration levels. Half our immigration was coming from the EU, and in theory it could be unlimited from there. We voted to stop that unlimited source and thus get immigration to manageable levels. What happened instead was an increase from outside the bloc we’d just departed. We ended up with 500,000 net immigration in 2022. Since Cameron the Tories have been promising they would get the numbers down to tens of thousands, and every time it has significantly increased. So how can we really trust them on the asylum crisis?

Another cause for concern is the Group 1 and Group 2 system. When asylum seekers are deemed refugees, they are now (following the Nationality and Borders Act) given either Group 1 or Group 2 Refugee Status. Group 1 means they have met the ‘coming directly’ and ‘without delay’ criteria of the UN Convention. They are given leave to remain for five years, after which they can apply for residency. Group 2 means because they haven’t met the UN criteria, they are only granted 2.5 years, and they have to wait for 10 years to apply for residency. Really, the presence of Group 2 seems inconsistent with the tough stance on ‘coming directly’ and ‘without delay’. Not doing these things will just get you marked down and have to stay in a free hotel longer.   

That said, it would be wise for the Tories to fight the next election on the issue – because among other issues such as trans self-ID, it is a weak point for Labour. However, they are on shaky ground because they’ve messed it up so far, along with the funding and wider immigration as mentioned above. They must first make some progress on it, or voters will consider it hot air and not be keen on voting for them. Worse still, the ever shapeshifting Starmer might make the issue his own, and the public may be suckered in.

Let us look to the continentals once more. Perhaps they are more sophisticated than us. Germany has rowed back on its previous generosity by limiting refugee residency permits to three years. If the situation in their countries is deemed safe, the permits will not be renewed and the people will (apparently) be repatriated. Merkel also responded to allegations that some asylum seekers are returning home for holidays by saying this would void their claims. Social Democrat-led Denmark has begun to remove resident permits from Syrian refugees, deeming the country safe now. It has announced a ‘zero-refugee’ target. It also planned to offshore process asylum claimants and passed a law allowing for offshoring in 2021. Following the UK’s example, Denmark also came to an arrangement with Rwanda. In January, however, the recently re-elected Social Democrats put the idea on ice. They announced instead that they would work with the EU and other countries to establish ‘reception centres’ outside of Europe. If the EU indeed do such a thing, once again watch the Rejoiners who spend their time bemoaning nasty Britain conveniently ignore it.

Denmark cut benefits for asylum claimants by 50%, and does not allow refugees’ families to join them for three years. Most controversially, in 2016 it allowed the seizure of assets over £1,000 to pay for an asylum seeker’s upkeep. Both Germany and Denmark have become a lot more focused on the integration of migrants, including asylum seekers and refugees. Non-Western migrant children are required to learn German and Danish respectively. Since 2018 Denmark has also sought to stop ‘ghetto’ areas – with high non-Western populations and high crime rates - from forming. Migrants with criminal records are not allowed social housing in certain areas.

We could use all of these policies, and indeed they could make a real difference. Danish asylum claims have now dropped significantly, likely as a result of its measures. Around 1,500 applications were made in 2020, compared to over 21,000 in 2015 (it was 2,255 in pre-Covid 2019). In Germany meanwhile asylum claims hit 745,545 in 2015. In 2022 it was 244,132.

Israel have already been sending people to Rwanda. This was done on a ‘voluntary’ basis, whereby they had a choice of deportation, imprisonment, or £2,700 and a plane ticket to the African nation. The scheme supposedly saw 30% of asylum seekers leave Israel.

Another thing we could do to address the situation is work with peaceful countries like Albania to repatriate failed asylum seekers, and to make sure bogus asylum seekers do not come here in the first place. Some efforts have been made in this, but the results remain to be seen. If we can’t get such countries to cooperate, we should sanction them in some way. We should also pressure wealthy Middle Eastern states to take in more refugees, and incentivise the less wealthy ones. Partly because they are not signatories of the UN Convention, the rich Arab countries took in hardly any Syrians or Iraqis at all during the crisis from 2014 onwards. They are still not taking in many, with the exception of Jordan. These refugees would be much more compatible with such countries, with shared religion (denominations apply) and sometimes culture and language. Perhaps these countries should sign up to the international framework we are expected to be bound by.

Let’s look into the benefits asylum seekers receive. On top of hotel rooms, sometimes expensive ones, and food, they get £45 spending money a week, which is loaded onto a debit card. If they get accepted as refugees, they become eligible for benefits, although they cannot get a work visa for some time. £45 is not a lot, but when their other needs are taken care of, it is fairly generous. Also remember how much £45 is worth compared to weaker world currencies. We could cut that payment – assuming they are being properly fed and are given toiletries. That would be less of a pull factor. Many on the other side – and even centre-right libertarians – say we should allow them to work while their claim is being assessed. That would be even more of a draw, so we must not do that. It might well occupy them and keep them ‘out of trouble’, as it were, but we can’t send that signal. That’s not to mention the security risk it might involve, if someone is working with food, vulnerable people or children, for instance.

Eventually, we might need to tackle the global asylum situation with global action. A single international body, comprised of ministers from every member country, could regulate the process, vet applicants and share out manageable amounts of genuine refugees between those countries. The members could do their own vetting following this, and be able to reject individuals if they don’t pass, or if they cause trouble once taken in. Asylum claimants could have to sign a contract which means they have to accept wherever they get sent (obviously not the country they’re fleeing). It could be voluntary to join and involve economic incentives, especially for poorer countries, for taking people in. The problem is these bodies tend not to be accountable to the electorates of the participating states. If it were directly accountable, it would possibly be rejected to begin with. It might not be desirable to bind ourselves to such a venture, especially as we have multiple entanglements already. However, the world needs to have a way of making the situation fair – and not hostage to the whims of the asylum claimants themselves. Obviously the Northern European countries bear the brunt of their attentions, which is not right. Even though we are (currently) wealthy nations, we are all having economic problems, and our social fabric is being greatly damaged. Anything that prevents this should surely be considered.     

Going Forward

Many will read this article and conclude (if they hadn’t decided already) that I, and those on our side of the asylum argument, are heartless. We are not heartless. In a perfect world anyone from oppressive, dangerous or war-ravaged surroundings should be able to escape, at least temporarily, for shelter. But this is the real world. People lie to further their interests. They try to exploit our kindness, or as they may see it, our weakness. We cannot let this happen simply to placate our consciences. We have our own future, our quality of life, safety and culture to consider. There is also only so much our country can do. Why should it fall to us? Why should our leaders decide it so, without even asking us?

The majority of the British public, I believe, want firmness in border policy. They do not want cruelty. They want to see small, manageable numbers of deserving refugees taken in and helped, so long as they are vetted and monitored, and are deported if they do us harm. The good will towards Ukrainian refugees, with tens of thousands taken into peoples’ homes via the subsidised government scheme, demonstrates this. Some assert there is a racial element here – I would argue it is instead a cultural element, and a trust in their authenticity because their country is clearly at war and they were flown over directly from it. These current numbers coming across the Channel without permission, however, are unacceptable to much of the public. There are clearly many bogus asylum claimants among them. Even for those deemed real, the British people do not necessarily trust the government’s criteria for granting them asylum. A level of transparency, case by case, would help in this. We do not want our altruism and hospitality to be taken advantage of, and with these huge numbers there is an ever increasing risk of that.

The situation is so severe that we cannot tackle it as we used to tackle it. We have to take special measures thought drastic or disproportionate in the past, when a few people in lorries was all we had to contend with. That doesn’t mean going ‘1930s Germany’, as some misinformed commentators would have it. It means, firm, precise yet reasonable action within the law. Detaining claimants while their cases are examined, offshore processing and settling, and thorough scrutiny of claims are all within the law, national or international. So are removing perks and limiting residency permits. The UK needn’t leave the ECHR to do such things, but we have to assert ourselves in the organisation. If we truly cannot take these measures for our own protection we should consider leaving it, perhaps after a departure is pledged in a winning manifesto or decided by referendum.

What these policies will require is not just resolve to ride out the criticism, but physical infrastructure paid for with hard cash. We need to build detention centres, hire Border Force and Home Office personnel, buy patrol boats, and bolster our police, military and intelligence services. We have to push the productivity of these organisations, and make them step up to the scale of the problem. Any senior staff dragging their heels and not meeting (reasonably ambitious) interception or processing targets should be moved or demoted. We have to be open-minded to new initiatives and cooperation with other countries. This might mean swallowing our pride at times, and accepting that we can’t do everything on our own. Our nationalism – if that’s what it is - should extend to show solidarity with ordinary, working people around Europe and elsewhere, who are also put at risk and angered by this situation. Europe has to stick together, even if not in a formal political union.

While highlighting the severity of the Channel Crisis, our side of the argument needs to appreciate the current legal framework and intelligently engage with it. We need to work out the pitfalls of our lines of debate and how our opponents think. That way, we can steer public opinion, and thus politicians, towards backing decisive and effective action. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we must get a grip of this.