The British asylum system is fake. It’s fake because there’s a ‘shadow industry of law firms and advisers… charging thousands of pounds’ to produce fake asylum claims – and the true scale of the problem is vast. It is also a problem which is well known to those within the system, with identical claims being submitted by hundreds of different people.
Vast amounts of time and money are spent determining the asylum claims of people who, whatever happens, will be allowed to stay in Britain
Another way the system is fake, we’ve learned this week, is the removals system. According to data obtained by the Daily Express, between 2018 and 2025 some 96,002 Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis and Eritreans entered the UK via small boats before claiming asylum. These represent almost half of all small boat migrants since 2018. Essentially none of them have been deported. In the last seven years, of those 96,002, a mere 495 (0.5 per cent of the total) have been sent home. This includes just 55 to Syria, and 16 to Afghanistan. This means 99.9 per cent of all Afghans who claimed asylum between 2018 and 2025 are still here.
This is one of the great lies at the heart of the system. Vast amounts of time and money are spent determining the asylum claims of people who, whatever happens, will be allowed to stay in Britain. After their arrival, each Afghan will attend a ‘screening interview’ before being transferred to a hotel, HMO or former military base. Under the last government I understand that they would often wait over a year before having their claim assessed in a full interview, although I understand this has now been significantly reduced. When I asked the Home Office they couldn’t provide a specific number, but did tell me that ‘the backlog for decisions is down by half – down from 63 per cent from its peak in 2023’.
Having lived at our expense for many months, Afghans will then attend a lengthy interview to establish whether their claim is valid. If the asylum decision maker approves that claim, then they’re granted asylum. If not, a succession of appeals, again at our expense, using legal aid funded lawyers, will take place. Often these Afghan asylum claimants manage to convince judges they should be allowed to stay. But if they aren’t, what then?
When appeals have been tried and lost, all options exhausted, vast amounts of British taxpayers’ money spent on the decision. Well then, as we’ve now learned, they get to stay here anyway. If we are never going to deport anyone from Afghanistan, then why bother with the charade? We might as well just grant them asylum the moment they get off the boats. Of course that would be politically suicidal, so politicians carry on with the pretence that we have an asylum system for Afghans, which makes decisions. The entire system is fake.
How to fix it? People often point at the ECHR, suggesting that we are bound by its rules from returning Afghans to a state run by the Taliban. While there are many good reasons to leave the ECHR, this is not one of them. Indeed, Germany, very much a signed-up supporter of the ECHR, takes a very different approach. Despite the German government not even officially recognising the Taliban, last summer they allowed two of their envoys to enter the country in order to facilitate deportations of Afghans. They went further in December, telling hundreds of Afghans who had previously been promised German sanctuary that they were no longer welcome, despite many having worked for the German military during the Western occupation of Afghanistan. There are now weekly deportation flights from Germany to Afghanistan, and young men from Afghanistan are rarely granted asylum. As a result of this, and other tough policies including turning asylum seekers back at the border, Germany has seen asylum applications fall by 38 per cent compared with last year.
So it’s not the ECHR. It’s a choice. It’s always been a choice. Successive British governments have chosen to run a fake asylum system, because they don’t want to secure our borders, and don’t want to deport people who should not be here. Perhaps they’re squeamish, perhaps they’re cowards, perhaps they worry for how they’ll be treated at dinner parties or the school gates. It doesn’t really matter.
All that matters is that British politicians have the power to bring this disaster to an end. All the spending, all the crimes, all the waste – it could all be over, if only we had a government, and a parliament willing to act. Instead, all we have is a fake asylum system, and fake policies to fix it. We can but hope the next general election returns a government which puts the people of this country first. Until then, waves of migrants will continue to cross the Channel and claim asylum, seeing us as the soft touch we are.
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