menu_open Columnists
We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

Britain’s Potemkin asylum system

20 0
07.05.2026

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

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........

© The Spectator