Since joining the Kent and Surrey Bylines team, I have written several times about what made my family into refugees, about the experience of being a child refugee, and also about the fact that anybody can be put into the dangerous situation where you must seek sanctuary away from your home country.
The UK allows in very few refugees
According to the Refugee Council UK, by the end of 2021, there 27.1 million refugees “forcibly displaced” – the UK is only home to approximately 1% of these.
The top ten countries with the highest amount of refugees fleeing from them all have poor human rights records, or on-going conflict. People seeking asylum are fleeing from these conflicts and abuses, looking for safety.
No ‘illegal’ refugees
There is no such thing as an “illegal” person seeking asylum. Under international law, anyone has the right to apply for asylum in any country that has signed the 1951 UN Convention, like the UK.
They can remain there until the authorities have assessed their claim. It is recognised in the Convention that people fleeing persecution may have to use irregular means in order to escape and claim asylum in another country – there is no illegal way to travel to the UK for the specific purpose of seeking asylum.
It is therefore incorrect to call refugees “illegal migrants”. The government must clarify the difference between economic migrants who come to work and need a visa, and asylum seekers.
Britons living in Spain, for example, so-called expats are migrants.
Being a migrant in the UK
All my life, I have benefited from white privilege and a society which allowed me to integrate well enough so that I felt I belonged.
Sadly, the last ten years have made the situation for refugees and migrants a lot tougher. When I speak English, my third and non-native language, I have an accent which makes it evident that I wasn’t born in England. During one of my dog walks in the park opposite my house, an angry old man shouted at me to tell me to go home to where I came from. That astonished me, as I had thought that the house opposite the park was my home.
Reform is needed – but not that kind
Small boat arrivals so far this year are close to 40,000. Asylum appeals have escalated from around 7,500 in the first quarter of 2023, to over 50,000 in the first quarter of 2025. In large part due to the exorbitant cost of hotel accommodation, the cost of the system has spiralled to £4.76 billion.
However, these costs are due to the long application process, and would be made cheaper by speeding it up and making it easier. The cost is not due to claimed ‘lavish’ conditions in migrant hotels – in fact, most people seeking asylum are only entitled to £7 a day to cover food, travel, clothing, and communications, and many have reported overcrowding of up to 6 families to a room, and inedible food.
And, in 2023, 84% of people seeking asylum in the UK did not always have enough money to buy food.
The new UK asylum policy
Taking inspiration from Denmark’s asylum policy of 2019, which aimed to signal that refugees are not welcome in the country, the UK Home Office has just announced its new asylum policy.
The supposed aim of these reforms is to deter refugees taking small boats to the UK. It is meant to introduce fairness and contribution into the asylum system. In reality, the Home Secretary’s proposals are clearly wrong and immoral, and they are likely to fuel further division. Labour’s “brutal asylum reforms” could see ICE-style raids on British streets, and risk the loss of up to 50,000 nurses.
Denmark’s policy has been a clear failure: of around 30,000 Syrians in Denmark, only a few hundred have had their protection status revoked, and no-one has been forcibly returned.
In fact, there is remarkably little evidence that policies relating to access to welfare support or permanent residence have any impact on asylum seeker choices..
Amongst the list of harmful immigration policies proposed are plans to
- Limit asylum seekers to temporary stays with applications reviewed every two and a half years. Asylum will not be renewed if the Home Office considers that people no longer need protection.
- Ramp up deportations by overriding the ECHR’s human rights protections. These proposals have been slammed by Amnesty as being “divisive and cruel”.
- Seize asylum seekers’ assets (although clarified that property of emotional value would be excluded). This policy is eerily reminiscent of German policies of expropriation of Jewish assets.
- Migrants have to wait longer before being able to apply for settled status, in some cases waiting up to 20 years. The policy of a lengthy path to settlement – completely out of line with most of our counterparts – creates a near-perpetual state of insecurity.
- Prevent migrants from claiming benefits until they become UK citizens.
Spain’s better approach to migration
According to the Spanish press, Spain is addressing its migrant crisis by combining a focus on:
- Humanitarian measures, particularly for unaccompanied minors in the overwhelmed Canary Islands.
- Economic policies aimed at legalizing and integrating undocumented immigrants to combat labour shortages.
The government has plans to legalize up to 900,000 undocumented workers to boost its workforce. This is a strategy supported by the Spanish central bank which projects a large need for immigrants over the next 30 years.
Of course, the situation is complex, and the socialist government has to address public concerns voiced by right-wing groups over immigration adding to the challenges of the rising cost of living.
Despite being a divisive issue, more than half of Spaniards agree that immigration is vital for economic growth, particularly in booming sectors like construction.
Spain even has plans for a comprehensive welcome system for minors and pregnant women, and an integration program with basic language and professional training for sub-Saharan immigrants who cannot be expelled. The government has even committed to providing legal aid to ensure the rights of sub-Saharan immigrants are respected.
To counter people traffickers from taking advantage of vulnerable refugees, Spain is signing agreements with African countries to facilitate legal migration. They are also easing regulations for foreign students to obtain work visas, and extending the duration of temporary stays.
A better managed asylum system in the UK
There is a way to a better-managed immigration and asylum system underpinned by fairness and contribution.
The core thing to understand about these crack-down policies is that they will not work. They are not as severe as the previous Conservative government’s Rwanda plan, or its refusal to process asylum claims at all, but even that did not deter any arrivals of small boats.
A number of Labour MPs have openly condemned the plans. Should Labour not look instead at social care, prisons, hospitals, or all the other things which they seem to have forgotten about, due to this poisonous obsession with migration?
There are some UK proposals which might lead to improvements for refugees: opening up new safe routes, including a revamped community sponsorship scheme, like for Ukrainian refugees, for example.
There will be a small trial to start with, but at least the government has acknowledged that safe routes can help to incentivise people away from dangerous crossings.
Refugees have no choices
My personal experience is that nobody chooses to uproot one’s family if one sees another way out of a desperate situation. My family was lucky that we were welcomed in 1956, when countries everywhere were still struggling to recover from WWII, and we were supported in our attempt at a new life.
My parents found work fairly quickly, and us children attended school, then later University, and integrated to the best of our ability first into Austrian, then German, and finally into British society.
It was relatively easy for us, a white, Christian, middle-class family. But it was still traumatic to leave our families and friends behind facing an uncertain future in a foreign country, where people spoke another language and had different life experiences from us.
People forced to leave their lives, homes, and cultures behind should be treated with empathy, not hatred.
