Britain’s immigration disaster: new figures

MATT GOODWIN

The number of people claiming asylum in Britain last year reached the highest level since records began, according to shocking new figures released yesterday.

The information, released quietly by the Home Office, not only throws light on the shocking number of asylum-seekers flocking to Britain but the intensifying small boats crisis in the Channel and our ongoing population explosion.

Here’s what I think you need to know and do read it all because some of the numbers toward the end really are completely bananas.

More than 108,000 applied for asylum in Britain last year, which is the largest figure since records began, in 1979, and more than double the number as recently as 2021.

Look at the long-term trend:

This is not only an enormous number but is especially significant given that the vast majority of people who apply for asylum in Britain are allowed to stay.

Of the 84,000 people who received initial decisions on their asylum claims, almost half of them, 47%, were granted protection and allowed to stay in the country. Many more will also be allowed to stay once their claims are processed, too.

You can see the historic trend in the ‘grant rate’ below.

Between 2001 and 2018, Britain’s grant rate was about 29% but since then it’s surged as the institutions have simply allowed more asylum-seekers to stay.

For example, grant rates for asylum-seekers and migrants from Syria are 98%, Sudan 99%, Eritrea 87%, Iran 64%, Afghanistan 53%, and Pakistan 53%.

Last year, we also took large numbers of refugees through ‘safe and legal’ routes, about 80,000 of them.

They include more Ukrainians, taking the total number of Ukrainians that Britain has accepted to 269,000, and more Hong Kongers, taking the total to 177,000.

They also include another 8,000 people from Afghanistan, which takes the total of Afghans who have now been resettled in Britain since 2021 to 32,000.

And it includes another 20,000 people through ‘family reunion’, which increased significantly last year —and includes lots of people from places like Eritrea, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan, among others.

But that’s not all.

The information, released yesterday, reveals a lot more.

Last year, we gave British citizenship to another 269,000 people, which is 30% higher than 2023 and the largest number since records began, in 2005.

Of those who were made British citizens, 209,000 came from outside Europe —with the largest numbers coming from India, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

Last year also saw another 44,000 people arrive who the state likes to call ‘irregular arrivals’ but who normal people call ‘illegal immigrants’.

This number is up 19% on 2023 and includes 37,000 people who arrived on the small boats —which is up 25% on the previous year.

As I said on Question Time to a Labour Minister who claimed the Labour government is solving the small boats crisis, they are lying to you.

The small boats crisis is getting worse, not better.

Who’s coming, exactly? Since 2018, 70% of the people arriving illegally in Britain have been adult men aged 18 and over.

The top nationalities are Afghan, Syrian, Iranian, Vietnamese, and Eritrean. There’s been a particularly sharp rise in people coming from Yemen and Vietnam.

Of the 148,000 people who arrived illegally on the small boats between 2018 and December 2024, 140,000 of them claimed asylum and more than half of those, 55%, were given an initial decision.

And of those, 67% were allowed to stay.

It’s quite the figure.

Two-thirds of the people who have broken our laws by arriving in the country illegally, having already passed through safe countries, were allowed to stay.

And so will many more once their claims are eventually processed.

Meanwhile, between 2018 and 2024, only 3% of people who arrived in Britain by small boats were returned —which is not even 5,000 of them.

A paltry figure.

What does this mean?

It means the numbers are still rising, the borders are still broken, and while Labour is telling you they are ‘removing more people than ever’ the reality is they are allowing the vast majority of people who come to this country, illegally, to stay.

This is why more people are coming —because Britain is offering incentives rather than deterrents. The people who are coming can see what you can see in the data —if you make it to Britain illegally then you have a very good chance of being able to stay, eventually work, and then eventually qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain, in other words stay in the country forever and bring more relatives along.

Also, contrary to what Keir Starmer and the Labour Party said they would do ahead of the last general election, the number of asylum-seekers being housed in hotels, we also learned yesterday, has increased by more than 8,000 since the election.

Senior civil servants have now conceded that the state will continue to house asylum-seekers in hotels for the next four years, at a considerable cost to British taxpayers.

Yesterday, we learned that 40,000 illegal migrants and asylum-seekers were being housed in hotels at the end of last year —an increase of nearly 30% on the month before the 2024 election, when Labour took office.

So, overall, what does this mean?

It means that last year Britain issued another 900,000 visas to people who coming to work, study, or join family members, while also receiving more asylum applications than at any other point in recent history and approving large numbers of them.

It means there is no evidence whatsoever that the small boats crisis is being resolved, or that the Labour government is fixing our broken borders.

On the contrary, what information we received yesterday suggests Labour is just making it worse —as I said they would before they even came to power.

And it means that, once again, as Britain’s population explosion continues to unfold and the country continues to be completely transformed, most visibly by record rates of migration from outside Europe, a lot of people out there will be very confused.

Because as I said on X, while our leaders remain firmly committed to the extreme policy of mass uncontrolled immigration the reality is that nobody in this country ever voted for what is now taking place or want what they see around them.

The only question is whether our leaders will realise this before the people are forced to make their feelings unavoidable at the ballot box.

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This article (Britain’s immigration disaster: new figures) was created and published by Matt Goodwin and is republished here under “Fair Use”

Featured image: sandiegouniontribune.com

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