If you look at the figures for rejected asylum seekers relative to

Comment on BNP Immigration Policy by David.

If you look at the figures for rejected asylum seekers relative to accepted asylum seekers and you believe the border control agency is doing a good job in allowing genuine claims and denying economic migrants with bogus claims, then there’s a lot more declined than accepted.

You can see the latest figures at

Specifically:

ASYLUM
• The number of applications for asylum, excluding dependants, was 30 per cent lower in Q4 2009 (4,765) compared with Q4 2008 (6,775).
• In Q4 2009, 6,400 initial asylum decisions were made, excluding dependants, an increase of 36 per cent compared with Q4 2008 (4,700). 77 per cent of initial decisions were refusals, 13 per cent were grants of asylum and 10 per cent were grants of Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave.

This tells us 3/4s of asylum seekers in the last quarter of 2009 were bogus, that would be ~3669 people claiming asylum were considered bogus. It’s not all asylum seekers are bogus like the BNP say, but it’s a lot.

13% were genuine asylum seekers, ~620 people were granted asylum.

A further 10 per cent were given grants of “Humanitarian Protection or Discretionary Leave”.

Didn’t know what that meant so looked it up:

Humanitarian Protection is leave granted to a person who would, if removed, face in the country of return a serious risk to life arising from the death penalty; unlawful killing; or torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. If a person has been refused asylum they may still be considered for this status. Humanitarian Protection is normally granted for a period of 3 years, after which the person can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. A person who is granted Humanitarian Protection is allowed to work and has access to public funds.

Discretionary Leave can be considered for people that have not been considered for international protection, or have been excluded. Discretionary Leave may be granted if, for example, the applicant is an Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Child (UASC) for whom adequate reception arrangements in their country are not available, or if the person is able to demonstrate particularly compelling reasons why removal would not be appropriate. Discretionary Leave can be granted for a period of three years or less. For UASC’s it can be granted for three years or up until their 18th birthday, whichever comes first.

In my mind that’s not a lot of difference from being given asylum, so that’s a further ~477 people.

So we are looking at around 1,000 people granted asylum (or asylum like status) out of 4,700 odd people. Basically a quarter are genuine and 3/4s are bogus.

It irritates me to think 3,000+ people wasted tax payers money trying to enter the country** on the grounds of asylum, but 3,000 is not that many people when you think about it: if this is an average quarter it works out around 30 bogus asylum seekers are dealt with every day.

** This assumes all of the bogus asylum seekers actually entered Britain, which is not going to be true. I didn’t check how many asylum seekers apply via British consulates in other countries?

By the same token 10 genuine asylum seekers are granted asylum to Britain a day. IMO this is not a big deal we shouldn’t loose any sleep over it.

As I said before easy solution to this is not accept any asylum seekers who sneak into our country, (unless there’s a very good reason for it) there are plenty of safe countries around the world with British consulates where genuine asylum seekers can legally apply for asylum without wasting their and our time and money removing the bogus ones.

I think it’s right we accept a fair share of the worlds asylum seekers, as a developed nation I see it as a responsibility. If I recall correctly we currently don’t accept our fair share, so I’m not concerned at the level of genuine asylum seekers entering the country.

David