The subject of asylum seekers and refugees has been dominating the headlines recently with demonstrations outside asylum hotels, including in Leeds.
Many people have expressed their concerns about the situation, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there, so what are the facts?
Let’s start with the terminology. In the UK, an asylum seeker is someone who is the process of claiming asylum and waiting for a decision. A refugee is someone who has been granted asylum and has the right to remain in the country.
Worldwide there were 79.5 million refugees last year, most of who are taken in by neighbouring countries. The UK took 20,339, or just 0.026% of that total. Britain is said to be a “soft touch”, but we take in fewer than most European countries – Germany, France and Sweden take two or three times as many. People mainly come here because they have family here or they speak English.
The people crossing the channel in small boats are often said to be illegal, but it’s not illegal to cross the channel and legally you have the right to claim asylum in any country you wish, that is signed up to the 1951 Refugee Convention. That convention, by the way, was passed into UK law by Winston Churchill and came out of the upheaval and displacement of the Second World War.
People cross the channel in small boats because there isn’t an alternative route to claim asylum in the UK. The government could stop the dangerous crossings and put the gangs out of business by creating safe routes and issuing visas.
According to government statistics about half of asylum seekers’ claims are granted at the first decision, and so become refugees with the right to remain in the UK and the right to work. Many more are granted asylum on appeal. So most people arriving are coming here with a strong case to be here, are grateful and contribute back to society through work (and therefore tax) and voluntary work.
Asylum seekers do not receive mobile phones and are not living the life of riley in hotels as some would have you believe. Some asylum seekers are given phones by charities, but not by the government. ‘Asylum hotels’ have been stripped of the finery you or I would expect, food is basic not fine dining, cleaning services are reduced to a minimum and rooms are stacked with bunk beds.
Asylum seekers are not allowed to work while their claim is determined, which can take years. They receive £49.18 per week or £9.95 if their accommodation provides meals. They are not allowed to apply for social housing and even if they are given refugee status this doesn’t give them any priority on the waiting list.
So if there isn’t a problem with asylum seekers, why are people taking to the streets? Many of us face huge problems in the UK. There’s a housing crisis, NHS waiting lists, the police, courts and prisons are underfunded and on the point of collapse, the list goes on. But the question is whose fault is all this?
Asylum seekers have not stopped council houses being built, or shut hospital wards. The truth is that successive governments have pursued austerity policies, cutting public spending to the bone. An unfair tax system means that the richest are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer and the safety net of public services is so full of holes that we all suffer.
The organisation Hope Not Hate have identified many of the individuals who are organising the protests. They have a long association with extreme far right groups, violence and domestic abuse. It suits these people to blame asylum seekers and to spread the myths, spread discord.
South Leeds has a long and proud history of welcoming migrant communities whether they are Irish, South Asian, or Europeans. We stand together in the face of prejudice. We sent Oswald Mosely’s Blackshirts packing in the 1930s and we saw off the National Front in the 1970s. Now is a time to stand united and say “refugees are welcome here.”
Photo: campaigners at the recent West Indian Carnival
While you’re here, can we ask a favour?
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Who wrote this pack of lies?, everything from “figures” to hotel conditions is utter garbage, the fact is they are not “refugees” or “asylum’ seekers, they are parasites, who want a free easy life, genuine refugees come the legal way. They are destroying the communitys, get priority over everything to the detriment of locals, and giving us the bill to boot. If you cannot see this, I suggest you visit Holbeck say, where we are being erased by all these so called “asylum seekers”. You can choose to label me as racist, I don’t care, it is not racist to want to protect your countrys values, moral, ethics and culture, so please do not state these people are Welcome, because tjey are not.
Well said, if the Asylum seekers are so fantastic Leeds can have them, The fact is you only have to watch the news for tours in these hotels that show the delicious foods they are being served, yet there’s food banks all over the country, what a joke, They should be in their own country, fighting for their own country, not leaving their family’s to survive on their own.
Tracy that isn’t true about the food but who caused the food banks? Was it asylum seekers or was it austerity? In 2023 it was reported that a decade of austerity by the Conservative-led governments after 2010 resulted in more than half a trillion pounds of lost public spending and a weaker economy. You may well have suffered, and you are absolutely closer to an asylum seeker than the millionaires telling you asylum seekers and refugees are making your life worse. Women and children also seek asylum and if men come on their own the stories will all be unique and complex – maybe try curiosity and compassion.
Calling people ‘parasites’ shows you are a deeply unserious person who is just being horrible. The article is very clear, and you can check with the UN if you don’t believe it. Seeking asylum is a legal process. No refugee is a refugee without being an asylum seeker first. If anyone is destroying communities it is the governments who started and carried on austerity. Are you aware that Leeds City Council have a funding gap of £38,200,000 https://councilcuts.unison.org.uk/ Could that have something to do with it? Indeed if people seeking asylum could work they would contribute taxes and be part of public services, as this article shows https://www.refugee-action.org.uk/lift-the-ban/ I live in Beeston and it’s the best place I have ever lived – partly because of the multiculturalism. You say you want to protect Britain’s culture – but what culture is there without diversity? What a small life you must live if you don’t enjoy the food, books, music, games, sport, art and ideas of people from everywhere near and far. Refugees are always welcome and people you might think of as quintessentially British such as Freddie Mercury and Mo Farah – both refugees.
If you welcome, refugees, asylum seekers, illegal or otherwise, Put them up in your own homes.
Firstly all asylum seekers are legal. Seeking asylum is a legal process – the idea of someone being illegal is complete fiction. And as for your request that people who support asylum seekers and refugees should be in our own homes – is that the yardstick for support? Do you support women and children fleeing domestic violence? Do you support homeless people? Do you support struggling veterans? Do you have anyone from those groups living in your home? I support all those groups and can’t host anyone additional in my home. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care. It’s hard to explain that you are supposed to care about other people – it’s how society functions and always has. And what else has always existed is people moving – it’s the most mundane and normal experience in the world.
what a ridiculous ‘argument’ this is always pulled out. It’s like saying ‘if you believe elderly people should be provided care in old age, you should have them at your house and provide the care’
To those above who are opposed to the piece on Refugees are Welcome Here: Jeremy Morton gave us the facts around this matter. Facts. If your attitude is a negative one then that is down to you and your prejudices. Perhaps you believe the likes of The Daily Mail, owned by non dom non tax payers instead. Those of us who work in this area can assure you that there are no luxuries, basic food and rooms with 4/6 bunk beds. Anything else is given by charities. We have a situation now in this liberal democracy where asylum seekers are afraid to go out. Not something any of us should be proud of surely. As for the needs of British people, we too are being terribly let down by Government and Employers. Refugees have no power to cause unemployment and bad housing.
Meanwhile, Me, a Celt, of the Parisi (one of the Original Britonic tribes) before the English came here, have been now been homeless for over four months.
The English didn’t come to England. England and its resulting culture and identities, like all countries, is a made up human construct. In fact until the start of the 20th century there were no substantial controls on immigration into the UK and people moved as they have for 100,000s years. And Raymond I’m so sorry you’re homeless. Without question not a single asylum seeker has had anything to do with it. This article lays out clearly the catastrophe of housing policy from governments over decades. https://england.shelter.org.uk/support_us/campaigns/social_housing/loss_of_social_housing
I’m saddened by the bitter responses to this piece addressing some of the myths around asylum and immigration.
I have & do offer shelter to asylum seekers. I’ve also worked as a volunteer in a refugee camp in France, & more recently with people from Ukraine, who have been received very differently.
It has been an absolute privilege to host people from Iraq, Afghanistan & Iran as my guests. Just as none of us would leave our homes & country willingly, nor have my guests. They come because their life has been made intolerable, their families jailed or killed for having the « wrong « opinions , or as a result a war funded by the UK & its allies. Many are highly qualified professionals whose greatest wish is to work & contribute to a society that gives them refuge. Neither people who come by boat nor Ukrainian refugees are « illegal ». It is entirely legal to seek refuge & protection from systemic persecution.
Amongst the things that sadden me are that the government is colluding with the lies about refugees, rather than explaining clearly that asylum support costs and whole lot of other public spending could be funded by a 2% tax on the wealth of a very few unimaginably rich individuals.
The right-wing talk about « the politics of envy » On the contrary, . I think residents & asylum seekers alike aré seeking dignity, fairness and justice. The only people who have an interest in stopping that are the rich who fund & support Badenoch, Farage & the shadowy figures further to their right.
Pure socialist/communist garbage.
It is illegal to enter a country outside of a normal port of entry and without documentation.
The asylum figures are a red herring, much illegal immigration is not related to asylum and this includes illegal small boats and the reason the author posits the lie of no safe route is because he’s ignorant of the law pertaining to the first safe country one reaches. We’re on an island, technically we should have zero asylum seekers.
1% of the UK population earn 14% of the wealth and pay 30% of ALL tax, not income tax, all forms of tax so the notion of an unfair tax system is for the birds.
I despise articles like this. We are the best nation in Europe for ethnic minorities and this defamatory rhetoric against a concerned public show how out of touch the modern left is. I am a loyal SDP voter for years as Labour is party of anti-Brits like the author and the sooner we can consign these arrogant attitudes to the dustbin of history, the better.
Also, while of got your attention, Hope Not Hate are vile, hateful and borderline racist themselves so yeah, get them in the bin as well. Hypocritical scum.