It is now greater than a 12 months since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made stopping the boats one in all his 5 pledges to voters.
Yet in 2023, virtually 30,000 asylum seekers nonetheless made the perilous voyage throughout the English Channel. Thousands of you voted in our ballot Have the Tories delivered on their pledge to cease the boats? With an awesome 1,965 voting No, they have not and simply 61 saying Yes, they’ve.
Despite the PM’s vow made in January final 12 months, the crossings for 2023 are nonetheless the second highest on report. According to Home Office figures, there have been 29,437 small boat arrivals final 12 months. This is down from 2022, when the determine was 45,755. Since the beginning of 2018, 114,326 folks have reached the UK after making the damaging Channel crossing. Here are the annual totals for small boat arrivals over the previous six years:
- 2018 – 299
- 2019 – 1,843
- 2020 – 8,466
- 2021 – 28,526
- 2022 – 45,755
- 2023 – 29,437
‘The Tories couldn’t cease a draught below a door’
Inthewest: “No government will stop illegal immigrants. Whatever plans are put forward, some party or organisation will complain, or try to block it.”
Squinny: “As usual the Tories are doing a lot of posturing but they are achieving very little.”
Tony43H: “The Tories could not stop a draught under a door”.
Gizzie: “The Tories may be able to deliver their promises to stop the illegal immigration boats if people stopped interfering with their efforts. There is no advantage politically by letting illegal immigrants in for the Tories, in fact it greatly adds to their woes! I have no problem with immigration, as long as it’s done through the proper channels.”
David Enterprise: “Most of the Tory elite of today care nothing about the interests or well being of the people of our country. The Tories haven’t delivered.”
Flamey: “We shouldn’t be stopping them, we need the workers. If they’ve managed to get here then let them work and pay tax or start the deportation process, if they are prepared to work then let them. It shouldn’t matter how you got here, if your case is genuine – and even if not, why stop people immigrating here? Thanks to Brexit, the labour market is on its knees.”
‘Yet one other 12 months of Tory asylum chaos’
The newest Home Office figures reveal that almost all of arrivals in 2023 got here from battle zones or areas with longstanding issues about oppression. More than 5,500 had fled Afghanistan, which the Taliban has managed for the previous two years. The nations most represented in small boat arrivals are:
- Afghanistan – 5,579
- Iran – 3,581
- Turkey – 3,060
- Eritrea – 2,668
- Iraq – 2,549
- Syria – 2,333
- Sudan – 1,633
Nearly 100,000 asylum seekers are nonetheless ready for an preliminary resolution regardless of Tory brags about clearing the backlog. Latest Home Office figures present the UK’s backlog stood at a large 98,599 on the finish of 2023 – 16 instances increased than when the Conservatives took energy.
Labour‘s Shadow Immigration Minister, Stephen Kinnock, stated: “Even their claims to have cleared the so-called ‘legacy backlog’ are false. Over 4,000 claims are unresolved and a disturbing 17,000 asylum seekers have simply been ‘withdrawn’ by the Tories from this legacy backlog, with Ministers seeming to have no idea where they are and whether they are reapplying or disappearing into the underground economy.”
And Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper stated: “PM & Home Secretary claiming they’ve cleared the asylum backlog this morning. That’s just not true.
“It’s one in all 5 Sunak damaged guarantees on asylum and small boats this 12 months – yet one more 12 months of Tory asylum chaos, of gimmicks as an alternative of grip.”