UK asylum numbers soar to record levels as migration debate intensifies

Over 108 000 people applied for asylum in Britain last year, government figures showed Thursday, the highest number for any 12-month period since records began in 2001.

The 108 138 applications are an 18 percent increase on the 91 811 requests lodged in 2023, according to the Home Office.

The previous record was 103 081 in the 12 months to December 2002.

Tougher immigration rules

The figures come after Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledged this month to toughen immigration rules to make it almost impossible for undocumented migrants who arrive in the UK on boats from across the English Channel to later receive citizenship.

ALSO READ: Trump’s offer of refugee status to Afrikaners: ‘Hopeful emigrants could wait for years’

Starmer’s Labour government is under pressure to reduce migration after Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration Reform UK party won roughly four million votes during the last general election, an unprecedented haul for a far-right party in Britain.

According to the latest figures, the most common nationality among asylum applicants last year was Pakistani, accounting for 10 542 people or 9.7 percent of the total.

There was also a big increase in the number of applications by Vietnamese nationals, which more than doubled to 5 259 from 2 469 the previous year.

On taking office in July, Starmer scrapped his Conservative predecessor Rishi Sunak’s plan to deter undocumented migration by deporting new arrivals to Rwanda.

ALSO READ: 322 undocumented workers arrested in immigration enforcement operations

Instead he pledged to “smash the gangs” in an attempt to bring the numbers down.

Speeding up the process

Border Security and Asylum Minister Angela Eagle said the government was working to speed up decisions on asylum requests and enforced returns where they were not granted.

There were 124 802 people waiting for an initial decision on an asylum application in the UK at the end of December 2024, the Home Office figures showed.

“We are also ensuring that legal migration continues to come down after the previous government quadrupled net migration in the space of four years,” Eagle said.

ALSO READ: ‘Whatever it takes’: UK grapples with worst riots in 13 years

Legal migration to the UK is running at historically high levels.

Net migration for 23/24 was 728 000, down from a record high of 906 000 a year earlier.

The loosening of visa requirements under the last government that had been abused by applicants was also being reversed, she added.

Undocumented migrants who arrived in the UK after crossing the Channel in small boats accounted for 32 percent of total asylum claims last year.

Around 36,816 people crossed the Channel between England and France in 2024, up 25 on the previous year.

NOW READ: UK seeks to speed up migrant returns