Opinion: The British Migration Myth

Read Time:3 Minute, 45 Second

On 28th November 2024, Sir Keir Starmer addressed Downing Street on immigration stating they will “crack down on any abuse of the visa routes.” While more measured than Sunak’s “stop the boats” rhetoric and shambolic Rwanda scheme, Starmer’s stance remains hypocritical, perpetuating an exaggerated issue. As a country of prosperity, surely we have a moral imperative to help those in need?

Britain’s media has generalised immigrants as liars, cheats, and a dangerous burden. The Daily Mail reports of an Ethiopian who bragged online of how he conned UK authorities into believing he was an Eritrean asylum seeker. It goes without saying that lying to immigration authorities about persecution is prohibited; but this one-off incident has been framed by the media as a national emergency. Such framing mobilises increasingly severe governmental measures that risk the safety of future asylum seekers.

Most arriving in the UK have compelling reasons: they’ve risked homes, families and their children’s safety, often arriving to the country jobless and penniless. The majority of asylum seekers, arriving primarily from countries in the Middle East and South Asia, are entering into a culture they have little understanding of and are treated with less respect because of it.

Often, Britain is culpable for much of what occurs in the countries these migrants flee from. For example, the Sykes-Picot Agreement granted the British Empire territorial control over parts of the Middle East and the subsequent Balfour Declaration is responsible for creating Jewish homeland on historic Palestinian soil, generating the violent conflict which continues to this day. Yet Palestinians are ineligible for UK resettlement. We treat refugees with reluctance, ignoring our historical role in their plight.

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the government keenly offered a monthly payment for citizens to house Ukrainians, wanting to aid those fleeing persecution. However, those arriving from places with less significance to British foreign policy receive treatment that is ambivalent at best. Britain created the SVPRS to allow only “the most deserving” Syrians to come to Britain, dividing refugees into those worthy of support and those not. The media consistently frames Channel crossings as a threat to Britain. This is despite many asylum seekers arriving here already possessing links to the country, through religion, language or heritage. Such a closed mindset starkly differs from our approach towards Ukrainians fleeing an equally dangerous situation.

On the subject of migration, statistics are often used exaggerate the trend of more boats arriving on UK shores. Contrary to popular belief, immigration is not the crisis we’re told it is. The UK receives far fewer asylum applications than France and Germany, and accounts for just 8% of applications in the EU and UK combined. The narrative we are repeatedly told of increasingly large groups of migrants entering the country is simply untrue. Illegal arrivals account for only 2.76% of long-term entries for people arriving to the UK in 2024. In comparison, study visas made up 40.8%. The economic returns of student migrants in the UK are clear; however lowering study visas by a meagre 6.76% would reduce the number of incoming migrants by the same amount as eradicating small boat arrivals completely, while still allowing us to fulfil our humanitarian responsibility.

We need to reconstruct the portrayal of the refugee to elicit compassion, regardless of their origin. Undoing our double standards and addressing narratives on intercultural tensions will aid us in meeting the principles to support asylum seekers fleeing a home no longer safe to live in. We also need to clarify our priorities: is our reluctant stance towards asylum seekers an economic concern, or an example of internalised racial and cultural biases within the makeup of British society? Surely if Britain’s concerns were solely reserved for economic resources, we would have long ago reduced British student visas and increased international student fees to counter the economic deficit, enabling us to still extend our humanitarian arm. If the concern was about refugees contributing too little, we would see equal rejection of asylum seekers worldwide, rather than evident hypocrisy. This reveals a clear cultural racism ingrained in the discourse in Britain surrounding immigration, which must be addressed to uphold our moral duty to help those in need.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer visit to the Middle East region by Number 10, 2024 // Wikimedia Commons CCO