EXCLUSIVE: Data analysis by the Express has revealed the true picture related to asylum claims in Britain is very different from what the public has commonly believed.
Boris Johnson’s leadership only two out of 10 asylum applications were being turned down (Image: Getty)
Successive tough asylum-seeker policies from Conservative governments still resulted in more applicants being allowed to stay in Britain than ever before, the Express data team’s analysis of long-term trends has revealed.
Examining Home Office figures since the asylum system was introduced at the turn of the century shows a striking reversal in decision outcomes over time. Under Tony Blair, at an initial stage, eight out of ten cases were rejected, but by the time Boris Johnson was Prime Minister, only two out of ten applications were being turned down.
Multiple experts contacted by the Express said it was a well-established, if lesser-mentioned fact, that New Labour’s high asylum case rejection rate contrasted starkly with that of the subsequent Tory administrations.
“Labour and Tony Blair were not really liberal on asylum,” senior lecturer Dr Peter William Walsh of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory told the Express.
“They viewed it as actually a major challenge in the immigration system broadly because people [were] applying who didn’t meet the criteria for refugee protection and you can see that in the statistics [that] they had quite so low [a] grant rate.”
Despite the coalition government adopting the ‘hostile environment’ set of policies, under Conservative rule both initial decisions on asylum cases and final rulings began to rise, reaching record highs under the Boris Johnson government.
Dr Walsh said there was no definitive explanation for why tough policies resulted in the number of initial approvals doubling from 40% to 80% in this period. However, he suggested there was anecdotal evidence that the development of deterrent policies, such as the Rwanda scheme, could have been a distraction.
He explained: “I don’t have any special knowledge, but I’ve seen reports of insiders saying everything is focused on small boats and Rwanda which was taking attention away from just the ordinary day-to-day operation of the asylum system, including processing claims.
“We’re not able to evaluate that, but it’s not implausible that departmental priorities can have an effect. As the [Express] chart shows brilliantly the acceptance rate has now fallen quite considerably in 2024 and there was a ministerial direction to the effect of needing to bring numbers down.”
Another anecdotal explanation for the Johnson government spike was offered by Angela Sharma, a barrister at Church Court Chambers and specialist in immigration cases. She believes a more permissive approach to the protections granted under the Modern Slavery Act for victims of human trafficking during this period was compounded by a substantial backlog.
“Around 2020 that spike we see where they’re granting protection is perhaps because there was a backlog,” she explained.
“There was a surge of applications and, personally, I thought there were a lot going through.
“At that time people were being granted protection under the modern slavery route. But now the criteria for that is quite tough and they look at the thresholds.”
Official Home Office graphs highlight the 2015 European migrant crisis, when an estimated 1.3 million people mainly from Syria, as well as also countries like Afghanistan and Eritrea, came to the continent to request asylum.
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Dr Walsh said the arrival of these migrants in Britain was a plausible factor in the successful cases spike.
“From 2018 onwards we have more applicants from high grant rate nationalities,” he added. “So we have the return of Afghans after the fall of the Taliban [who] now have a grant rate of almost 95 plus percent.
“We have Syrians [and] Eritrean [neither of whom] we had [back in the early 2000s].
“Another potential reason is the government really started doing its homework and trying to get better country of origin information – actually knowing the details of what’s going on in these countries, whether it’s political repression or civil war in a way that it didn’t do before.”
Regardless of nationality, Dr Walsh explained, Britain was known for having a higher acceptance rate than other countries in Europe when it came to asylum. After viewing the data, Dr Mike Jones, Executive Director of Migration Watch UK, also cited this fact.
“Let’s be clear,” he said. “The UK is now the illegal immigration capital of Europe. Successive governments have done nothing but twiddle their thumbs.
“The Rwanda plan was a bold step forward, but without fixing the Human Rights Act, any effort to stop this chaos is doomed.”
The political parties engaged in a bitter row over who was to blame for the trends revealed by the Express analysis.
Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe said it was “a total and utter failure by both the Tories and Labour” and that “Reform is the only opposition party that will stand up and put a stop to illegal immigration” through a “zero-tolerance approach.”
Labour, however, hit back with a spokesperson saying the Conservatives had “broke the asylum system” adding: “Labour will fix this mess and end the use of asylum hotels. We have already started removing more people with no right to be here, with a 20% increase in enforced returns since the election.”
The laws that failed to land
Immigration and Asylum Act
These laws were the first asylum policies introduced by Tony Blair’s government in 1999. They blocked migrant access to work and housing, establishing the system as we know it today.
Modern Slavery Act
Considered by Theresa May as part of her ‘legacy’, the 2015 law consolidated previous offences relating to trafficking and slavery in an effort to tackle exploitation. But it has drawn controversy for its use in drug conspiracy and immigration cases.
The Nationality and Borders Act
The deterrent policy introduced by Priti Patel in 2021 that first floated the idea asylum applicants could be kept in “offshore” asylum hubs, potentially abroad.
Illegal Migration Act
This Suella Braverman-era measure from 2023 built on Patel’s law and proposed that those who arrived in the UK illegally were detained, removed, and their return blocked.
The Rwanda Act
The most famous deterrent law was passed this year but abandoned after Labour’s election. It pledged to deport certain illegal migrants to Rwanda.
A Conservative spokesman denied this and claimed Labour had already “backtracked” and was “granting an amnesty to illegal migrants”.
“In response to unusually high migration numbers globally, we introduced robust illegal and legal migration laws, including the Illegal Migration Act, the Nationality and Borders Act, and the Rwanda Act to create a firm but fair asylum system where people who come to the UK illegally cannot claim asylum.
“Our strong measures to tackle illegal and legal migration will reduce numbers by more than 300,000 this year alone,” they added.
“Sadly, this is something which Labour have backtracked on, granting an amnesty to illegal migrants. Already Keir Starmer has overseen a 19 per cent increase in Channel crossings since July and are having to reopen hotels, breaking another manifesto commitment.”
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