Small Boat Crossings in the English Channel: Observations on a Crisis in Britain’s Asylum System
On the 4th of January 2023, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak publicly identified five key priorities for the new year. His speech on building a better future for the UK ended with an unambiguous pledge to “stop the boats.” Intending asylum seekers have been conveyed in small boats from northern France to the coast of south-eastern England for some years until now. Their numbers were 299 in 2018, rising to 1, 843 in 2019; 8,466 in 2020; 28, 526 in 2021, and 45, 755 in 2022. This year, 10, 319 people have crossed the Channel by 17 June. Between 2018 and March 2023, 71 per cent of small boat passengers came from Iran, Albania, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and 92 per cent either claimed asylum or were named as a dependant on an application. To put these figures into perspective, long-term immigration to the UK was estimated at 940,000 in 2021, and at 1.2 million in 2022-the latter figure largely driven by non-EU nationals.
The term ‘small boat’ is used by the UK Government to refer to a variety of vessels that are used to transport people to British shores illegally, without a visa or other entry clearance. Dinghies, kayaks, and rigid-hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) are classed as small boats, while larger vessels seldom used by “irregular migrants”, such as fishing vessels, motor cruisers, tugs, and yachts, are excluded from the definition. Small boats used by people traffickers are usually overcrowded, lack safety equipment, venture into some of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, and are prone to capsize at the slightest provocation.
The UK was among the first signatories of the 1951 United Nations (Geneva) Convention on the Status of Refugees, and one of the first to ratify the 1967 Bellagio Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Throughout the twentieth century, Britain accepted successive groups of refugees fleeing persecution and war, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The UK provided refuge to Belgians during World War One, Basques during the Spanish Civil War, Jews from Nazi Europe, Poles after the Second World War, Anglo-Egyptians and Hungarians in 1956, Ugandan Asians in 1972, and Vietnamese boat people between 1979 and 1981. Britain’s population was further added to by mass immigration from the New Commonwealth between 1948 and 1962, and by an influx of eastern Europeans after their home nations joined the EU in 2004 and again in 2007.
The UK’s asylum system is being described as “broken”, by politicians and members of the public from across the divide, although for different reasons. Some feel it is not restrictive enough, being unable to clearly differentiate between economic migrants and criminals on the one hand and genuine refugees on the other. Others decry a lack of compassion for dispossessed people. Either way, “safe and legal” routes for asylum claimants are currently restricted to refugee resettlement programmes (UK Resettlement Scheme, Community Sponsorship Scheme, and Mandate Resettlement Scheme) and refugee family reunion visas. Bespoke nationality-specific visas that bypass the asylum process and do not grant refugee status, are available to some people from Ukraine and Hong Kong. This leaves out a group of people who take to the small boats to reach their preferred destination. The bar for successful entry has, however, been set suitably high. The Nationality and Borders Act 2022 requires any asylum claimant to provide testimony and documentary evidence that supports a future and well-founded risk of persecution in future, and not merely submit proof of past difficulties.
The backlog of asylum claimants awaiting an initial decision has crept up to 173,000. The asylum system costs the British taxpayer £3 billion a year. It takes around £5.6 million a day to house intending refugees in hotel. To cut back on costs, the UK Government has identified potential alternative sites for accommodation, some forms of which have been used in the past as refugee camps. These include abandoned army and RAF bases, former prisons, empty holiday parks, and student halls, all on terra firma. Shore-based opportunities to house asylum seekers have also been identified in giant barges (“floatel”), normally used to house workers on offshore construction projects, and in disused cruise ships.
The case of a mega-barge recently drafted in to hold asylum seekers provides an example of chaos at the frontline. The Bibby Stockholm, a 93-metre-long giant barge with three decks and 222 cabins, built in 1976 and owned by Liverpool-based Bibby Marine Limited, docked in a quay at Portland Harbour, on the Dorset coast near Weymouth, on 18 July 2023. The first 15 asylum seekers boarded the barge on 7 August, only for the barge to be evacuated on 11 August as a “further temporary precaution.” It appears that the on-board water system had been tested for Legionella on 25 July, and that the results were available on 7 August but there was a delay in acting upon the information.
All parties to the debate agree that small boats are a dangerous way to cross the Channel. There is less consensus about how to deal with asylum seekers. Those seeking to deter them altogether, including the UK Government itself, cite a lack of public infrastructure, social housing, school places, and access to health and social services. Their opponents see UK as a relatively wealthy country that can afford to show compassion and offer take its just share of asylum seekers fleeing desperate circumstances for a safe place of refuge.
Much of the official British response has been reactive, rather than proactive, and has included such impractical proposals as transportation to Rwanda or even to remote British Overseas Territories. Targeting criminal networks involved in people smuggling, stepping up cross-border cooperation, and smarter and swifter processing of asylum claims soon after arrival are more likely to yield results than the routine criminalisation of migrants arriving on small boats. Some Albanians have indeed been returned to Albania under an inter-government agreement, which recognises it to be a safe country. Investment in Home Office staffing requires the recruitment of additional caseworkers to undertake both screening and substantive interviews to make timely decisions on the fate of asylum seekers. It may be a crisis for the moment, but decisive action where it is most needed may transform what is a most unsatisfactory situation.
Ashis Banerjee