I will stop abhorrent smugglers preying on the vulnerable by fixing our asylum system
EVERY year, thousands of men, women and children from the most dangerous places in the world are given sanctuary in the UK thanks to the generosity of the British people.
I am immensely proud that Global Britain protects those fleeing persecution, tyranny and danger.
We have a generous asylum system that offers protection to the most vulnerable via defined legal routes.
Just this week we announced we have already provided sanctuary to more than 20,000 vulnerable people escaping the awful conflict in Syria.
It is crucial we help those in genuine need of our protection, like those languishing in refugee camps, rather than those who pay criminal gangs to get them to Europe. But currently those who are most in need are being failed.
Our asylum system is collapsing under the pressures of what are, in effect, parallel illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminals smuggling people into the UK.
Criminal gangs don’t care for the people they traffic. They are lining their pockets while people are dying.
Allowing these repugnant gangs to continue this trade unabated is not just morally abhorrent, it is against our national interests.
GUNS & DRUGS
Because it is not just people they are smuggling on to our streets, it is guns and drugs too. We must put these vile criminals out of business.
At the heart of our New Plan for Immigration is a simple principle: Access to the UK’s asylum system should be based on need, not on the ability to pay people smugglers.
If you illegally enter the UK via a safe country in which you could have claimed asylum, you are not seeking refuge from imminent peril — as is the intended purpose of the asylum system — but are picking the UK as a preferred destination over others.
This failed system sees vulnerable women and children pushed to the back of the queue. And it wastes vast sums of taxpayer’s money as well as court and judicial time.
For too long, the asylum system has been blighted by repeated and meritless claims. Claims that are often raised at the very last minute, delaying the removal of those with no right to remain in the UK.
And as research shows, 80 per cent of last-minute claims submitted by people we are seeking to remove are eventually denied. This is simply not right.
The reforms I will announce this week in our New Plan for Immigration will end this and make much-needed changes.
Migrants facing removal action will be required to raise all asylum and human rights claims in one go. This will mean all issues can be considered together.
New powers will mean decision-makers, including judges, should give minimal weight to evidence submitted after the “one-stop” process, unless there is good reason.
We will also raise the standard of proof that those claiming asylum must provide. And we will set out in law a clear, comprehensive test against which all asylum claims can be assessed.
This means that no one involved in the asylum system can be in any doubt what a successful asylum claim needs to demonstrate.
It is absolutely right that we have an asylum system which offers protection to genuine refugees who are offered safe passage to the UK.
The fact that some of the world’s most vulnerable and oppressed people can come to our great country, with all the hope and freedoms that brings, is something to be celebrated.
We know what those who oppose our plans, while failing to bring forward their own, particularly those in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, will say.
They will howl, “These are ridiculous proposals”. They will accuse us of being “devoid of compassion”.
This predictable hyperbole doesn’t do any justice to those who have already lost their lives.
It won’t do anything to prevent thousands of more people endangering their lives in the future. And it doesn’t address the British public’s legitimate concern about our broken asylum system.
If there was a simple resolution, then believe me, this issue would have been resolved by now. But there is no silver bullet, no magic solution. This problem requires fundamental, long-term change.
RADICAL REFORMS
The British people are fair and generous when it comes to helping those in need.
But persistent failure properly to enforce our laws and immigration rules, and the reality of a system that is open to gaming and criminal exploitation, risks eroding public support for the asylum system and those who genuinely need access to it.
My radical reforms to fix this broken system represent the most comprehensive overhaul of asylum and borders in decades.
They will be fair, increasing the efficacy of our system so we can better protect and support those in genuine need of asylum.
They will be firm, marking a step change in our posture as we toughen our stance against illegal entry and the criminals who endanger life by enabling it.
And making it easier to remove those from the UK who have no right to be here.
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This plan builds on the work we have already done to take back control of our borders.
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We have ended free movement. We have introduced a new points-based immigration system. And now we will overhaul our broken asylum system.
That is what the British people expect us to do. And that is what I will deliver.
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