I wish I could say I am surprised at this but I'm not. As a former civil servant and HR Manager who knew and recruited people who left the Home Office to join our department the backlog limbo is nothing new infact a former HO employee told me it was common place for those processing claims under Theresa May's hostile environment era to withdraw claims without reading them when instructed in order to clear a backlog, it clearly still goes on then. The inhumanity of it all is just sickening but the incompetence is infuriating. Labour claims it will hire a huge amount of caseworkers to clear the backlog I truly hope this is the case, as I often sadly have to remind people of power in my proffesion as a HR Consultant these are peoples lives you are manipulating they are not just numbers on spreadsheets. Thank you to everyone involved in such painstaking and vital research into the truth behind the broken asylum system in this once empathetic country.
The Tories have a pathological hatred of public service. There are problems in most parts of the service, not because of working from home- which in many departments is a necessity because the offices aren’t big enough to hold all the employees all the time - but because it has been systematically under resourced for so long. Many are doing complex stressful jobs at pence above minimum wage, and are used as scapegoats for all the crap that the Tories have done while the money is syphoned off to them and their donors.
The government is stuck on the horns of a dilemma of its own making:
1. It has failed to produce a domestic workforce that supplies the required skills at a price the country is willing to pay, or to change the economy of the country to match the skills and cost of labour available from domestic supply (which could include crashing the economy).
2. It has promised to reduce net migration to a lower level than currently seen, while promising that there will not be a shortage of labour with required skills.
This leaves it in a very difficult position; if it reduces immigration, we run into a labour shortage. If it doesn't reduce immigration, it breaks its promise to bring immigration down. To stop us paying attention to this dilemma, and to stop us noticing that it's made contradictory promises, it's trying to focus us on a subset of immigration that brings strong feelings to the table instead of having us look at the big picture.
Thanks Ian. So what happens to people whose applications are "withdrawn" for them by the Home Office? Do they have to apply again or are they immediately classed as being here illegally?
On top of the mess you describe, there's also a wider political context to this; the UK government has consistently promised (since David Cameron's time in office) that it will bring down net migration to the UK; however the UK is also short of workers in many sectors, and needs immigrants to fill roles that would otherwise go unfilled.
This leads to a painful tension; we do not want to let people in, because they will increase the net migration figure that the government promised to reduce. But we can't simply close the border, because many of the people coming in are people we need to fill vital roles in things like the NHS; the only remaining route is to somehow convince people who aren't the ones filling the roles that would go empty without them to not come here. And asylum seekers are an easy target to vilify here, since they're coming without a role to fill.
Then, on top of that, we've added a new problem; because we left the EU, we are no longer party to the Dublin Regulations; these allow EU members to reject asylum seekers who'd already applied for asylum in another EU country without investigation. As a consequence, there is no harm done to an economic migrant who tries for asylum in the UK and fails; they can retry in a less unfriendly EU state. Equally, if you applied for asylum in France and failed, you can retry in the UK now, whereas you could not before.
Just listened to Tim Loughton MP on World At One. What a disgrace! He should hang his head in shame! He basically admitted that the tens of thousands in limbo as a result of the Illegal Migration Act are genuine asylum seekers, but tough! In terms of that legislation they are ‘legally’ barred from claiming asylum because of the route by which they reached the UK - across the Channel in small boats. So, nothing is being done about their cases. When pressed by Sarah Montague on what is to happen to them he actually said that in most cases they cannot be deported to their countries of origin because that would be unsafe and render them subject to risk - in other words they are genuine refugees!!! Had they arrived in the UK prior to this legislation they would in all likelihood be granted asylum, as your excellent piece demonstrates. Is anything being done by ‘leftie lawyers’ to get these cases before a court and have this legislation struck down as in breach of the UK’s international law obligations under the Refugee Convention?
Interesting anaylsis of the acceptance rates for refugees ... have a look at the Statista statistics of America's War on Terror and it is immediately obvious who creates the high number of refugees.
Perhaps Sunak needs to have a quiet word with Biden regarding US policies?
I see numbers like 75,000 applicants to a nation of 67,000,000—a little over 0.1%—threatening to overwhelm what must be a very fragile nation. Or is it that it wants to make the rest of the world go away and not trouble it unless it's Russian money keeping the London real estate market afloat?
Ian, I love your work and this newsletter is a very read. Are you considering shifting it to a less nazi-inclusive service? Or is that a bit overstated?
I wish I could say I am surprised at this but I'm not. As a former civil servant and HR Manager who knew and recruited people who left the Home Office to join our department the backlog limbo is nothing new infact a former HO employee told me it was common place for those processing claims under Theresa May's hostile environment era to withdraw claims without reading them when instructed in order to clear a backlog, it clearly still goes on then. The inhumanity of it all is just sickening but the incompetence is infuriating. Labour claims it will hire a huge amount of caseworkers to clear the backlog I truly hope this is the case, as I often sadly have to remind people of power in my proffesion as a HR Consultant these are peoples lives you are manipulating they are not just numbers on spreadsheets. Thank you to everyone involved in such painstaking and vital research into the truth behind the broken asylum system in this once empathetic country.
Happy new year Ben! I miss our chats on platform formerly known as twitter hope you are well
The Tories have a pathological hatred of public service. There are problems in most parts of the service, not because of working from home- which in many departments is a necessity because the offices aren’t big enough to hold all the employees all the time - but because it has been systematically under resourced for so long. Many are doing complex stressful jobs at pence above minimum wage, and are used as scapegoats for all the crap that the Tories have done while the money is syphoned off to them and their donors.
Disgusting and the majority suffer for it.
I work in the public sector and heartily agree with you here, I deal with the consequences every day and it's pretty soul destroying!
In the same period that 75,000 asylum applications were made, long-term non-EU immigration to UK was 988,000, which is 13x as much. What's the govt thinking that waves in thirteen non-EU people who enter through an arrivals gate, but shoves a fourteenth - who makes an asylum claim - into this administrative limbo? What's the plan, and can we see it? [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023]
The government is stuck on the horns of a dilemma of its own making:
1. It has failed to produce a domestic workforce that supplies the required skills at a price the country is willing to pay, or to change the economy of the country to match the skills and cost of labour available from domestic supply (which could include crashing the economy).
2. It has promised to reduce net migration to a lower level than currently seen, while promising that there will not be a shortage of labour with required skills.
This leaves it in a very difficult position; if it reduces immigration, we run into a labour shortage. If it doesn't reduce immigration, it breaks its promise to bring immigration down. To stop us paying attention to this dilemma, and to stop us noticing that it's made contradictory promises, it's trying to focus us on a subset of immigration that brings strong feelings to the table instead of having us look at the big picture.
Thanks Ian - so the truth is much, much worse for the powerless people as a result of the Prize Miniature fellating the figures.
This is statistical fraud - serious shit.
Thanks Ian. So what happens to people whose applications are "withdrawn" for them by the Home Office? Do they have to apply again or are they immediately classed as being here illegally?
They can apply again but starting again from scratch they lose their place in the legacy backlog and end up in a new one
Yes exactly, a good lawyer will find a way for them to reapply, but the whole process starts again.
Any figures on what percentage manage to reapply and how many just fall through the system at this point?
On top of the mess you describe, there's also a wider political context to this; the UK government has consistently promised (since David Cameron's time in office) that it will bring down net migration to the UK; however the UK is also short of workers in many sectors, and needs immigrants to fill roles that would otherwise go unfilled.
This leads to a painful tension; we do not want to let people in, because they will increase the net migration figure that the government promised to reduce. But we can't simply close the border, because many of the people coming in are people we need to fill vital roles in things like the NHS; the only remaining route is to somehow convince people who aren't the ones filling the roles that would go empty without them to not come here. And asylum seekers are an easy target to vilify here, since they're coming without a role to fill.
Then, on top of that, we've added a new problem; because we left the EU, we are no longer party to the Dublin Regulations; these allow EU members to reject asylum seekers who'd already applied for asylum in another EU country without investigation. As a consequence, there is no harm done to an economic migrant who tries for asylum in the UK and fails; they can retry in a less unfriendly EU state. Equally, if you applied for asylum in France and failed, you can retry in the UK now, whereas you could not before.
Just listened to Tim Loughton MP on World At One. What a disgrace! He should hang his head in shame! He basically admitted that the tens of thousands in limbo as a result of the Illegal Migration Act are genuine asylum seekers, but tough! In terms of that legislation they are ‘legally’ barred from claiming asylum because of the route by which they reached the UK - across the Channel in small boats. So, nothing is being done about their cases. When pressed by Sarah Montague on what is to happen to them he actually said that in most cases they cannot be deported to their countries of origin because that would be unsafe and render them subject to risk - in other words they are genuine refugees!!! Had they arrived in the UK prior to this legislation they would in all likelihood be granted asylum, as your excellent piece demonstrates. Is anything being done by ‘leftie lawyers’ to get these cases before a court and have this legislation struck down as in breach of the UK’s international law obligations under the Refugee Convention?
In the paragraph about caseworkers turnover and pay it isn't clear whether it's £1,500/£2,500 monthly or £15,000/£25,000 annually?
And whichever it is it seems incredibly low.
Interesting anaylsis of the acceptance rates for refugees ... have a look at the Statista statistics of America's War on Terror and it is immediately obvious who creates the high number of refugees.
Perhaps Sunak needs to have a quiet word with Biden regarding US policies?
I see numbers like 75,000 applicants to a nation of 67,000,000—a little over 0.1%—threatening to overwhelm what must be a very fragile nation. Or is it that it wants to make the rest of the world go away and not trouble it unless it's Russian money keeping the London real estate market afloat?
Ian, I love your work and this newsletter is a very read. Are you considering shifting it to a less nazi-inclusive service? Or is that a bit overstated?
"valued"
Thanks Ian