BRITAIN'S IMMORAL ASYLUM POLICY
24 February 2005
Below is a copy of a document which has recently been circulated by email. For the sake of an informed debate, then this document has been posted below.
For the avoidance of any doubt, there is no relationship between the ERC and Futurus.
BRITAIN’S IMMORAL ASYLUM POLICY
WHY BRITAIN’S ASYLUM POLICY IS DEEPLY IMMORAL:
HOW BRITAIN COULD HELP THE WORLD’S REFUGEES, INSTEAD OF WEALTHY LAWYERS AND THE IMMIGRATION INDUSTRY
by Anthony Scholefield, Director, FUTURUS
It is time to think radically regarding the bankruptcy of our asylum policy. (This summary paper only refers to asylum - not to other immigration issues.)
Previously, I have believed that it would be a good idea for Britain to take a proportion of U.N.-nominated refugees (say, 10,000 to 20,000 a year). I now believe this would be morally wrong and that our prime duty to the world’’s refugees is not to take any asylum seekers in the U.K. at all.
The current thinking of the government is that it is following a moral course by setting up an elaborate legal machine for vetting asylum seekers, rejecting those who have no reason to be here (but not removing them effectively) and supporting them with welfare and legal payments. Incredibly, the remainder of the world’’s refugees are virtually ignored.
One has to ask why and whether this is moral or efficient? Clearly, what has happened is the application of the 1951 U.N. Geneva Convention on Refugees to the modern world, regardless of changed circumstances. Many of those who support this policy are well motivated, but they have not stopped to consider what has evolved.
What are the facts?
The UK spends (2003/4), via DFID (Department for International Development), £3,965 million a year on overseas aid, of which £1,972 million is bilateral, and £1,805 million is given to other parties, nearly all to the European Union and the World Bank. A further £187 million is spent on administration.
How much of this enormous sum goes to refugees? It is merely US$46,863,520 in 2003 (roughly £25 million), according to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. The total number of the refugees in the world, according to the U.N. in 2004, was 9.7 million refugees, plus 985,000 identified as asylum-seekers (let us talk roundly of ten million).
So, we have established that the British government spends just £25 million on the UNHCR. By simple arithmetic, that is £2.50 per refugee.
When we turn to the position in the U.K. we find the following statistics. The government spends approximately £2 billion a year on the asylum system in 2003 (£1.8 billion plus £176 million on Legal Aid). Michael Howard says this is now running at £3 billion. Of course, many asylum-seekers’’ costs are not included in this, such as policing crimes, grants to refugee support groups etc., together with all the massive indirect costs to British society. Much of this does not go into an asylum-seeker’’s pocket but into the pockets of lawyers, immigration groups, high-priced landlords, tribunals, bureaucracy and other people we might term: ““rent seekers””. In 2003, 50,000 people claimed asylum in the U.K. and it is thought that about 33% should be added to these figures to cover dependants, so we are looking at around 67,000 people.
The rate of success for asylum claimants between 1997 and 2002 was about 21%. A further 16% were granted ‘‘exceptional leave to remain’’ or allowed to remain on other grounds.
So, if we divide the £2 billion annual expenditure by the number of successful asylum-seekers, which are 21% of 67,000, or around 14,000, it costs the British taxpayer 14,000 divided by £2,000,000,000 per successful asylum-seeker. That equates to £143,000 per refugee who is successful. If we include rejected asylum-seekers, who are nearly another 53,000, the amount spent drops to £30,000 per head.
So, the proposition we are invited to applaud, both by the government and the political class, including the Refugee Council, the Churches Commission for Racial Justice, the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties and, amazingly, the U.N. High Commissioners’’ Refugees’’ Office itself, is that, once a refugee reaches British shores, it is right and proper that - on average - £143,000 of British taxpayers’’ money should be spent on him, while it is also right and proper that, simultaneously, the British government, or taxpayer, should spend £2.50 (or fifty thousand times less) on each of the ten million (less 14,000) refugees in the rest of the world.
Supposing a quite different policy was pursued? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that all asylum-seekers were immediately flown out to Rwanda or Pakistan. Let us suppose that the £2 billion-a-year asylum spend by the Home Office (Michael Howard says it is £3 billion a year) was stopped - and all that money given to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Let us spread this among the ten million refugees world-wide. We would then be able to spend £200 on each refugee instead of £2.50.
The GDP per head for Pakistan was US$429 in 2002 –– around £240. The figure for Rwanda appears to be about the same. So, in effect, the British taxpayer could equip every refugee in the world with the average (not minimum) income of a Pakistani or a Rwandan - a more than adequate income if you are in a Third World country. Let us note that this is the British government only and ignore all the present (and potential) contributions by other Western governments. If these Western governments also abolished their asylum systems, and put the money direct to refugees, the world’’s refugees would be well looked after indeed.
What stands in the way of replacing a deeply immoral, corrupt and inefficient policy, which spends £143,000 on a refugee in Britain and £2.50 on a refugee not in Britain?
While misguided policy has evolved from historical circumstances, and from those who are generally idealistic, there are, of course, huge ““rent seekers”” involved in the asylum system:
the judges who preside over the Human Rights Act and who are, of course, provided with the legal fodder of innumerable immigration cases;
the lawyers;
those running ‘‘immigrationist groups’’, often on government money;
church spokesmen and activists who make a living out of ‘‘supporting’’ refugees (actually only the minute proportion who get to Britain);
high-priced landlords, and
the ‘‘asylum bureaucracy’’.
As for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, is it really going to tell its ten million refugees that they must only get £2.50 per head, instead of £200 per head, (80 times as much from the British government alone) because it is determined to keep up the asylum rights of those who manage - illegally of course - to get into the U.K.?
Anthony Scholefield 31 January 2005
Anthony Scholefield is Director of the think tank, FUTURUS
Suite 414
1 Olympic Way
WEMBLEY
HA9 0NP Tel: 0208 782 1135
Other publications written by Anthony Scholefield for FUTURUS include:
“The Death of Europe”
“Why Mr Blair will lose the Euro Referendum”
“Why Britain will not join the Single Currency
Below is a copy of a document which has recently been circulated by email. For the sake of an informed debate, then this document has been posted below.
For the avoidance of any doubt, there is no relationship between the ERC and Futurus.
BRITAIN’S IMMORAL ASYLUM POLICY
WHY BRITAIN’S ASYLUM POLICY IS DEEPLY IMMORAL:
HOW BRITAIN COULD HELP THE WORLD’S REFUGEES, INSTEAD OF WEALTHY LAWYERS AND THE IMMIGRATION INDUSTRY
by Anthony Scholefield, Director, FUTURUS
It is time to think radically regarding the bankruptcy of our asylum policy. (This summary paper only refers to asylum - not to other immigration issues.)
Previously, I have believed that it would be a good idea for Britain to take a proportion of U.N.-nominated refugees (say, 10,000 to 20,000 a year). I now believe this would be morally wrong and that our prime duty to the world’’s refugees is not to take any asylum seekers in the U.K. at all.
The current thinking of the government is that it is following a moral course by setting up an elaborate legal machine for vetting asylum seekers, rejecting those who have no reason to be here (but not removing them effectively) and supporting them with welfare and legal payments. Incredibly, the remainder of the world’’s refugees are virtually ignored.
One has to ask why and whether this is moral or efficient? Clearly, what has happened is the application of the 1951 U.N. Geneva Convention on Refugees to the modern world, regardless of changed circumstances. Many of those who support this policy are well motivated, but they have not stopped to consider what has evolved.
What are the facts?
The UK spends (2003/4), via DFID (Department for International Development), £3,965 million a year on overseas aid, of which £1,972 million is bilateral, and £1,805 million is given to other parties, nearly all to the European Union and the World Bank. A further £187 million is spent on administration.
How much of this enormous sum goes to refugees? It is merely US$46,863,520 in 2003 (roughly £25 million), according to the U.N. High Commission for Refugees. The total number of the refugees in the world, according to the U.N. in 2004, was 9.7 million refugees, plus 985,000 identified as asylum-seekers (let us talk roundly of ten million).
So, we have established that the British government spends just £25 million on the UNHCR. By simple arithmetic, that is £2.50 per refugee.
When we turn to the position in the U.K. we find the following statistics. The government spends approximately £2 billion a year on the asylum system in 2003 (£1.8 billion plus £176 million on Legal Aid). Michael Howard says this is now running at £3 billion. Of course, many asylum-seekers’’ costs are not included in this, such as policing crimes, grants to refugee support groups etc., together with all the massive indirect costs to British society. Much of this does not go into an asylum-seeker’’s pocket but into the pockets of lawyers, immigration groups, high-priced landlords, tribunals, bureaucracy and other people we might term: ““rent seekers””. In 2003, 50,000 people claimed asylum in the U.K. and it is thought that about 33% should be added to these figures to cover dependants, so we are looking at around 67,000 people.
The rate of success for asylum claimants between 1997 and 2002 was about 21%. A further 16% were granted ‘‘exceptional leave to remain’’ or allowed to remain on other grounds.
So, if we divide the £2 billion annual expenditure by the number of successful asylum-seekers, which are 21% of 67,000, or around 14,000, it costs the British taxpayer 14,000 divided by £2,000,000,000 per successful asylum-seeker. That equates to £143,000 per refugee who is successful. If we include rejected asylum-seekers, who are nearly another 53,000, the amount spent drops to £30,000 per head.
So, the proposition we are invited to applaud, both by the government and the political class, including the Refugee Council, the Churches Commission for Racial Justice, the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties and, amazingly, the U.N. High Commissioners’’ Refugees’’ Office itself, is that, once a refugee reaches British shores, it is right and proper that - on average - £143,000 of British taxpayers’’ money should be spent on him, while it is also right and proper that, simultaneously, the British government, or taxpayer, should spend £2.50 (or fifty thousand times less) on each of the ten million (less 14,000) refugees in the rest of the world.
Supposing a quite different policy was pursued? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that all asylum-seekers were immediately flown out to Rwanda or Pakistan. Let us suppose that the £2 billion-a-year asylum spend by the Home Office (Michael Howard says it is £3 billion a year) was stopped - and all that money given to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Let us spread this among the ten million refugees world-wide. We would then be able to spend £200 on each refugee instead of £2.50.
The GDP per head for Pakistan was US$429 in 2002 –– around £240. The figure for Rwanda appears to be about the same. So, in effect, the British taxpayer could equip every refugee in the world with the average (not minimum) income of a Pakistani or a Rwandan - a more than adequate income if you are in a Third World country. Let us note that this is the British government only and ignore all the present (and potential) contributions by other Western governments. If these Western governments also abolished their asylum systems, and put the money direct to refugees, the world’’s refugees would be well looked after indeed.
What stands in the way of replacing a deeply immoral, corrupt and inefficient policy, which spends £143,000 on a refugee in Britain and £2.50 on a refugee not in Britain?
While misguided policy has evolved from historical circumstances, and from those who are generally idealistic, there are, of course, huge ““rent seekers”” involved in the asylum system:
the judges who preside over the Human Rights Act and who are, of course, provided with the legal fodder of innumerable immigration cases;
the lawyers;
those running ‘‘immigrationist groups’’, often on government money;
church spokesmen and activists who make a living out of ‘‘supporting’’ refugees (actually only the minute proportion who get to Britain);
high-priced landlords, and
the ‘‘asylum bureaucracy’’.
As for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, is it really going to tell its ten million refugees that they must only get £2.50 per head, instead of £200 per head, (80 times as much from the British government alone) because it is determined to keep up the asylum rights of those who manage - illegally of course - to get into the U.K.?
Anthony Scholefield 31 January 2005
Anthony Scholefield is Director of the think tank, FUTURUS
Suite 414
1 Olympic Way
WEMBLEY
HA9 0NP Tel: 0208 782 1135
Other publications written by Anthony Scholefield for FUTURUS include:
“The Death of Europe”
“Why Mr Blair will lose the Euro Referendum”
“Why Britain will not join the Single Currency
posted by erc @ 1:38 pm
<< Home