One problem for a new government is old problems. Among the most pressing facing the new Labour government is asylum seekers. The issue is well known. After the Second World War, new rules were implemented to deal with the aftermath, like the 1951 Refugee Convention. These remained largely dormant until the 1990s, when global travel became much easier. Suddenly people fleeing the wars in Sri Lanka, or the former Yugoslavia were able to move to the West and claim asylum.

That initial spike under John Major was met with new restrictions, with another spike under Tony Blair leading to further measures. Indeed, cracking down on asylum seekers was a major way that the Blair governments portrayed themselves as being tough on immigration, even as legal immigration exploded.

That is made clear by recently released papers from the National Archives, showing that Blair contemplated measures like turning a remote island into a detention camp and even stopping asylum seekers from being able to claim asylum at all, as to reach Britain they almost invariably had to pass through a safe country first. It seems unlikely Starmer’s government will be willing to entertain such “radical” ideas, despite Blair urging them to keep a tight grip on immigration in order to head off parties like Reform.

The real change began in 2018, when what are called the “small boats”, began to cross the English Channel. Although only a few hundred crossed that year, the image was vivid. The following year over a thousand crossed. The year after eight thousand. In 2022 it reached five figures and has stubbornly stayed there, with over 100,000 people having used this route in total.

Among them were violent men, including career criminals like Lawangeen Abdulrahimzai, an Afghan who had already killed two people in Serbia before he arrived on a small boat. Despite being 21, he persuaded the authorities that he was only 14 and was placed in a secondary school with young children, before murdering 21 year old Tom Roberts.

The small boats rapidly became a symbol of the disconnect between politics and people. As Neil O’Brien MP noted in his post-election analysis, voters he spoke to “literally” couldn’t understand why the Conservatives had failed in their promise to stop the boats, with many turning to Reform instead. Their concerns are reasonable. Whatever experts say about the difficulties of navigating international law, to most people it seems obvious that a wealthy and powerful nation like Britain should be able to stop a few small boats crossing a sea border that we were able to defend against the Kaiser and Hitler. 

The main problem is the growth of case law originating in the Human Rights Act, passed by the Blair government in 1998, which embedded the ECHR in domestic law. Human rights law, which was Starmer’s speciality as a lawyer, exploded and rapidly made controlling borders untenable. As the majority of small boat arrivals come from countries not deemed safe, these laws make it near-impossible to send them back. The Rwanda Plan was intended as a way around that, by sending this to a safe third country instead, but contained flaws which meant that no full flights took off before it was cancelled as one of the first moves of the new Labour government. 

Although that should have pleased human rights campaigners, many have doubled down on pressuring the government, with Amnesty launching a new campaign and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants even positing that the Home Office should be abolished, or for asylum at least to be removed from its purview. 

None of this fixes the problem. The fact remains that our borders are open, with the Royal Navy incredibly even telling the last government they wouldn’t patrol them. We have already seen a post-election surge in small boat arrivals. On arrival they will have to be kept in hotels, which have been costing £8 million a day. If they are successful in claiming asylum then they can ask councils for accommodation. If they aren’t successful in claiming asylum, then they have a low chance of being removed and can claim assistance for being destitute. 

So once an asylum seeker arrives, they will cost the taxpayer to feed and house them. They will benefit from legal aid, as will any appeals. If successful they will likely require yet more support, as well as subsidised social housing. All of this costs an enormous amount, having risen from £733 million in 2018-19 to almost £4 billion in 2022-23.

Nor is this likely to change. We already have good data from Germany’s experiment in 2015 with allowing over a million migrants to enter. By 2022 their employment rate was only 64 per cent, below the wider German average of 77 per cent, despite them being much younger than the rest of the population. Their median wage was €13.70, barely above the low-wage threshold of €12.50. To that has to be added the tens of billions spent on the asylum seekers already. 

… where migrants come from makes a major difference in whether they are a net financial cost or benefit

That mirrors other data, which has consistently found that where migrants come from makes a major difference in whether they are a net financial cost or benefit. Denmark, which unlike Britain has excellent data on the subject, found that not only were non-Western immigrants a major cost, so were their descendents. They also strained finances in other ways, with the immigrants and their descendents having a violent crime conviction rate 2.5 times that of the native Danes. 

The most telling data comes from Holland, where a team led by Dr Jan van de Beek were able to show that asylum seekers were by far the most expensive sort of immigrant, with the average net contribution of asylum seekers (including the second generation) to public finances being negative €475,000. In other words, a cost of almost half a million Euros. 

Prime Minister Starmer therefore faces a difficult situation. His plan to smash the smuggling gangs is unlikely to succeed (indeed, many smugglers are Kurdish, who often arrived in Europe as asylum seekers or illegal immigrants themselves). With small boat crossings highest in the period from July to December, he will very soon find himself under scrutiny. It isn’t impossible that he’ll find himself contemplating something similar to the Rwanda Plan. Failing to do anything won’t just cost him in the polls either. As data from Europe shows, asylum seekers are incredibly expensive, which at a time when his own government claims the public finances are in the worst state in decades will only add to the financial pressure.