EARLIER this year French President Emmanuel Macron blamed the surge in illegal migrants crossing the Channel on British policy, claiming there was no legal immigration route.
This assertion is shattered by a report from Migration Watch UK, which shows that in the year to June 2022 around 240,000 people were able to resettle to the UK compared with an annual average of 4,200 during the period 2015-2020, a 56-fold increase.
Since the start of 2021, about 150,000 refugees have come from Ukraine while roughly 120,000 people have come from Hong Kong. More than 21,000 refugees were resettled from Afghanistan in the midst of the Taliban’s seizure of power last year.
This is all despite the then Home Secretary Priti Patel telling a House of Lords committee in October 2021, while giving evidence on the government’s pledge to take in tens of thousands from Afghanistan: ‘We simply do not have the infrastructure or the accommodation.’
Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: ‘The breathtaking scale of resettlement has major implications for communities and involves large amounts of public funds being spent on accommodation including hotels, and places ever greater pressure on services. It is at an unsustainable level. We must control our borders and reduce immigration without delay.’
Migration Watch have produced a table showing that nearly 400,000 refugees have settled in Britain under 13 different schemes since 2005.
You can read the full Migration Watch report here.
