What is the Truth about Asylum Seekers attempting to enter the UK, and what impact are asylum seekers having UK employment and job seekers?
Following the huge demonstration in London on Saturday 13 September 2025 instigated by Tommy Robinson (Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) to ‘Unite the Kingdom,’ this weeks blog looks at the facts around asylum seekers entering the country and will examine whether they are having a genuinely detrimental affect on UK employment and the job market in general. Is there any evidence to show that this is an issue of concern in employment terms or merely a thinly veiled race discrimination issue.
The rally, which was attended by between 110-150,000 people involved large numbers of Union flags and Cross of St George England flags, but as the Guardian notes,
“While for many, the flags are a celebration of national pride, St George’s crosses have been graffited, sometimes with slurs, on ethnic minority-owned businesses and places of worship including a Manchester church, a Reading mosque and a York Chinese takeaway.” [1]
Yet statistically (as evidenced by the Department of Justice) all of the usual tropes about asylum seekers taking ‘British’ jobs, and being fundamentally linked to increasing crime rates are not statistically accurate. Asylum seekers ‘interned’ in hotels which at times have been under siege receive a daily allowance of £49.18 per week if they are in self-catering accommodation. The minimum level of Universal Credit is £92.05 per week for an individual with no children. Again, the complaints of the far right are simply not factually accurate. So if the aim of Unite the Kingdom was, in the words of Elon Musk to prevent, “the rapidly increasing erosion of Britain,” [2] what exactly are they seeking to restore? All of the concerns so far voiced are exaggerations at best, mis-guided and mis-informed fears, or at worst, ill-disguised allegations that are racially motivated and constitute hate speech.
Arguments about immigrants ‘taking jobs from UK citizens,’ is a well trodden path and has proven to be a fabrication of reality in all cases to whip up racial hatred within the country by seeking a scapegoat for the problems of the most impoverished class. Jewish people experienced pogroms from 1906 onwards in the East end of London, routinely based on this same and false allegation. Irish immigrants have faced this allegation for hundreds of years and black and asian immigrants have borne the brunt of this hatred from the mid twentieth century to the present day. Currently, as the world dabbles once more with the inherent dangers of populist nationalism these issues have once again come to the fore. But what is actually happening and are there any truths at all in the accusations repeatedly hurled by the new right wing movement which is springing up with varying degrees of success, globally?
According to Gov.uk, between 2004 and 2020 the UK received on average 22,000-46,000 asylum claims made per year.[3] In 2020, following the COVID pandemic, the numbers increase dramatically peaking at over 100,000 people in December 2020. From December 2018, there was an increase in people arriving on ‘small boats,’ the issue which seems to particularly inflame the far-right including the Conservative and Reform UK political parties. Again, according to gov.uk statistics 99% of those people who survive the journey claim asylum. In terms of numbers, available data shows that this group reached its peak in December 2022 with 40,000 people. The numbers since then have dropped and by December 2024 amount to roughly 30,000 applications, whilst the number of ‘legitimate asylum seekers’ at the same time rose to 108,000. Quite simply, the ‘invasion’ perceived by the far right is not backed by the factual data. [4]
In comparison with Europe, the UK is the 5th largest recipient of asylum seekers, and 17th per head of population. Contrary to the mis-information repeatedly peddled by the kind of far-right groups represented at the Unite the Kingdom rally, criminality in the UK is, and always has been overwhelmingly committed by white males. According to Department of Justice statistics which hold data for ethnicity between 2005-2011 white males were responsible for a minimum of 80% of offences and peaked at 85% of offences. The notion that the current influx of asylum seekers is fuelling both violent and organised sexual crime again, is simply not borne out by statistics compiled by the Department of Justice. There have been a number of disturbing incidents that the far right have latched onto (often based on incorrect information) to try to prove that their fears are more than just base judgments rooted in discrimination, but still as a matter of course, crime in the UK is overwhelmingly committed by white men and sexual crimes are overwhelmingly committed by men who are friends or family members. Even in the age of #MeToo, the number of Harvey Weinstein’s, Jeffrey Epstein’s and Jimmy Saville’s are by far outweighed by the number of perpetrators who are known and/or related to the women they sexually, physically, emotionally abuse, and often rape. Crime as a whole as of 2025, is by far the realm (and always has been) of white males. [5]
Historically, this tactic currently being employed, i.e ‘find a scapegoat to blame for financial and political uncertainty,’ being experienced by ‘working class ordinary people’ by the far right is same as was used by similar groups in Europe in Italy, Germany and to a lesser extent Spain in the 1930’s as fascism was on the rise. In all cases, trade unions were at the forefront of combatting these untruths and hate based strategies. In the current crisis we find ourselves in there are a number of reasons why the majority population are experiencing increasing levels of hardship and it has nothing whatsoever to do with Asylum Seekers.
It is widely documented and acknowledged that the financial landfill that has engulfed the UK was caused by a sequence of events which have never been rectified. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Global Financial Crash of 2007-8 cost the UK £35.5 billion at the time of writing. [6] The National Audit Office estimated that the government injected £1 Trillion to prevent the economy collapsing completely, of which £14 Billion remains outstanding and has yet to be re-paid by those high street banks who were the recipients. [7]
Secondly, the gross mismanagement of the Brexit campaign, complete with false promises of additional funds set-aside for the NHS and illegal activity regarding the allocation of PPE equipment to rich Conservative Party donors and supporters often with little or no experience in the fields in which they were given large sums of money. The estimated financial costs to the UK by Centre for European Reform found that between 2021 and 2022 economic damage alone was around £40 Billion.[8] Overall, the picture is less clear, with analysis by the TUC published in 2023 estimated that by 2023 the economy has lost around £400 billion of GDP compared with a projection of the forecast made by the OBR in 2010.[9]
Then there was the overall impact of COVID-19 which the BBC estimates cost the country around £400 Billion.[10]
The problems of the UK and the economic damage which has led to the cost of living crisis are not the consequence of asylum seekers and the negative impact that this group is actually having on the economy as a whole is almost insignificant next to the global economic crisis impact followed by years of government mismanagement and COVID. Don’t allow easy to digest but factually inaccurate memes to confuse your decision to vote in today’s local elections.
The Party in question whose document, ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ (which in and of itself sounds like a military operation against an enemy of their own imagination), is littered with non-attributable statistics, such as,
The estimated population of people with no lawful rights to remain in the United Kingdom now almost certainly stands above 1 million.’. [11] There is absolutely no evidence to support this statement and there is no reference in the document to determine where such information has been conjured up from. That is because it is simply untrue.
In the same document, the same party, is suggesting the following three legislative measures in order to resolve a crisis which we have already explained does not fit the bill as a crisis:
1.) Leave the EHCR
2.) Repeal the Human Rights Act and replace it with a Bill of Rights
3.) Pass the Illegal Migration (mass deportation) Bill.
The notion that are modern political party would seek to derail what are considered to be sacrosanct protections to human rights in Europe should be deeply concerning to everybody. The only reason any nation could possibly have for wanting to leave the European Court of Human Rights, is that they intend to breach people's human rights as in shrined in the European Convention of Human Rights. This document has been signed by 46 states and ratified by 46 in the Council of Europe since its introduction in 1950. [12] If the UK took the deeply concerning and unprecedented decision to leave the European Court of Human Rights we would be sat side-by-side with Russia, who was excluded from the EHCR following the invasion of Ukraine, which has constituted multiple breaches of both this legislation and the Geneva conventions.[13]
Further, as if to underline the contempt for Human Rights which Reform UK currently adopts, they are proposing to appeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and replace it with a British Bill of Rights for which they have provided absolutely no detail whatsoever. The failure to provide any evidence which might explain exactly which rights are protected and whose aren't should be cause for deep concern for anyone who lives within the UK and respects human rights as an inalienable and essential right.
Finally, Reform UK has pledged to pass, The Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill. Simply the title given to the Bill should be sufficient to unnerve anyone who understands the need for Human Rights. Historically similar legislation has been discussed/put in place by other nations including the UK & USA prior to World War I. Following the disgusting abuses of both human rights and unprecedented crimes against Humanity perpetrated by the Nazi party in Germany during the 1930s and 40s, understandably legislation suggesting mass deportation as a resolution to an illegal migration has largely remained political suicide. Let us ensure, that this remains the case and that Reform UK are not afforded the opportunity to Institute such draconian and clearly barbaric legislation under the guise of tackling an issue which is simply nothing like a serious as they have led people to believe.
Any party, who seeks to remove human rights (including leaving the UN convention against torture) [14] can only be doing so because they fully intend to breach human rights and Institute actions which would ordinarily in law amount to torture. Do not be fooled by such rhetoric, do not fall for lies devoid of detailed information and instead vote for parties with policies which aim to re-build Britain and not just seek to find a group to persecute in order to make millionaires into billionaires.
Employees United Union is urging all of its members to avoid voting for Reform UK on moral, ethical and human rights grounds. The situation we all face now is indeed difficult, and we will continue to support our members in the face of political hatred, wherever and whenever we encounter it.
1- https://bit.ly/4eErAQx , 2- https://bit.ly/4noe99G , 3- https://bit.ly/4tiiooj , 4- ibid , 5 -https://bit.ly/4d66Oqo , 6 - https://bit.ly/4uFgtvn , 7- https://bit.ly/4tWm2Fw , 8 - https://bit.ly/4tXFhP1 , 9 - From the Doom Loop to an economy for work not wealth, TUC Publications (2023) , 10 - https://bit.ly/4eztulm , 11 - Operation Restoring Justice, Reform UK (August 2025) 1 , 12 - https://bit.ly/4uukEd7 , 13 - https://bit.ly/4uuv7oX , 14 - ibid. 2