To think the BBC is wrong an actually the U.K. is accepting its “fair share” of asylum seekers?

[Discovereads]

On another thread this screen shot of a BBC news report was posted. It shows a newscaster claiming the U.K. is a shameful 19th out of 20 (random) European and Scandinavian countries for taking in asylum seekers. The message was we are not doing our “fair share” compared to other countries to help asylum seekers. The newscasters face says it all really….

Now, I know the Home Office is a shit show of brazen inhumanity, callous disregard for human rights, and it’s Secretary likes spouting jingoistic rhetoric.
But this thread isn’t about their many failings. We know they can do much better, that’s not in question. It’s meant to be a let’s look at the hard data and compare it to other European and Scandinavian countries.

Now the BBC made two mistakes, the first I hinted to, they cherry picked 20 countries out of 32 in Europe and Scandinavia. They didn’t use a measure like largest or richest or safest 20 countries. The second mistake they made was calculating the # of asylum applications on a 10k per capita basis. Using the # of applications is meaningless because it bears no relation to the number of asylum seekers actually given leave to settle here, we have a high acceptance rate of 76% on initial decision, plus a further 3% after appeal so 79% of all asylum seekers end up settling here. The figure used should be #asylumees accepted not #asylum applications received. Then comparing us to other countries on a per capita basis is also a mistake because we have a very high population density- 5th highest in all Europe & Scandinavia and #1st highest of all countries of over 100,000km2 land area. Using per capita ignores the valid concern of overpopulation.

I personally think that looking at “fair share” should be based on balancing two factors: population density inclusive of accepted asylumees and total number accepted relative to the land area of the country. And then when when looking at a table, giving allowance for different climates, ie Iceland cannot support as high a population density as we can. So I’ve researched some stats which show that actually, we are doing our fair share and the next post will have two tables showing the data. For now, here is the BBC screen shot:

Ultimately there are all kinds of things that factor into a country's ability to accept refugees. Space, the climate, the economy, the social infrastructure, etc. And the people being accepted can be a variable too, in some cases they will be people who can come and integrate pretty easily, but in others many will need high levels of support. Many of these things are not straightforward to measure.

I worked in a local refugee resettlement group, over the past year or so we have stopped looking to bring new people because the housing crisis where I live and frankly the chances of finding housing for any newcomers is very small. What's more, every homeless shelter is full of people already fighting for the few places available. How do you look at the guy living in a tent on the corner and tell him sorry, he'll have to spend the winter there, because you have brought someone in from another country who will be moving into the available low-income housing?

I think the bigger picture is that for all kinds of reasons there are going to be more people wanting to migrate, and there will not be places for them all. Many countries are struggling with economic and social unrest now, taking more year on year will not be accepted by the populations, and the people won't be able to be supported anyway.

There's a need for a new model for how to deal with these kinds of problems.

Sweden isn't full and can take more. What I'm objecting to is the nonsense that the UK can't do it's fair share using false information about Sweden. '12x bigger!' but failing to mention that most of it is uninhabitable, that the existing population is only 10 million and the gdp is a tiny fraction of the UK's.

I think people who haven't been there really don't understand the difference between the New Forest and Boreal swamp forest. They're not.pretty woodlands that we want to preserve so everyone can enjoy them. They are literally uninhabitable swamps, hundreds and hundreds of square miles of mosquito infested swamps. You have to wear whole body suits like this if you go there forestbud.se/sv/regnskydd-och-myggskydd/495-mfh-heltackande-myggdr-kt-4044633152534 (if you survive the wolves and bears)

I used to live in a slightly more habitable part of the forest and it was bloody nightmare in summer. You couldn't use the garden at all. You'd come in looking like you had measles despite covering yourself in deet. So now we've relocated to a more liveable area, away from the forest and the mosquitos.

The U.K. is doing it’s fair share. Everything you are saying only confirms my point that we cannot judge fair share by applications per capita.

I haven’t posted any false information about Sweden at all.

It’s all factual. The conclusions you draw from it are your own.

Yes Sweden has a lot of uninhabitable land that you cannot settle people on so not a lot of asylum seekers can be accepted, but on the flip side the UKs habitable land has one of the highest population densities that you also cannot settle yet more people on, also limiting the number of asylum seekers that can be accepted as well.

@Fladdermus

GDP is something that has to be evaluated on a per capita basis as that’s a better measure for the prosperity and living standards of the population than GDP for a nation as a whole.
Source:livingcost.org/cost/sweden/united-kingdom

GDP/per capita:
Sweden- $52,274
U.K.- $41,059

Also need to look at cost of living right? Because even if Sweden has more money per person, that doesn’t mean they’re actually living large if their cost of living is higher

The average cost of living in Sweden ($1398) is 23% less expensive than in the United Kingdom ($1804). Sweden ranked 27th vs 16th for the United Kingdom in the list of the most expensive countries in the world.

The average after-tax salary is enough to cover living expenses for 2 months in Sweden compared to 1.6 months in the United Kingdom.

So, as said many times on many threads, the richer countries should take a bit more compared to poorer ones. We’re not poor, but Sweden is a richer country than we are.

It’s all factual. The conclusions you draw from it are your own.

It's not factual if your facts are wrong. You posted a ratio of accepted asylum claims from various sources. I showed you that your figures were wrong according to Migrationsverket. You doubled down on your 'facts' and sources which quite frankly is ridiculous. If you knew anything about Sweden then you'd know the only people with 100% accurate asylum figures is Migrationsverket. If you have another source that says different then your source is wrong.

Likewise all your nonsense about housing refugees in Boreal swamp forest or the arctic circle.

But yes you're right, everyone including the BBC is misrepresenting the UKs abysmal performance when it comes to refugees. We should all start using your alternative facts so we can see how the UK is the most diverse, world leading, more generous and welcoming than any other country. The biggliest, the best, MAKE BRITAIN GREAT AGAIN!

@Fladdermus
It's not factual if your facts are wrong. You posted a ratio of accepted asylum claims from various sources. I showed you that your figures were wrong according to Migrationsverket. You doubled down on your 'facts' and sources which quite frankly is ridiculous. If you knew anything about Sweden then you'd know the only people with 100% accurate asylum figures is Migrationsverket. If you have another source that says different then your source is wrong.

You never provided a link to your source so how can I or anyone verify your numbers? Even if Migrationsverket is more accurate, there is nothing wrong with me using the Eurostat database which I referenced AND linked you to and it said it was accurate as of 26/10/22. If the numbers are wrong, then it would be because Sweden gave the wrong numbers to Eurostat. Although it is more likely your numbers are not an apples to apples comparison. They could reflect applications, not acceptances. Or refugees, not asylum seekers. Or cover a different date range.

Likewise all your nonsense about housing refugees in Boreal swamp forest or the arctic circle. I never said anything about housing refugees in the Boreal swamp forest. I did say that lots of people live in the Arctic circle…which is factually true..around 4 million do. Including several large cities Murmansk (population around 300,000), Norilsk (over 180,000), and Vorkuta (around 70,000) in Russia. Tromsø, Norway has about 59,000 inhabitants, and Reykjavík, Iceland has more than 115,000. On a side note, Iceland took in 60 asylum seekers last year, all living in the Arctic circle.

But yes you're right, everyone including the BBC is misrepresenting the UKs abysmal performance when it comes to refugees.
Yes they are misrepresenting it. Our performance in terms of raw numbers of asylum seekers actually granted asylum is quite good and it’s despite a complete dysfunctional home office and several crises going on.

We should all start using your alternative facts
Theyre not my facts. They’re the numbers from Eurostat & World Atlas, both reputable sources which I cited and linked you to. If you could link me to exactly where you got your numbers, I would be most grateful because right now without a verifiable source, I’m afraid you’re the one with alternative facts.

You seem to be very good at finding some figures on the internet and then assuming that your calculations 'prove' the point you're trying to make, rather than listening to what people with more actual knowledge/ experience have to say.

I see you've provided some stats that refer to "major weapons" exports between 2017-2021 but not considered all the other, smaller weapons and related technology.
Most experts caution against using figures from a single year of trading as there can be a lot of fluctuation, and results can be skewed by just a few major projects/ contracts, but instead looking at periods of at least 5 years.
If you look at different figures - for example, "trend indicator values" from 1950-2019 - Britain comes THIRD in the world, which is pretty shocking considering what a small country we are.

A lot of what we're exporting is going to the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar) and India, not Ukraine. It includes a lot of aerospace stuff, like radar and refuel systems for (combat) aircraft.

According to a UK Commons Library report published a year ago: "The UK DSE estimates that the UK is the second largest exporter of defence items worldwide based on value of orders / contracts signed. Between 2011 and 2020, the majority of UK defence exports (60%) went to the Middle East, followed by North America (17%) and Europe (15%)."
See researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8310/CBP-8310.pdf & www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-defence-and-security-exports-for-2020/uk-defence-and-security-export-statistics-for-2020

NB: The UK Govt continued to licence the export of arms - which were then used by Saudi Arabia & co to commit human rights violations in the Yemen - even after this had already been declared unlawful by the Court of Appeal, and they'd agreed to stop issuing export licences. Something that Truss was forced to apologise for when she was the minister responsible for International Trade, in 2019.

I was the person who posted the two BBC screenshots. You don’t refer to the screenshot showing that we still don’t have the numbers of asylum applications we had in 2002. Some newspapers are describing those coming over on small boats as a crisis and then see our Home Secretary use inflammatory language such as invasion which is subsequently misleading many in the general public to believe we are going through an unprecedented time of number of asylum seekers. The truth is as said in the early 2000s numbers were higher than now. Numbers go up and down over the years, depending on what global events are happening, and they are rising again after being steady for a while but there is no invasion or an army of people in small boats arriving in Britain. As it happens those coming over in small boats actually only make up 25% of eventual refugee numbers in the U.K. The Hong Kong and Ukrainian resettlement schemes this year have seen much higher numbers but the govt don’t describe that as a crisis.

We do have a broken home office system which has caused a huge backlog in asylum applications (standing between 100-120,000 currently) which needs to be addressed. It has meant asylum accommodation is full and more are having to be put in hotels as they await the decision on their asylum application. This backlog has got exponentially worse in the last six years according to immigration barrister Colin Yeo. There has been a reduction in the number of asylum decision makers. The govt have finally increased the numbers but they say it will take 18 months to train them up.

This article by Colin Yeo discusses the reasons behind the back log. freemovement.org.uk/understanding-the-home-offices-problem-with-asylum-decisions/

Also much of the media don’t get across that the majority of those desperate people coming over by small boats (majority come by small boats now than lorry etc as those other avenues have been closed off) apply for asylum and are not economic migrants as suggested by certain quarters. Yes, there may have been an increase in Albanians recently that may be economic migrants but that should not deflect from the majority who have been asylum seekers. Nor should any of them be othered as an invasion which is a vast exaggeration.

Also as has been pointed out numerous times by posters when you look at the total numbers of refugees and asylum seekers in the world, Europe takes relatively little. As Colin Yeo , a immigration barrister writes, “UNHCR estimate there are 21.3 million refugees in the world at the moment, plus 4.6 million asylum seekers. Turkey alone hosts 3.8 million refugees, Colombia 1.8 million and Pakistan 1.4 million. 1.4 million new asylum claims were made in the world, of which the UK received one half of one per cent (0.5%).
Link here freemovement.org.uk/putting-small-boat-crossings-in-perspective/

So using the word crisis is hyperbole; however, there is a beleaguered government whose party has been in power for 12 years and even taking into account external events have overseen the significant decline in living standards for the majority whilst the very rich have seen their wealth surge. I personally feel they are stoking the idea of a crisis as a deflection from the v real problems the country is facing. Using immigrants as deflection is abhorrent.

As it happens those coming over in small boats actually only make up 25% of eventual refugee numbers in the U.K.

Atm we have higher numbers from Albania and from the 10,000 males many will not become refugees, because they don’t stay in hotels for the process. No one can give a number on this yet but given confirmation that many don’t stay beyond 24 hours they won’t be in the numbers. Women have been granted refugee status as a higher proportion in the past.

@Mobiledesktop I don’t know, some of us actively choose to spend their days around “these people”. What’s often clear is that people who work in the asylum seeker support sector (therefore spend a lot of time around them) are overwhelmingly in support of asylum seekers, while the ones in opposition have either never seen or had a conversation with an asylum seeker. Fear of the unknown?

Also see how widespread cities of sanctuary, & schools of sanctuary are becoming. It’s easy to look at your (curated) social media and believe everyone thinks like you, but it’s not the case.

What contributes to making Britain a worse place is hate, racism, and most importantly a government who tanked the economy and destroyed the country’s infrastructure, making it near impossible to get on the property ladder, get a doctor’s appointment, have your within 2 week cancer check on time, get a consultant’s appointment within 2 years, etc etc and want you to blame it on a bunch of people who just stepped off a boat.

Sweden has been struggling with the integration of large numbers of foreign-born people too. There’s been a lot of stories coming out about the increase in crime and violence. We do need to get our rose-tinted spectacles off: large numbers of people who have not lived in industrious civic societies, and have different values both from us and each other, need help to integrate. It does not automatically just happen, and we can be overwhelmed.

@Longtimelurkerfinallyposts
"The UK DSE estimates that the UK is the second largest exporter of defence items worldwide based on value of orders / contracts signed. Between 2011 and 2020, the majority of UK defence exports (60%) went to the Middle East, followed by North America (17%) and Europe (15%)."

My figures were from 2017-2021, so more recent than yours and they reflected actual export of arms.

Your data is much less precise. First “defence items” is a huge category of items the vast majority of which are not weapons/arms related. They include things like pop up temporary concrete sprayed shelters, MREs, food supplies and field kitchens, field hospitals and medical supplies, uniforms & body armour, transport vehicles, shower/toilet vehicles and blocks, fuel for vehicles & jet fuel for planes, millions of bags of quick concrete, fencing to set up perimeters, construction vehicles, IT and communications equipment, and so on. Everything to build, maintain, and defend a FOB.

Secondly, the sentence above says it is based on the “value of orders/contracts signed” not what was actually exported. This is important because I used to write and negotiate MoD contracts. The contracts would have a minimum order amount and a ceiling, which was the signed “value”. The value of a contract is always set well above known need to cover worst case scenarios such as what if two major wars were to erupt at the same time? This is so we can ramp up quickly as the contract negotiation process is 2-3yrs long. If a war breaks out, we won’t have 2yrs to negotiate new contracts for defence items. We have to have a supplier on contract and ready to go. This quite literally means that many contracts, for example, have a value of £2billion, with a minimum order of £50m, but over the course of the contract only £400m is ever actually spent. In addition, these contracts run for up to 10 years, so any contract signed from 2011 onwards might cover worst case exports potential needed as late of 2021…thus meaning the use of this value would then represent more than the 9 year span in the blurb above. And rippling that out, by including contract values signed in 2020, this then definitely includes potential exports that might happen as late as 2030.

So, this is why the Statista numbers I posted which represent actual arms that have actually left the country from 2017-2021 and is a more precise and accurate way to measure the export of arms.

Looking at the “signed contract value” of “all defence items” which cannot even be restricted to the 2011-2020 date range to calculate actual arms exports is shoddy work at best and deliberate deception at worst.

@ganachee
Yes, completely agree with your post. It’s not a crisis in terms of an immigration crisis. It is a human trafficking crisis in that we need to get people here safely without risking their lives on boats and falling into the hands of organised criminals to end up as modern day slaves in the U.K. The Government does need to be addressing the boats, but as a humanitarian human trafficking crisis with the objective being to find and protect the asylum seekers before they get on a boat, not to demonise them as they have been doing.

I didn’t mention all this at the outset because I just wanted to post about the number of asylum seekers we accept relative to other European countries to counter the media’s claims that the U.K. isn’t taking in it’s fair share. I think we are tbh. It’s not that I want an award or a pat on the head or for the media to say Britain is Great, but it would be good to not be constantly told your country is shit and you’re not doing shit to help by the BBC when that is not true.

1.4 million new asylum claims were made in the world, of which the UK received one half of one per cent (0.5%).

Well given that the U.K. is 0.8% of the world population and far from the epicentres that’s actually higher than I would expect to see. It’s also why I think our foreign aid needs to go up, not be cut because most refugees don’t go halfway around the world, they flee to other countries within the same region. These host countries shouldn’t have to bear the full cost, we should be sending them aid to help fund their assistance of refugees. It should not be a case of only help those who get here…we need to do both.

If the Government could invest in proper housing, faster & better application processing(some real injustices are being carried out), and humanitarian action we could be much better in terms of quality of assistance. Right now the Home Office is falling far short of the bare minimum on treatment and housing of asylum seekers.

It’d be nice to say we need to fund more and more, more houses, language schemes, centres but we have a funding issue atm

It’s not the government who funds it, it’s taxpayers.

@Longtimelurkerfinallyposts
I see you've provided some stats that refer to "major weapons" exports between 2017-2021

That is not correct. The chart I posted wasn’t for “major weapons” exports but for “arms” exports. Arms means all types of weapons and their associated ammunition. From SAMs to tanks to 9mm handguns. You were probably thrown off by the cute tank graphic into thinking it was only “major weapons.”

@Longtimelurkerfinallyposts
Just wanted to add on that the same contracts for defence items used for FOBs, are also used for refugee camps. There were a goodly number of humanitarian orders we issued on the same contracts as orders covering FOBs. This was during the Gulf Wars, Iraq rebuild and Afghanistan conflicts as I have since retired.

I don't think it is hate, we are very tolerant as a nation

How is it fair if people who live here cannot obtain affordable housing or get their children into a school in Canterbury when they are paying council tax to the local authority

Where I live there has been a massive influx of Albanians in recent years (some
of the children go to DD’s school and the numbers have risen quite dramatically).

You can’t blame people for moving country to try and find a better life.

If you think life is bad here, try living in Albania (or any other country that refugees or economic migrants are coming from).

@woodhill I certainly wouldn’t say that most of the UK is hateful. I see plenty of the opposite from all types of people, including those who have genuine concerns. I completely agree with you about how unfair that situation is, but for me I put the blame at the feet of the government (who are in control of things) and not asylum seekers (who are not). This from Michael Rosen sums up what I mean and to be clear I’m not calling anyone on mumsnet a fascist or a racist. 😁 But this sneaking, pernicious hatred being displayed by this government is always something to be wary of.

Thanks I appreciate your reply😀

We do have engrained serious problems with racism and xenophobia in this country. As my DH is an immigrant and our DC thus “tainted”, it happens. So lots still to be done.

I started this thread because I don’t like things that are not problems being made out to look like a problem by the BBC just to score points in a political bun fight between the Government and the media. They can call out Braverman and Home Office racism and human rights violations without twisting data to make the U.K. look worse than it is. It also casts doubt on the things the BBC reports that are true & accurate, which only entrenches the viewpoints of those among us who are racist and/or xenophobic.

The BBC used have integrity and be a trusted news source. Now, not so much. And we are even more divided because of it.