AIBU to think a lot of people don't realise the extent to which the small boats crisis is a direct consequence of Brexit...

[Greeygoooose]

...and that it's just one of the many ways in which right-wingers voting for Brexit was indistinguishable from turkeys voting for Christmas?

Do you mean the last safe country or the first safe country? Remain voters can't seem to make up their minds. Return them all back to France or back to the countries they first entered the EU?

I thought the small boat crisis was due to successive UK governments not setting up processing centres in other countries.

If I had been a right wing Tory when in power, worried about France not doing enough, id have set up an asylum processing office on the centre of Paris....

Shabana Mahmood gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee a few weeks ago;

4 Feb 2026
Shabana Mahmood has directly contradicted the Prime Minister’s claim that the Channel migrant crisis is due to Brexit.

The Home Secretary said she ‘doesn’t think it’s true’ that Britain’s departure from the European Union led to small boat crossings, or that it had made it harder to deport migrants.

Ms Mahmood, giving evidence to the Commons’ home affairs select committee, said: ‘I would just dispute whether Dublin actually worked as was intended.
‘I'm sure there's lots of other debates we had about the rights and wrongs of Brexit. ‘But is Brexit responsible for the boats? I don't think that's true.'

Ms Mahmood added that the small boat journeys were ‘a new phenomenon’ and ‘the idea that this has happened because we've lost the access to Dublin and the returns agreement with the EU, I think that's too much of a stretch’.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15527373/Shabana-Mahmood-contradicts-PM-Keir-Starmers-claim-Brexit-blame-small-boats-crisis.html

4 February 2026 - The work of the Home Office - Oral evidence
The Home Affairs Committee will question Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood MP in a session on the work of the Home Office.

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/26023/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

Where do Brexiteers like to return them to?

In the the EU, the UK could access Eurodac and check where they first applied for asylum.

🙄 Every bloody time. There’s always one.

I’m not wrong. I am 100% correct. If you don’t believe me then look on the Home Office website which will explain it to you. Let me know if there’s anything you don’t understand.

Wrong about what specifically?

@TooBigForMyBoots what does the Dublin Accord have to do with this? That relates to the mutual recognition of engineering qualifications between EU member states, to support enable freedom of movement within the profession.

Not Greece. In 2015, over 800,000 asylum seekers entered the EU via Greece. How do you send 800,000 asylum seekers back to Greece? The answer is you don't - not least because the EU suspended all Dublin returns to Greece between 2011 - 2017. The UK and Irish governments challenged the suspension but lost the case at the European Court of Justice. When in 2017, the EU lifted the suspension, immigration lawyers in the UK announced they would continue to challenge all Dublin returns to Greece. As far as I am aware, we haven't sent any Dublin returns to Greece since 2010.

Probably not Poland either - last year Donald Tusk announced that Poland would no longer comply with the Dublin Agreement. Italy with Giorgia Meloni?

The small boats aren’t the only way people are getting into the U.K. The student visa system has been exploited for years. My home town (Colchester) has been profoundly changed by immigration. It’s almost unrecognisable. We have a university, and huge numbers of immigrants have settled on the estates nearby. I suspect many got here by exploiting the student visa system.

I actually know someone who works in university admissions. He tells me that for years he has been warning his superiors about what is happening. How people sign up for a course, come to the U.K., and then vanish. Or how others do a course and then never return home. No one seems interested. In fact, he has more or less been told to keep his mouth shut and not cause trouble.

"... the-extent-to-which-the-small-boats-crisis-is-a-direct-consequence-of-Brexit"

I have heard a number of people say this but, so far, I have not seen any really convincing evidence.

I voted "remain" BTW.

And this is the issue isn’t it - it’s all very well spouting ‘just send them back ‘ - there has to be some kind of ruling where to send back to - or what’s the proposal - shoot them in the sea - looking forward to the pics of dead kids etc , and yep plenty will be gloating over it and nope it won’t stop it, some will still risk it . Getting to the people organising this is a biggie too - plenty are British arseholes doing it - another biggie as I’ve mentioned isn’t just those on boats, it’s people coming in legally and then vanishing within the black economy or with relatives etc

@MrThorpeHazell a quick AI Google returns the following - this was always my understanding too

• Pre-Brexit Mechanism (Dublin III): The Dublin regulation allowed for the transfer of asylum seekers back to the EU state responsible for their claim (usually France, if they crossed the Channel).
• Limitation of Returns: While the mechanism existed, returning individuals on small boats was always complex and not automatically approved by France, even before the UK left the EU.
• Post-Brexit Situation: The UK lost access to this automatic return system on 1 January 2021. Since then, no new returns agreement has been successfully implemented, making it much harder to send asylum seekers back to France.
• BBC
• +4

In summary, the UK had a legal framework (Dublin III) to process returns, but not a direct "right" to push back boats at sea, as turning back vessels in international or territorial waters without consent is generally prohibited.

People had more rights to move from Europe to the UK and we had less rights to stop them, why do you think illegal immigration problems are worse?

Will you allow me to turn that question round? What makes you believe (if you do) that Brexit has had an impact other than Dublin returns? And then I’ll try to counter those arguments.

Dublin agreement did not allow more returns. It was two way. It didn’t work then. It wouldn’t work now. People have lawyers and complicated lives and will not just obey orders to go where they are told. They are generally not detained anyway. Would just go to Ireland or wherever else might work for a while.
We won’t solve the migration issues by tweaking current laws either within or outside Europe. Brexit is pretty irrelevant to the small boats.

The UK left the EU without any agreements in place and lost access to security databases and EU cooperation.

Why do you think Brexit had no impact?

How is it a result of Brexit? Or is it just something you read on X?

Pre-Brexit Mechanism (Dublin III): The Dublin regulation allowed for the transfer of asylum seekers back to the EU state responsible for their claim (usually France, if they crossed the Channel)
The UK lost access to this automatic return system on 1 January 2021

10,000 people crossed the Channel by small boat before 1 January 2021.

That’s a completely different argument though.

Yes, we lost access to those things and yes, that’s shit. But is that going to have had an impact on arrival numbers or our removals policy? I don’t believe so. And I can’t find anything that suggests it has had an impact.

It's not a completely different argument, it's part of it.

Can you at least find something that suggests Brexit had no impact?

Crikeyalmighty
Pre-Brexit Mechanism (Dublin III): The Dublin regulation allowed for the transfer of asylum seekers back to the EU state responsible for their claim (usually France, if they crossed the Channel

(usually France, if they crossed the Channel)

Did you add this statement in yourself?

Yes but the problems people are now seeing are the asylum hotels which definitely weren’t a thing before Brexit.

Also people moaning about “benefits” and housing given to “illegals”. Again - it didn’t happen before Brexit as these stowaways just disappeared into the system, got jobs, maybe worked a few years to get some cash, then moved back to Europe.

Recent figures for asylum claimants:

101,000 asylum claims in 2025 - down 4%

• 135,000 initial decisions made, UP 56%, highest since records began in 2002

• Grant rate: 42%, down from 47%

The EU and Europe are not the same thing. When you refer to the EU as "Europe" your point becomes unclear.

I disagree that it’s part of it. We lost lots of things due to Brexit. Those things didn’t have an impact on the numbers of small boats either. Person A, B and C from Sudan, Afghanistan and Iran aren’t going to care whether or not we’re still in the EU. All that matters to them is that we’re still signatories to the Refugee Convention and the ECHR.

I think Brexit is being blamed for the increase in numbers because it roughly coincided with increased security measures in France and people traffickers realising it was a lot cheaper and a lot less work to stick 70 people on a small boat to the UK on a deserted beach than it was to sneak 70 people into the port and onto a lorry. Once they realised that, coupled with the horrible situations in a lot of countries, increased poverty around the world and a number of pull factors to the UK, of course numbers were going to increase. That’s not down to Brexit.

I can find opinions to suggest it had no impact, which is all there is to support either side of the argument. What I can’t find is anything more than opinions to suggest it has impacted it.