We must let asylum seekers work and live legally, while striving internationally to resolve the causes of displacement
Politicians need an answer to every problem, even when there isn’t one. Pretending to be omniscient and omnipotent is in the job description – though the result is that public trust leaches away, since some problems don’t have politically acceptable solutions. There is no politically satisfactory answer to asylum seekers arriving in Britain when many voters feel “controlling borders” is the definition of nationhood. So impossibilism rules.
Politicians could point to net migration plummeting last year to 34,000, far below David Cameron’s original 100,000 promise; the net number of EU nationals coming to the UK even went negative, caused by a combination of the pandemic and Brexit. Or they could show that less than half the number of asylum seekers arrived in the UK compared with the early 2000s peak. Numbers of asylum applications are very low compared to France and Germany, while around 85% of refugees worldwide are camped in the poorest countries. We make a disproportionate fuss over taking just 1% of the world’s 26 million refugees. But pollsters will tell you none of that cuts any ice with voters.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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