Asylum seekers seem undeterred by a UK Conservative government pledge to “stop the boats” and send some illegal arrivals to Rwanda. Last year, an unprecedented 45,755 people were recorded making the Channel crossing from France. That is up from 28,000 in 2021 and 8,500 people in 2020.

Around half of those seeking to come to the UK are from conflict zones, with Afghanistan topping the list. While a surge in Albanians last year has since declined, Indians are among recent arrivals, according to the Home Office.

The European Union is the other favoured destination for asylum seekers crossing the Mediterranean, the most dangerous migrant sea route in the world.

Protesters denounce UK plan to halt migrants’ Channel crossings

In the UK, tens of thousands of asylum seekers are staying in temporary accommodation while awaiting a decision on their claims, which can take years. Accommodation includes hotels, which costs British taxpayers almost £6 million (US$7.5 million) a day.

With stopping the small boats a flagship policy, the government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to end its reliance on hotels to save money and deter more asylum seekers from coming. By the end of this year, Channel arrivals since 2020 would total more than 125,000, if 2023 figures match last year’s.

But the plans face resistance from both human rights groups and local authorities. A proposal to dock a cruise ship for asylum seekers near Liverpool was scrapped due to objections from local authorities.

An idea to place a vessel at London’s Royal Docks was pulled after it was opposed by the Royal Docks management authority and the mayor of London’s office.

London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan said this month: “Vulnerable people fleeing appalling circumstances would not have access to the support they need”.

A plan announced in April to dock the Bibby Stockholm barge for at least 18 months at Dorset port in the south coast of England is running weeks behind schedule as the vessel is refitted. Anti-terrorist police have carried out unexplained exercises where it is to be docked.

The barge has 222 bedrooms and would accommodate 500 single male asylum seekers. The plan has been met with opposition by the Conservative-run Dorset Council and local Conservative MP Richard Drax.

“When they leave the port – if indeed they can get out, because this barge will be nothing more than a quasi-prison – when they go into Weymouth (the nearest town), what will they do? Who will monitor them?” Drax said of asylum seekers on LBC radio this month.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK or choose where they live. Human rights groups have said barges were not appropriate for people fleeing conflict or hardship.

There has also been opposition to plans to move thousands of migrants to barracks at old Royal Air Force (RAF) bases.

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“It is clear that the government’s use of disused barracks and airbases is driven by the need to pander to the lowest common denominator in society – to those who see asylum seekers not as fellow human beings, but as somehow ‘the other’,” said Steve Smith, chief executive of the UK-based refugee charity Care4Calais.

The latest Home Office proposal is to house asylum seekers in huge marquees.

A Liberal Democrat-led council is trying to block proposals for facilities at RAF Scampton, in Lincolnshire.

Some asylum seekers are already staying at the RAF base in Wethersfield, Essex, where there has been demonstrations from angry locals bolstered by far-right groups. The area’s Conservative MP, Britain’s immigration minister Robert Jenrick, has found himself at odds with local party members who are threatening to sue the government.

“While the abandoned military facilities once housed British troops, they have long been left vacant and fallen into disrepair, verging on dereliction,” Smith said. “The combination of visible security measures, shared living quarters and isolation from the wider community results in accommodation that is wholly unsuitable for survivors of war, conflict, torture, trafficking and persecution.”

The number of asylum applicants increased from 40,830 in 2020 to 133,607 as of March 31 this year, according to government figures. The opposition Labour Party blames staff cuts and recruitment problems at the Home Office as the main reasons for the backlog.

“A fundamental problem not being adequately addressed is the asylum backlog where we have a situation where the number of people waiting for asylum to be granted or refused has spiralled,” said Robert McNeil, deputy director at Oxford University’s Migration Observatory.

Immigration was a major issue leading up to Brexit in 2016, which resulted in the UK ending the free movement of people from the EU.

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Still, net migration hit a record 606,000 in 2022, as student numbers surged and the UK granted visas for people fleeing the war in Ukraine and British National (Overseas) passport holders from Hong Kong.

To stem the flow of what it deems illegal arrivals, Sunak’s Conservative government has proposed sending some migrants who arrive in the UK in small boats to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed. Those granted asylum would stay in the African country rather than return to Britain.

The Illegal Migration Bill is currently in the House of Lords. It has been labelled “cruel and nasty” by the Refugee Council, and become mired in legal challenges.

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Bodies recovered after scores drown in year’s deadliest migrant shipwreck off Greece

Bodies recovered after scores drown in year’s deadliest migrant shipwreck off Greece

The British government has argued that its deportation policy will deter people-smuggling gangs who ferry migrants across the Channel.

“Policymakers promising solutions to these problems are being slightly disingenuous because they do not have the tools to solve them. These are intractable scenarios that cannot be solved by national policy alone,” McNeil said.

The passage to the UK is often the last leg of long and dangerous journeys highlighted by the tragic sinking of a migrant vessel off the coast of Greece on June 14. Hundreds of people are thought to have been on board when the boat went down after departing Libya.

Eight days later, a migrant boat that sailed from Tunisia capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa, leaving more than 40 people missing.

The United Nations has recorded more than 21,000 deaths and disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014.

In the UK the issue of “small boats” has become the bugbear of the right-wing of the Conservative Party.

But there were 21 countries in Europe that took in more asylum seekers than the UK in 2022. The UK (74,751) trailed Germany (296,555), France (170,705), and Spain (128,015), according to the Home Office.

“The UK government cannot continue to use the country’s island status to avoid its international responsibility to protect refugees,” Smith said.