How many people claim UK asylum based on sexual orientation?published at 15:58 British Summer Time 26 September 2023

15:58 BST 26 September 2023

Braverman has just said it's unsustainable to have an asylum system where "simply being gay ... is sufficient to qualify for protection”.

In 2022, there were 1,334 asylum applications lodged in the UK, external, where sexual orientation was part of the basis for the claim.

This represents 1.5% of 74,751 asylum claims made last year.

The top countries of origin were Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria. In all three countries consensual same-sex sexual acts are illegal.

They are punishable by life imprisonment and, in some parts of northern Nigeria, by death (according to The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, external).

However, sexual orientation may not be the only grounds on which the asylum applications were made - and we don't know whether it influenced the outcome.

Image source, .

Braverman says that as case law has developed around the UN’s Refugee Convention, it has essentially become easier for people to qualify as refugees.

She says there has been an “interpretive shift away from ‘persecution,’ in favour of something more akin to a definition of ‘discrimination’,” - and that there has been a shift “away from a ‘well-founded fear’ toward a ‘credible’ or ‘plausible fear’.”

She says there are “vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay, or to be a woman,” and that when people are being persecuted it is “right that we offer sanctuary".

But she says it is unsustainable to have an asylum system where “simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection."

Image source, PA Media

The UK home secretary further criticises the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention, saying “we live in a completely different time” to when it was created.

The convention was drafted to help resettle people following World War Two. It was meant to confer protection to two million people, but today does so to 780 million, she claims.

She adds that internet, plane travel, and smartphones have made it easier for people to migrate and to facilitate smuggling networks.

It's worth noting her 780 million figure is a very different number from the actual 35 million refugees in the world today, according to the UN’s refugee agency. Read more on this in our earlier post here.

Let's take a closer look at how many asylum claims were granted last year compared to some of the UK's European neighbours.

Last year, the UK authorities made initial decisions on 18,699 asylum applications and granted 14,211 of them - 76%.

In the same period, Germany made 197,540 asylum decisions, and granted more than 50% of them.

France - a country with a similar-sized population to the UK - made 129,735 decisions, and also granted more than 50%.

In 2022, the UK had the fifth highest number of asylum applications in Europe, behind Germany, France, Spain and Austria.

Braverman is now setting out her argument for the reform of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which is one of the elements of her speech we knew ahead of time.

“Well-intentioned legal conventions and treaties” obscure the lines between people seeking genuine asylum and seeking better economic prospects, between being trafficked and being smuggled, and allows for “shopping around” for a country to settle in, she claims.

Citing UN figures, she says around 50,000 people have died on their journeys to seek asylum since 2014.

“All of these people were no doubt seeking a better life,” she says.“Some, perhaps many, were genuine refugees, but not all of them were.”

Image source, PA Media

Braverman says there is a “democratic case” against what she has continuously referred to in this speech as "uncontrolled and illegal migration".

She says that opinion polls and national votes have shown that the public in Europe and the United States want “the government to control their borders.”

“Who we allow to come into our country and become one of us is a fundamental issue. Without public consent, immigration is illegitimate,” Braverman says, adding that it is dangerous and unfair to dismiss as idiots or bigots people who express legitimate concerns.

The UK government, she says, is working closely with European allies to better secure the continent’s border.

“Failure to do so will I fear, undermine the legitimacy of democratic institutions and create the conditions for more extreme politics."

The home secretary claims that “uncontrolled and illegal migration” also poses “obvious threats to public safety and national security.” She claims UK police chiefs have warned her of heightened levels of criminality linked to some small boat arrivals, “particularly in relation to drug crime, exploitation, and prostitution.”

Turning now to her second argument against “uncontrolled” migration, Braverman says it puts unsustainable pressure on the taxpayer.

Citing Home Office figures, Braverman says a rise in asylum seekers arriving on British shores in the last year roughly doubled the cost of the country’s asylum system to nearly £4 billion.

“We are not unique in these challenges,” she says, and also refers to New York City, where large numbers of recently-arrived migrants have put pressure on public services.

Tens of thousands of people have been bussed there by conservative leaders in US border states like Texas, in a political dispute about border security.

Braverman argues that accommodation, new schools, improved roads, extra police officers, additional healthcare, and other public services on which a community relies “cannot be magicked up out of thin air”.

Image source, PA Media

Braverman sets out her first reason for tackling illegal migration - calling it the "civic argument".

She says: “Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven a toxic combination for Europe over the last few decades”.

Braverman adds that multiculturalism has failed and that “the nation state must be protected.”

"You can see it play out on the streets of cities all over Europe," she says. "From Malmo, to Paris, Brussels, to Leicester."

She argues that saying so does not make one anti-immigrant. “I am the child of immigrants,” she says. Braverman adds: “There is an optimal level of immigration. It is not zero.”

Braverman says that migration is driven primarily by “economics and demography” - although acknowledges that war, political instability and climate change will “exacerbate” the flow of the people.

She points to data from UNHCR, the World Bank and Gallup. Citing one poll, she says that 16% of the global adult population – some 900 million people – would permanently like to leave their own countries.

Braverman concludes that the total number of people who in theory want to migrate to the US and the UK are “more than half of our current total populations.”

Using Italy’s Lampedusa island - where many migrants arrive on dangerous boat journeys from north Africa - and land border crossings in the US as examples, Braverman says high levels of illegal migration can have a negative effect on communities without the services to host them.

She’s uses a variety of figures to make her point - but also takes a moment to note that most migration numbers are approximations.

“Nobody knows the true number of illegal arrivals, and estimates in this area very rarely turn out to be lower,” she says.

Image source, PA

Suella Braverman begins her speech by saying she wants to talk about “uncontrolled and illegal migration”.

This is an “existential challenge” for institutions in the Western world, she says - adding that political systems that cannot control their borders cannot maintain the support of their people and will therefore not survive.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman is speaking now. You can watch live by clicking the play icon at the top of this page.

We'll also, of course, bring you all the key updates, analysis and reaction right here.

Do 780 million people really have refugee rights?published at 15:30 British Summer Time 26 September 2023

15:30 BST 26 September 2023

Ahead of Suella Braverman's speech - due to start in a couple of minutes - the home secretary was widely trailed in the papers as claiming that the 1951 UN Refugee Convention confers refugee rights to 780 million people.

We're expecting to hear numbers of that sort when she speaks in a moment.

This is based on calculations by Nick Timothy and Karl Williams in a report for the Centre for Policy Studies, external that adds up the total number of people who might have a "well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion".

That would, for example, include everyone in Afghanistan other than the Taliban - or the male population of Eritrea. It is very different to the actual number of refugees worldwide, which was 35 million people in 2022 according to the UN’s refugee agency.

Braverman speech likely to go down well with Tory MPspublished at 15:25 British Summer Time 26 September 2023

15:25 BST 26 September 2023

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

It is a significant development that a senior cabinet minister is openly questioning the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. But it is also significant that it is Suella Braverman who is doing so.

The home secretary ran unsuccessfully for the Conservative leadership last summer, losing out to Liz Truss, and is one of the likeliest contenders to stand again should Rishi Sunak lose the next general election.

Braverman’s rhetoric will no doubt be warmly received by the conservative think tank she is addressing in Washington.

It’s worth noting that it will also go down well with Tory MPs.

We're due to hear from Home Secretary Suella Braverman shortly, as she'll be giving a speech to an audience at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank in Washington DC.

She said earlier she's in the US for three days to discuss "this (migration) crisis with our American counterparts".

During the trip, she's also set to hold talks with senior US officials including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

It’s very common for politicians and other public figures to give addresses at research institutions and universities.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has accused Suella Braverman of chasing headlines and distracting from her “total failure to tackle Tory asylum chaos".

In a series of comments on X, formerly known as Twitter, external, Cooper further said that international convention could not be blamed for “appalling Tory failures to go after the criminal smuggling gangs, to take asylum decisions or clear backlog.”

She added that more international cooperation was needed to deal with those issues and that the home secretary’s stance made it harder to convince other countries to work with the UK.

Image source, Reuters

This is not Suella Braverman’s first time questioning the international refugee system - she is a long-standing critic of how asylum law is applied.

Ahead of this trip to the US, the home secretary said illegal and mass migration was putting “unsustainable pressures” on the US, UK and Europe.

"We must come together and ask whether the international conventions and legal frameworks designed 50-plus years ago are fit for purpose in an age of jet travel and smartphones,” she said in a statement.

In March, she accused the European Court of Human Rights of being “politicised” and making rulings that were “at odds with the will of Parliament or British values more generally”.

These comments came after a judge from the Strasbourg court blocked the first flights intended to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in June 2022.

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Just because Suella Braverman is speaking in Washington DC, it doesn’t mean her intervention won’t spark debate in Westminster.

Indeed, the pre-released extracts already have. That’s because the question of the right way to define a refugee is part of a broader political discussion about illegal immigration and how the UK should respond to people arriving in small boats who claim asylum.

That issue, which the home secretary may turn to in greater detail in the full speech, will form a significant part of the general election campaign next year.

Conservative strategists believe that talking tough on immigration and asylum aligns them with the British public’s approach - especially in seats where voters may be considering backing Labour at the ballot box.

But the political risk for Braverman is that in talking about immigration she merely highlights that the government has not yet fulfilled its self-declared vow to “stop the boats”.

The 1951 Refugee Convention was set up in the aftermath of World War Two to ensure countries could not turn away refugees. It anchors the principle of non-refoulment, which “asserts that a refugee should not be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.”

It crucially also defines the term refugee as someone who had to flee their country “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”

The 1967 Protocol removed the geographic and temporal limits of the initial convention, which limited the scope to events occurring before 1 January 1951.