Nigel Farage: Is Rishi Sunak’s solution to clear the immigration backlog to let everyone in?

Nigel Farage: Is Rishi Sunak’s solution to clear the immigration backlog to let everyone in?
Ben Chapman

By Ben Chapman


Published: 02/01/2024

- 21:51

Nigel Farage has poured scorn on the Government’s claim they have cleared the asylum claims backlog.

Speaking on GB News, he said:

“Those that follow me on social media and watch this program will have noticed that over the last few days I’m becoming increasingly frustrated with this government: Too much playing games with numbers and goodness gracious me, they were at it again today.

“But this time they really have been caught out.

Referring to the Home Secretary’s claim this morning that the asylum backlog which has been cleared referred to those cases that were put in before 28th June 2022, he said:

“The problem is that they really weren't putting that out on their own social media sites.

“They were really giving us the idea that somehow the whole thing had been sorted out and Twitter, or x is now known, put out a community note on the Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, which said this:

‘The backlog has not been cleared. The Prime Minister’s pledge was to process 92,000 pre-June 2022 applications by the end of 2023. Around 100,000 cases have since entered the system, which have not been processed. An additional 4000 pre-2022 applications remain unsolved.’

“Oh dear. Oh dear. Well, one thing Elon Musk did say was that whilst X would be a platform for free speech, he would correct people if they said things that were wholly untrue.

“But if you delve more deeply into the figures, you find some very interesting things.

“112,000 applications were processed on which 77,000 decisions were made. Of the 77,000 decisions 67% were allowed to say.

“So you come by boat across the English Channel. You have no passport, no means of saying or proving who you are and you've got a 70% chance of staying.

“Compare this to France where last year, their approval rate was 25%. I wonder: Is Rishi’s solution for pretty much everyone to stay. Is that how we clear the backlog? Is that how we deal with the problem?

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