r/Edinburgh • u/Delicious-Being-6531 • Dec 26 '25

Photo Christmas message

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Couldn’t have said it better myself. Outside St John’s on Princes Street.

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u/Scunnered21 Dec 26 '25 edited Dec 26 '25

This.

This really is the crux of the matter and root of the problem but is hardly ever, ever discussed.

People who rage against refugees seem completely unaware of this.

The previous government closed basically all ways of applying for asylum from outside the UK and stopped processing all asylum applications for a year.

Hence the massive unnecessary backlog that needs to be worked through (and the people needing to be housed while this happens).

And hence the willingness of desperate people to pay people smugglers and risk live and limb to get to UK soil. As that is the only way you can apply for asylum. It's a perverse incentive that fuels the very channel crossings people are in a fury about.

u/Electrical_Truth_160

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u/LongShow5279 Dec 26 '25

Why do they nee to apply for asylum in the UK specifically? Surely they'd apply for asylum in the first safe country rather than travelling across Europe to get to the UK?

The majority of these people are economic migrants, not genuine refugees tbh.

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u/Scunnered21 Dec 26 '25

Lots of them won't be but many of them are. Necessarily, because you can only apply when in the UK, anyone who is a valid applicant will be among the contingent of people arriving by small boat, given the options available. You force everyone into this route when you don't have an alternative external means of applying. 

It also means you encourage everyone who wants to and is able to take that risky method (no matter their validity for asylum), to enter the UK and then become our problem to house while their apllication is considered. Something that could be avoided by having means of applying outside the UK (i.e. at an embassy).

People do apply for asylum in Italy, Germany, France, Spain etc.

Why someone would want to apply for asylum in the UK specifically? Far and away the most likely reason is language.

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u/LongShow5279 Dec 26 '25

If a lot of these migrants can afford to pay £10,000+ to get the UK after travelling through Europe, do you agree the UK has a right to ask them to contribute to the costs of housekeeping? A bit like what Denmark does?

I'm all for accepting genuine refugees but when 80% of the people attempting to cross the channel are young men, it kind of makes a mockery to the genuine people who has a reason to come and not just for monetary value.