IMAGINE, say, if evidence emerged that 99 per cent of claims for some kind of business tax relief were found to be fraudulent.
The Chancellor would abolish the relief in a moment, and HMRC would carry out mass prosecutions.
8
8
Where, then, is the outrage from the Government following the revelations of a Home Office whistleblower, who exposed widespread fraud in the asylum system?
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to The Times yesterday, he claimed: “At best, one per cent of asylum seekers are genuine.
“There’s almost no aspect of the asylum system that isn’t either a massive fraud or just really dysfunctional.”
He then cited the case of “hundreds” of Kurds whose claim to asylum was based on them being in danger of persecution because they had been in a relationship with the daughter of the Kurdish PM.
READ MORE FROM ROSS CLARK
ROSS CLARK
Only making work pay & tackling crime can save UK from nation of Middlesbroughs
ROSS CLARK
Why your energy bills are skyrocketing… and why Burnham can’t do much about it
8
8
Either she is the most prolific femme fatale in history or the asylum seekers are lying — and don’t even have the imagination to come up with an original story.
The whistleblower also claimed that large numbers of Pakistani asylum seekers claim to be in a gay relationship with the same man, while Bangladeshi applicants claim to be members of a dissident group but can’t recall even basic details about it when pressed by officials.
These apparent cases of fraud slip through the net, the fed-up insider says, because the officials ruling on them are incentivised to give them the nod.
The decision to grant asylum can be dealt with in minutes, yet a refusal means vastly more bureaucracy.
Most read in The Sun
SECRET DISGUISE
Criminal swapped gender & stole sister’s ID to fool cops while on the run
CRUST DESSERTS
Shoplifter who stole £2k worth of food from SAME Greggs store is caught
LE GREAT ESCAPE
French soldier makes daring escape after gang kidnap ordeal in Colombia
ROGUE ZEROES
Urgent warning as SAS ‘well below strength’ and struggling to recruit
8
8
Apologies if I have missed something, but all I have heard from the Government so far is condemnation of the anti-migration protesters who turned up at Dover and Portsmouth over the weekend.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Emma Reynolds, described them as “thuggish and intimidating”.
It is true that no protesters, whether they are anti-migration ones or Just Stop Oil ones, should be blocking roads and stopping people going about their lawful business. Anyone who does this deserves to be arrested and charged with public order offences.
Nevertheless, the Government can’t escape its failures over migration by trying to deflect attention.
8
8
The reason the protesters travelled to Portsmouth is because a boatload of 140 illegal migrants turned up, after travelling from near the French port of Cherbourg.
And it isn’t just illegal migrants who are taking us for a ride, but French border authorities, too.
In April, our own government agreed to pay the French £662million over three years to stop the boats, supposedly using drones and riot police.
Yet French officials claimed they had to let the boat sail because it would have been too dangerous to try to stop it once it was in the water.
Andy Burnham’s government keeps trying to claim credit for a fall in the numbers of migrants arriving in small boats over the past year — much of which simply reverses the spike in arrivals during the Government’s first year in office.
Ministers don’t like to admit one of the main causes of the drop: A fall in illegal migrants arriving on Europe’s southern shores thanks to the tough policies of Giorgia Meloni’s Italian government.
She has done deals with African countries to stop boats leaving and sent asylum seekers for processing in Albania,
If there are fewer asylum seekers arriving in southern Europe, there are fewer to travel northwards.
However, with Spain becoming a soft touch under its socialist government, we can’t assume the numbers won’t rise again. We need to be cracking down ourselves.
Action rarely gets taken on false asylum claims because we have a powerful pro-asylum lobby which tries to make out that everyone who gets on a boat to cross the Channel is “desperate”.
They also like to claim that migrants will be an asset to our economy.
Well, accepting large numbers of fraudsters into the country is not going to benefit the economy.
It isn’t just the Home Office whistleblower who is telling us what is going on.
In April, a BBC investigation revealed an industry of crooked lawyers who are charging asylum seekers thousands of pounds, in some cases, to help them pretend to be gay.
One man was told that once he had successfully convinced authorities that he was gay, his wife could get into the country, too — by claiming to be a lesbian.
Then there are the multiple cases of fake Christians who have managed to convince a dopey vicar that they have converted from Islam — like the failed Liverpool Women’s Hospital bomber Emad Al Swealmeen, who turned out to be attending mosque at the same time as going to Liverpool Cathedral.
His case was too much even for our pliant migration officers, and yet still they failed to remove him from the country before he blew himself up.
Sorry, but I have had enough of illegal migrants taking the mickey.
Besides defrauding the UK taxpayer of billions — the asylum system cost £5billion last year, although some estimates put it at £8billion — the liars and opportunists are making it harder for people who are genuinely fleeing for their lives.
RECOMMENDED STORIES
Anyone caught making an asylum claim on false information should be sent packing, whatever dangers they claim to be facing at home.
It is time we called out asylum fraud for what it is — and treated it accordingly.