The asylum seeker debate in the UK summed up in two LBC clips

The debate around small boat crossings and migration into the UK has reached fever pitch in recent days thanks to a series of headline-making events.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been accused of ignoring advice about providing hotel rooms for asylum seekers waiting to be processed, leading to horrific conditions at temporary processing facilities. She has also faced wide criticism for fuelling “xenophobia” with inflammatory comments.

The divisive topic was discussed on the radio station LBC and the debate was perfectly summed up in two separate clips.

In one video, LBC radio host James O’Brien busted “'two huge lies” about asylum seekers by revealing data about the UK’s level of asylum claims.

He explained: “I suggested to you yesterday that the country which takes the most or receives the most applications is Cyprus. What I hadn’t realised was how far and ahead it was by everybody else.

“153 applications per 10,000 members of the population … We (UK) don’t even make the top ten.”

He continued: “Belgium takes 22 asylum applications per 10,000 members of the population, and we take 8.”

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O’Brien also pointed out that according to data, asylum applications in the UK in 2022 are actually about half the level they were at the beginning of the 2000s.

He said: “Between 2000 and 2005 you have record highs. In 2022, it’s a relative fraction of what it was back then.

“So there’s two graphs that show two things – the first thing it shows is that we do very little compared to other countries…and the second thing it shows, is at the moment, asylum applications are nowhere near where they were in 1990, in 2000 and in 2005, so we’re not even facing a bigger threat than we were when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, or when John Major were.”

In stark contrast, another clip heard a caller phoning into Nick Ferrari’s show and suggesting great white sharks be put in the Channel to presumably deter or injure migrants making the crossing.

The controversial caller first suggested: “I’ve got a solution to this problem, Nick. Easy solution, I don’t think nobody else has ever said this.

“Right, we put two Navy boats out in the Channel to intercept these dinghies, right? We don’t bring these people onboard our Navy boats, we just hold the dinghies out at sea, we phone through to the French and say, ‘right, we’ve got this dinghy.’ “

He continued, suggesting that if France refuses to take the boats back, “we break the law and take the dinghy back to France, throw them on the beach and seize the dinghy. In other words, they’ve wasted their money trying to get here”.

When asked, the caller then said he’’ feel comfortable dumping women and children on a beach in Callias and added, “Nick, I would even put great white sharks in the Channel”, before eventually being cut off.

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