Asylum is a big issue in UK politics. In 2023, something like 84,000 asylum-seekers (not including Ukrainian refugees and family reunions, who took the number to just over 140,000) came to the country. After appeals, it can be expected that roughly 60% of these people will be granted the outcome they seek (for the last 10 years this has been the average rate), which is obviously to be granted leave to remain. As of June 2024 there were 224,742 cases ‘in the system’, meaning people who were waiting for a decision and those who were waiting for the outcome of an appeal having been initially refused asylum, alongside the 41,200 people in the country who had come to claim asylum, been refused and exhausted all avenues of appeal, but were still here for some reason or other.
