No Asylum if you Enter UK via the Republic of Ireland
- Alistair McConnachie
- 7 days ago
- 6 min read
In this document we state:
1. The Home Office must publish the numbers who claim asylum in the UK after arriving via "lorries and shipping containers", via "regular routes using fraudulent documents" and especially "through the Common Travel Area (CTA)" with the Republic of Ireland.
2. We must declare "inadmissible" all claims for asylum made via the CTA.
3. We must return all such people back to their nations of citizenship (and not "safe third countries").
4. This will only be possible if we leave the UN Refugee Convention.
The Home Office tells us that there are 4 routes in which people enter the UK in order to "claim asylum" – which is their legal right as a consequence of the UK's membership of the UN Refugee Convention.
It states:
Asylum seekers use a variety of routes to travel to the UK before claiming asylum, including:
• legal visa routes, that is, with valid leave to enter
• regular routes using fraudulent documents
• clandestine (irregular) entry, such as on small boats, lorries or shipping containers
• through the common travel area without valid permission to enter (1)
It tells us the numbers who "claimed asylum" in 2024, and it breaks down the visa-abusers:
The Immigration System Statistics, year ending December 2024 release shows that of the 108,000 people claiming asylum in 2024, just under a third (35,000) had arrived on a small boat without a permission to enter. Internally matched data shows that slightly more than a third (40,000) had travelled to the UK on a visa.
Of these 40,000 asylum claims in 2024 from people who had held a visa:
• 40% (16,000) had a study visa
• 29% (11,500) had a work visa
• 24% (9,500) had a visitor visa
• the remaining 7% had other forms of leave.
So we have 35,000 coming across the Channel, and 40,000 abusing their study, work and visitor visas.
So where do the remaining 33,000 come from?
They can't all be coming across in "lorries" and "shipping containers".
HOW MANY are ENTERING via "LORRIES"?
The Home Office stopped publishing the statistics on lorry detections after 2020.
However, in Feb 2022, Migration Watch UK estimated that there had been around 8,500 detected arriving in lorries annually since 2014. (2)
Of course, there will also be stowaways who manage to get into the country whom we never find out about.
Anyway, let us estimate that around 8,500 may have arrived, and been detected, in 2024 also. That is still 24,500 asylum claimants unaccounted for.
How are they coming in?
Is it "regular routes using fraudulent documents"? Obtaining fraudulent documents is presumably a hard thing to do. So they cannot all be doing that.
From this information, we conclude that there must be significant numbers coming into the UK via the remaining route which the Home Office has told us about. That is, "through the common travel area without valid permission to enter".
That is, via the Republic of Ireland into the United Kingdom, either across the Northern Ireland land border, or across the water, by sea or air, from the Republic of Ireland into Great Britain.
Unfortunately, again, the Home Office is not publishing the statistics on this route!
WHAT is the COMMON TRAVEL AREA (CTA)?
We are aware of those "asylum seekers" who are coming from the safe country of France.
But how many are coming from the other safe country; the Republic of Ireland? Hitherto, we've tended not to consider them.
The House of Commons Library tell us that the CTA is "a special travel zone covering the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom (as well as the Isle of Man and Channel Islands). British and Irish citizens can travel within the CTA without being legally required to carry a passport." (3) However, carrying a passport is advised as a way of proving citizenship, if asked. (4)
It tells us:
Passengers arriving in Ireland from Great Britain usually face border controls at the port or airport (although not the other way around). Airlines and ferry companies also require official photo ID as a condition of carriage. (5)
"Not the other way around"!
And:
Passengers arriving in Great Britain by air or sea [from the ROI] do not usually go through an immigration control area.
Home Office guidance confirms there are "no fixed immigration control points" for journeys from the Republic of Ireland to the UK. But there are occasional "intelligence-led" checks on journeys from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, as part of Operation Gull. These are carried out by
immigration enforcement officers, not border guards. (6)
We're told the CTA dates back, in various forms, to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.
A 2016 briefing by Professor Ryan points to some reasons for successive UK and Irish governments' long-running support for the CTA arrangements:
• The assumption of the UK authorities that it is "impractical for the Irish border to be an immigration frontier"
• The "many social and economic connections" between the two countries
• Facilitation of the free movement of labour, traditionally of Irish workers to Great Britain, but increasingly in both directions (7)
Be that as it may, times change, and if there are large numbers of people today using the CTA to enter the United Kingdom via the Republic of Ireland in order to "claim asylum" – and we suspect there might be, because the UK Government is not releasing the figures on this matter – then we have two options.
1. We can let this situation continue to our disadvantage because of some out-dated nostalgic connection to the past arrangements.
2. Or, we can tighten up controls in order to ensure that the route is not abused for either legal asylum claims, or illegal entry – such as sneaking in – outside of the asylum system.
WHAT WE NEED TO DO
We must declare that, henceforth, anyone using the CTA to make a claim for asylum in the UK, whether across the land border to Northern Ireland or across the water, by sea or air, to Great Britain, will automatically have their claim declared inadmissible; and will be either sent back to the Republic of Ireland (if it will take them, which it almost certainly won't), or immediately detained, and deported back to their country of citizenship.
AGAIN, THIS MEANS we MUST LEAVE the UN REFUGEE CONVENTION
As we never tire of saying, this bold action will only be possible outside of the UN Refugee Convention. (8)
Legally speaking, so long as we remain within the UN Refugee Convention, then we cannot legally send an asylum seeker back to his or her country of citizenship if they claim to be "unsafe" there; without an investigation which proves otherwise.
Under present arrangements, if we choose to declare their claim "inadmissible" and thereby choose not to investigate their claim; then we can only send them out of the UK and to a "safe third country" – which is an all-but-impossible task, because why would any other country want them!
In this case, we could possibly argue that the "safe third country" could, theoretically, be back to the Republic of Ireland itself. But really, why would the Republic want to take them back?
Ultimately, it is in the long-term interests of both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom that these people stop using this route into both our countries.
It is in both our interests that they should go home to where they originated.
Therefore, we do not recommend wasting time trying to argue the position that the Republic is a "safe third country", unless that will somehow put pressure on the Republic to tighten its borders and send them back too!
Ultimately, if we want to stop the asylum traffic via this route, then there has to be an absolute guarantee that any asylum claim made as a consequence of entry into the UK via the CTA will be rendered "automatically inadmissible"; and there must be the complete assurance of immediate detention and quick deportation back to their country of citizenship.
That will be the most effective deterrent to prevent such people entering both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom!
REFERENCES
1. Home Office, "Source of asylum claims in 2024", 30-3-25 here.
2. Migration Watch UK, "Illegal clandestine arrivals by lorry", 22-2-22 here.
3. CJ McKinney, Michael Potter, Terry McGuinness, "The Common Travel Area and the special status of Irish citizens in UK law", House of Commons Library, 16-8-23, at p6, downloadable as a PDF via this page.
4. Ibid, p4 and p13.
5. Ibid, p4.
6. Ibid, p8.
7. Ibid, p12.
8. Alistair McConnachie, "To Stop the Boats, Criminalise the Channel Crossers", 16-3-25.
For more articles on this subject see our Territorial Sovereignty: Article Index
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