I would just use Google translate if I had to and understand I was at least safe from the immediate danger in whatever country I'd come from.
With only £49.18 per week as your only income (you're banned and prevented from working whilst your claim is processed), you'd struggle to purchase a smart phone and a decent data plan to do this, as you're likely going to need to eat.
Adjusted to population size, the UK falls to 20th within EU+ countries for the absolute number of asylum claims received (not even processed). We already take in far fewer than our neighbours.
When you conquer a third of the world, and your language spreads through culture and other soft power exercises, you make yourself an attractive target for people seeking safety. The UK can't both be failing in almost every conceivable metric, and yet have people coming over for "economic migration" only. People seek to claim asylum here because they're more likely to speak even a little bit of English, they're familiar with the culture due to soft power spread, or because they have family ties here.
there has always been illegal immigration since the sixties,
Illegal immigration and asylum seeking are two different issues, but can be related. If you come to this country and seek asylum, you're are attempting to legally migrate using an international mechanism. If your asylum application is denied, and you stay anyway, then you would be considered an illegal immigration. If your application is approved, as a refugee, then you have migrated illegally.
As a British citizen, if you were to go on holiday to Spain and stay for 91, or more, days, take up a job, maybe rent a small flat, all without applying for a visa, you would be an illegal immigrant.
"Illegal immigration" actually only started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In this country, specifically, the British Aliens Act of 1905. For pretty much all of human history, passports and visas haven't existed. The free movement of humans, around their shared planet, hasn't historically been restricted.
Prior to 1968, and Labour's Commonwealth Immigration Act, anyone living in an ex-British colony (1/3 of the world) could enter the UK without control or issue.
The apparent speed of immigration and especially the numbers into concentrated areas is just not sustainable, or natural, for any country or area.
Except that this is literally how British colonialism worked. The US is the prime example, the Status of Liberty literally stands as a monument to the historical approach of letting in anyone who wants to follow the American dream. The country was founded by religious refugees, seeking asylum and a new life somewhere where they wouldn't be persecuted for their beliefs. Australia, ironically one of the toughest countries for immigration, also expanded with the influx of migrants during various gold rushes and other colonisation practices. Canada is obviously similar.
The biggest issue we face, presently, with asylum seeking and refugees, is that we're simply not processing asylum applications. The system isn't working, because it's literally not working. If someone's application gets approved, they get leave to remain, if it gets rejected, they get deported. The issue with the Rwanda plan was that we were going to fly over people whose claims had yet to be processed, and assess them in Rwanda. If those claims were approved, they'd remain in Rwanda. If they were rejected, they'd be deported.
The "asylum hotels", the Bobby Stockholm, all of the horror which the red tops go nuts over, are entirely the result of unprocessed claims. People waiting to find out what's going to happen to them. The most recent data available, from 2022, showed that asylum claims were taking (on average) 21 months to process. That's almost two years of people having to wait, not being allowed to work and being ostracised by society. That's almost two years of additional strain on the state (though nowhere near financially as much as ex-offenders, unemployed, etc). The system is creaking because we can't get people through fast enough (resisted making an Hyperia analogy).
If the application system is sped up, and operates how it's meant to, it doesn't matter how many people come over on small boats. If their claim is genuine, or with merit, they will stay. If their claim is rejected, they'll be deported.
At the moment we just have a system of people waiting, literally in a queue, to be processed. Unfortunately our asylum claim processing system isn't a B&M dive coaster, with two stations, it's a Zamperla Nebulaz.
