Fact of the Day

According to EU figures, there were 672,000 EU asylum applications in 1992 (when there were only 15 members of the EU), compared to 626,000 last year (when the EU had grown to 28 members with a total population of 500 million). It is true, however, that numbers had dropped substantially in the interim.

How many actually apply for asylum in the UK? 

According to the latest government statistics: “There were 25,020 asylum applications in the year ending March 2015, an increase of 5% compared with the previous year (23,803). The number of applications remains low relative to the peak number of applications in 2002 (84,132).”

The 2002 figure works out at something like 0.13% of the UK’s population (or 66 refugees per town of 50,000 people).