Explainer

Change

Community

Migration

Politics

28 July 2025

9 min read

The facts and our feelings both puncture the small boats-fuelled immigration argument

From stats to sociology, how to be better informed on the issue

Roger Standing

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London.

A people sumggler steers an overcrowded small boat.

A people smuggler steers a small boat, 2021.

x.com/ukhomeoffice.

Late in the evening of May 20, over 80 refugees clambered aboard the small boat that was to bring them to England. They had not gone far when French rescue services were summoned with the boat still located off the Pas de Calais. An eight-year-old boy and a 40-year-old woman were pronounced dead by the medical team and taken to Calais. Both were believed to be Turkish nationals, with their deaths presumed to have been caused by a combination of crushing and suffocation. The small boat continued its journey without them, though 10 others were also evacuated.

This story is deeply shocking.

What is also profoundly disturbing is that, while we may not be aware of the details of this particular case, the story is still familiar to us. According to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory there were 73 deaths crossing the Channel in 2024.

It was almost 30 years ago, in the wake of the UK’s 1996 Immigration & Nationality act that I first became aware of the issues surrounding refugees and asylum seekers. Our church in Croydon was only a short walk from the Home Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate based at Lunar House, and it seemed to make sense to begin a drop-in centre. The Croydon Refugee Day Centre has continued its work ever since.

From the beginning it was hard to miss the fact that asylum was a hot-button issue. The reactions it triggered were intense. I also quickly discovered that nothing was straight-forward. Weaponised politics, the labyrinthine complexity and glacial slowness of our state bureaucracy along with the internecine nature of the charitable sector made collaborating with others frustrating and problematic to say the least.

Over the years I’ve learned two important lessons with regard to immigration and asylum. First, what grabs the headlines is not necessarily the most important issue. Indeed, it can deflect attention, action and resources from what is of primary significance. Then, second, complex issues are rarely solved by simple, straight-forward, 'silver bullet’ solutions. As the American satirist H. L. Mencken observed:

“Every complex problem has a solution which is simple, direct, plausible—and wrong.”

So, with the issue unlikely to go away in the foreseeable future, these are some of the things I believe we need to understand and have an eye to.

Immigration: don’t get confused

When the Office for National Statistics reported in May that the total of long-term immigrants to the UK in 2024 was 948,000, that really does seem like a very big number. And it is. But it includes everyone coming to the UK who is changing the normal place where they live. It includes those who’ve come to study here (30 per cent) and those who’ve got a UK-based job (33 per cent).

The foreign students on full fees raise vital revenue for the universities and subsidise the fees for home students, and those coming to work here make a significant contribution to the economy. Not to mention the legacy of ‘soft’ influence when both return home having had positive experiences of life in the UK.

Incidentally, and a little out of left field, the immigration figure also includes Brits returning home from living abroad. In 2024 they accounted for 60,000 individuals, or 6.3 per cent of the total.

Asylum seekers and refugees only make up 15 per cent of the overall number (including the Homes for Ukraine scheme), with those claiming asylum from the small boats only 5 per cent.

The small boats: don’t get distracted

Perhaps the main reason for the small boats featuring so prominently in the immigration narrative is the compelling nature of the images the news media can use. Include criminal gangs and the jeopardy of life and death and the result is a heady mix.

But here’s the thing, the Migration Observatory report that:

“Between 2018 and 2024, the asylum grant rate for people who arrived by small boat was 68%.”

Allow that to sink in for a moment: almost seven out of ten of those who arrive by small boat have a legitimate reason to seek asylum in the UK. The real villains here are the criminal gangs, not the passengers they transport.

Things could look very different if there were safe pathways for these asylum seekers to follow. On these figures the bottom would be blown out of the business model of the criminal gangs that operate the small boats, and they would swiftly move on. Especially if accompanied with the speedy removal of those who have no right to remain in the UK. This would act as a significant disincentive to those who would have previously made an unsuccessful attempt.

This has to be the way to tackle the presenting problem of the small boats, especially when the ‘push and pull’ influences are given proper consideration.

‘Push’ and ‘pull’: don’t be misled

‘Push’ issues are those that cause the migrants to leave their home. Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan have consistently been the most common sources for asylum seekers over the last 30 years. and this tells its own story. Together they underscore that the key ‘push’ factor is people seeking to escape persecution, conflict or danger.

‘Pull’ influences are why a particular country is the preferred destination. Extensive research has established in the case of the UK the ability to speak English, the presence of family already here and the “general impression that the UK is a good place to live" are far and away the strongest influences. Disproving the popularly advocated myth that it is about the black economy or sponging off the benefits system.

The right to work: don’t be fooled

The total cost of the asylum system in the UK was an eye-watering £5.4b in 2023-24, a figure that is largely driven by a backlog in processing applications. On average this took 413 days in 2023-24 with the year-end backlog standing at 91,000. For the 38,000 of those awaiting a response in hotel accommodation, this comes at a cost of £41,000 per person, per year.

Thankfully the number awaiting a decision is decreasing, but because asylum seekers are not allowed to work until they’ve been waiting for over a year, they cannot contribute to their own support. In France they are allowed to work after six months and in Italy after only 60 days.

It is, perhaps, a sobering thought that those who have shown the initiative, resilience and tenacity to attempt a passage to a new life, not even deterred by the threat of death, might be the kind of asset to the country and its economy that we need.

The world we live in: don’t close your eyes

We cannot uninvent the fact that we live in a globalised world. The preponderance of international supply chains and the fact that 54 per cent of Brits travel abroad on holiday only underlines how ingrained it is in our everyday lives. We are all interconnected to a degree that we cannot possibly comprehend.According to the World Health Organisation, the origin of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China in December 2019 led to between 8-9 million deaths worldwide; the container ship Ever Given, stuck in the Suez Canal in March 2021 cost the global economy $9.6 billion per day; and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 had a catastrophic effect on grain and fertilizer prices in sub-Saharan Africa.

All that to one side, migration to these shores has been part and parcel of our history since before we had a history. From the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings and Normans, to more recent arrivals from the Caribbean, South Asia, Poland and Hong Kong this is an integral and ongoing part of the story of the British Isles. It is what has made us British.

The politics of migration: don’t be seduced

In these febrile political times, many will be quick to jump on the bandwagon of blaming the immigrants for everything that is wrong. The narrative is a seductive one that makes a visceral connection with listeners. Where the substance of argument is missing emotive language will do the heavy lifting on its own, so look out for speech like this:

Crisis or emergency language: out-of-control, unprecedented, overwhelmed
Metaphors of flooding or invasion: tidal, swamped, relentless
Threatening or dangerous terms: illegal, criminal, extremist
Dehumanising or reductive language: waves, swarms, hordes
Economic or social burden framing: unsustainable, overstretched (services), job-stealing
Warnings of loss: losing our culture and traditions, no-go areas

It’s the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, commenting on life in the city, who coined the terms ‘mixophobia’ and ‘mixophilia’ to describe some of the dynamics he observed. But I think they can extend to the whole of society, not just our cities. Indeed, with Bauman I think we can even experience both feelings within ourselves at the same. We experience the fear of ‘mixophobia’ – of being involved with strangers – in our

“… reaction to the mind-boggling, spine-chilling and nerve-breaking variety of human types and lifestyles that [we] meet and rub elbows and shoulders [with] in the streets”

“Mixophilia”, by contrast, is the joy of being in a different and stimulating environment.

“The same kaleidoscope-like twinkle and glimmer of the urban scenery, … never short of novelty and surprise, [that] constitutes its difficult-to-resist charm and seductive power.”

Born a Polish Jew in 1925, Bauman’s family fled to Russia in 1939. As Professor of Sociology at the University of Leeds t He maintained that the holocaust was not the breakdown of modern civilisation, but rather the product of it.

Twenty years ago, he predicted that Europe would be faced with a battle between “two contending facts of the matter”. On one side would be the life-saving role played by immigrants in a fast-aging Europe. On the other, “the power-abetted and power-assisted rise in xenophobic sentiments eagerly recycled into electoral votes”.

For Bauman “mixophobic paranoia” feeds upon itself and acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It may temporarily reduce the pain that those afflicted by it feel, but ultimately only makes the condition worse. Rather, “mixophobia” is the symptom of their anxiety, not the cause – acting on it is like “removing the rash while mistaking it for the cure of the illness”.

If there is to be any hope for him, it is in the cohabitation and interaction with strangers that the future lies.

So, there it is. As shocking and disturbing as the stories and images of the small boats are, it is not really about the small boats. Sitting beneath the phenomena is the age-old issue of migration, with the sharp and divisive edges of its present-day expression.

In the late 1990s I was proud of the churches in Croydon rallying together to establish the Refugee Day Centre. In the years that followed it was often groups of churches who took the lead in their own towns and cities as asylum seekers were dispersed around the country.

It was a practical way to “love our neighbour as ourselves”. In the rallying cry of the Victorian Christian social reformers, “The Fatherhood of God means the brotherhood of man.”

As the historian Tom Holland has observed it is because Western values are deeply rooted in the Christian tradition that human dignity and the sanctity of life are deeply prized virtues that animate our best intentions and our understanding of what is good.

In his mid-80s, Bauman wrote:

“For more than forty years of my life in Leeds I have watched from my window as children returned home from the nearby secondary school. Children seldom walk alone; they prefer walking in groups of friends. That habit has not changed. And yet what I see from my window has changed over the years. Forty years ago, almost every group was ‘single colour’; nowadays, almost none of them are …”

Article

Change

Community

Hospitality

10 March 2025

6 min read

“We’re amongst everybody.” The novel communities serving London

The city's intentional communities live in, and love, particular places.

Robert Wright

Robert is a journalist at the Financial Times.

A man stands in a relaxed way on the doorstep of a brick building.

Mark Bishop at HOP East.

Mark Bishop has an unusual view from his home in Stepney, east London, at Friday lunchtimes. Because the nearby Stepney Shahjalal mosque has insufficient space for worshippers at its busiest weekly service, neighbouring Shandy Park turns into an impromptu outdoor worship space. For the main Friday service, more than 500 men alternate between standing and kneeling in prayer in the open air.

The scene has seized the attention of Bishop, an ordained Church of England priest, because his home is the House of Prayer for East London (HOP East), a community that he and Carrie, his wife, founded in 2023. From its base in Faith House, built as a 19th century mission outpost on the edge of Shandy Park, it is seeking to bring the power of Christian prayer to the same area. Bishop and Carrie live at HOP East with their children and another couple.

The community is one of multiple Christian “intentional communities” worldwide engaged in concerted efforts to develop new forms of monastic or communal living to minister to an increasingly secular world. The trend has had particular attention in the UK because of the decision of Elizabeth Oldfield, a Christian writer and podcaster, and her husband to live in an intentional community with another couple. In Germany, Johannes Hartl 20 years ago in Augsburg founded a community called the House of Prayer where there is always at least one community member praying, 24 hours a day.

HOP East was partly inspired by Hartl’s community. The Stepney community shares with many other Christian intentional communities both a strong sense of ministering to a particular place and a focus on the importance of prayer. As well as the residents, there are a growing number of non-resident members who regularly come to Faith House for prayer, worship and to eat together.

The open-air prayer highlights both the contrast between HOP East and its many non-Christian neighbours and their shared commitment to prayer, according to Bishop.

“We’re amongst everybody, to be good Christian neighbours,” he says.

Kirsten Stevens-Wood, a lecturer in Cardiff Metropolitan University’s school of education and social policy who has a research interest in intentional communities, says Christians have a particular affinity for communal living.

Stevens-Wood points out that sociologist Rosabeth Moss Kanter – better known for her later management writing – concluded after researching intentional communities that Christianity’s mixture of shared commitment and rituals was highly compatible with communal living.

“It enables communities to be more stable and endure longer periods of time,” Stevens-Wood says.

New communities such as HOP East coexist with the survivors of previous waves of idealism about communal living. In the UK, they include Northern Ireland’s Corrymeela Community, which seeks to heal the polarisation caused by the political conflict in the region. Bishop himself was born in the Lee Abbey community in Devon, a Christian community linked to Anglicanism founded after the second world war.

The London outpost of Lee Abbey runs a hall of residence for international students in Kensington, on the other side of London from HOP East.

“They definitely come in waves,” Stevens-Wood says of intentional communities.

HOP East’s focus on prayer is manifested in multiple ways, according to Bishop. They include a commitment for members to say the Lord’s Prayer daily at noon, wherever they are, and to engage in “prayer-walking” – praying in the streets as they walk along them.

“To our Muslim neighbours, it really helps to be more serious about how we pray, because they’re really serious about prayer,” Bishop says. “This is very much a neighbourhood where prayer is strong.”

He and Carrie had long felt a calling to pray for London and East London in particular before setting up HOP East, he says.

“We began, out of lots of different activity, to ask a question: ‘What would it look like to form a community as an expression of church?’” Bishop recalls. “We’re a new monastic expression. We’re living out, working out a rule of life and other things that might define what a new monastic community is.”

Members of the community range in age from school-age children to older, retired people, Bishop says. He describes the community as “both gathered and scattered”, with only a few of the community members living in Faith House.

But he says living in a relatively small number of East End neighbourhoods – including Limehouse, Mile End and Shadwell - unites them.

“Everybody else has a level of proximity to us,” Bishop says.

The points of contact between apparently contrasting communities are clear visiting the imposing Kensington townhouses owned by Lee Abbey London.

Sue Cady, Lee Abbey London’s chaplain and deputy director, says the site is home to 150 international students and around 25 team members who form the community on the site.

The students living at Lee Abbey London are mostly not Christians while the team members who serve them make up the community. Team members consist of a small core of longer-term workers like Cady and one-year volunteers who are single and share rooms. While Cady would like to welcome more British volunteers for the one-year positions, nearly all at present come from overseas on charity worker visas.

Cady shares with Bishop the sense that a place where Christians live and pray together is special. Lee Abbey London expresses that partly by training up a new generation of Christian leaders, she says.

“The young Christians are being grown and developed and then after their year with us they’re going all over the world as stronger Christians, grown in discipleship and leadership,” Cady says.

She is also clear that the life of the community affects the students.

“Our mission field is the international students, who are really open about UK life and asking us questions about our faith and the difference our faith makes to us,” she says. “They notice something very different about us that’s peaceful and kind.”

At the heart of both communities, however, is a sense that prayer is a vital, sustaining, communal activity.

For Cady, that manifests itself in Lee Abbey London’s distinctive atmosphere compared with other halls of residence.

“People comment on the sense of God’s peace and God’s presence here, which I think is due to the fact that our team worship and pray daily for the residents that live here, and that the majority of our team are on gap years themselves,” she says.

At HOP East, meanwhile, prayer is partly a manifestation of the members’ practical desire to help impoverished and disadvantaged people in their area. Community members pray for the area’s many refugees and those working with them, for victims of modern slavery and for many other social causes.

However, the pledges to engage in prayer-walking and saying the Lord’s Prayer daily reflect Bishop’s conviction that prayer is a sustaining activity regardless of any practical need. Bishop insists prayer is a vital part of relating to God, of mission and ensuring people have opportunities to encounter the love of Christ.

“We always try to remind ourselves… that prayer is always worth it, in and of itself,” he says. “We’re really aware of a hunger in this cultural moment we find ourselves in for healthy spiritual practice.”

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