According to the triumphant announcement from the Home Office, Rishi Sunak has done it! He’s cleared the asylum backlog – or at least the part of it he promised to clear by 31 December. “The prime minister’s commitment of clearing the legacy asylum backlog has been delivered with 112,000 asylum claims being processed in the past year,” a Home Office press release declares. The celebratory tone continues with a roll call of other notable immigration successes.
But it is difficult to square the government’s upbeat new year narrative with the gloomy dispatches from immigration lawyers, human rights campaigners and asylum seekers themselves about the state of immigration in general and asylum in particular. With a general election looming, the government knows that this is a key policy area where it needs to soothe a querulous electorate.
