UK Govt Returns Just FIVE out of More than 23,000 Illegal Boat Migrants to EU

British authorities have returned just five illegal boat migrants to the European Union out of more than 23,500 that have landed this year.

Immigration Minister Tom Pursglove made the admission during a House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday, saying there had been “difficulties around securing returns”.

Committee chairman Yvette Cooper had asked how many migrants arriving by boat since January of this year had been returned to the last safe EU country they had travelled through, to which Mr Pursglove replied, according to the Evening Standard: “On returns related to small boat arrivals… the answer in this year is five.”

With current figures at around 23,500 arrivals, that is a returns rate of approximately 0.02 per cent.

Mr Pursglove attempted to blame the situation on a lack of a “returns agreement” with the EU post-Brexit, “not least as a consequence of Covid”.

But even while the UK was still abiding by Brussels rules during the transition period — which ended on December 31st, 2020 — under the bloc’s Dublin regulations, just 105 of 8,502 illegals were returned last year, according to reports from March.

Pursglove also acknowledged that the British government needed to “sever the perception that getting in a small boat and coming to the UK will mean you stay in the UK”.

Brexit leader Nigel Farage suggested on Wednesday that another problem is the generosity of the British welfare state compared to countries like France from which the vast majority of illegals from the Third World depart, noting: “The French do not offer 4 star hotels, free health care, mobile phones and spending money.”

The comments follow similar remarks from Mr Farage earlier this week, when he condemned the government’s use of British taxpayer money to sustain vast numbers of illegals arriving by boat, which act as a pull for mass migration.

Mr Farage had told Sky News Australia: “…the French do not put illegal immigrants up in four-star hotels with fresh linen provided every few days.

“We do that. They’re the pull factors. We’re the idiots and I think the British public are sussing this out.”

Discussions this week on the rising numbers of illegals arriving by small boats which fail to be sent back comes as investigators are attempting to establish a motive for Syrian-Iraqi failed asylum seeker — and alleged Christian convert — Emad Al Swealmeen who blew himself up in a cab outside of Liverpool Women’s Hospital on Remembrance Sunday, thankfully only killing himself.

Al Swealmeen had arrived in the UK in 2014 and twice lost his bid to obtain refugee status, yet was allowed to remain in the country for six years.

Sources in the Home Office claimed that they believed the suicide bomber had tried to “game the system” by pretending to convert from Islam to Christianity, with the knowledge it could increase the likelihood of him being allowed to stay as he could face prosecution if returned to the Middle East as an apostate.