How has Brexit affected the migrant crisis? – The Independent

The issue of people crossing the channel in small boats is back in the headlines.

Dozens of people died on Wednesday making the perilous journey across the sea, following UK government attempts to make the crossings more difficult.

So far this year more than 25,700 people have managed to complete the perilous crossing.

The government says it wants to make the journey unviable to deter people from making it but is refusing to create safe alternative routes for people trying to claim asylum.

While dangerous, making the journey appears to pay off for the vast majority who complete it.

Of the 25,700 to have made it safely to the UK, just five have been returned to Europe, ministers say.

What is less realised is that this is partly down to Britain's departure from the European Union.

Despite rhetoric about borders and immigration playing a major role in the Leave vote, EU cooperation played a significant role in border policing before Brexit.

The figure of five returnees is significantly down on the 294 people who were returned last year in 2020. In that year, the UK was still covered by EU rules because of the transition period.

In 2020 the UK was still party to the EU's "Dublin" regulations. These rules allowed the government to ask other European countries to take people back if it could be proved they passed through safe European countries on their way to the UK.

The government has failed to negotiate direct replacements for the Dublin regulations.

Migrants are helped ashore from a RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) lifeboat at a beach in Dungeness, on the south-east coast of England, on November 24, 2021, after being rescued while crossing the English Channel.

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The coffin of Sir David Amess is carried past politicians, including former Prime Ministers Sir John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May, Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson during the requiem mass for the MP at Westminster Cathedral, central London

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The scene in Dragon Rise, Norton Fitzwarren, Somerset where police have launched a murder probe after two people were found dead

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London-based midwife Sarah Muggleton, 27, takes part in a 'March with Midwives' in central London to highlight the crisis in maternity services

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Police officers monitor as climate change activists sit down and block traffic during a protest action in solidarity with activists from the Insulate Britain group who received prison terms for blocking roads, on Lambeth Bridge in central London

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A giant installation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson made from recycled clothing goes on display at Manchester Central, as part of Manchester Art Fair, in a 'wake-up call for the Prime Minister to tackle textile waste'

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The scene at a recycling centre in Stert, near Devizes in Wiltshire after a large blaze was brought under control. The fire broke out on Wednesday night the fire service has said and local residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut due to large amounts of smoke

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The sun rises over South Shields Lighthouse, on the North East coast of England

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ancer Maithili Vijayakumar at the launch of 2021 Diwali celebrations at St Andrew Square in Edinburgh

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Forensic officers work outside Liverpool Women's Hospital, following a car blast, in Liverpool

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Wreaths by the Cenotaph after the Remembrance Sunday service in Whitehall, London

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Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of detainee Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, is ending his hunger strike in central London after almost three weeks. Ratcliffe has spent 21 days camped outside the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in London without food. He began his demonstration on 24 October after his wife lost her latest appeal in Iran, saying his family was caught in a dispute between two states

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Peter Green protesting outside the Cop26 gates during the official final day of the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.

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Seagulls fly around the statue entitled 'Tommy', a first World War soldier by artist Ray Lonsdale at dawn in Seaham, Britain

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Climate activists dressed as characters inspired by the Netflix series Squid Game protest as they ask Samsung to go 100% renewable energy, outside the venue for COP26 in Glasgow

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A deer statue silhouetted at Loch Faskally in Pitlochry, Scotland

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Sunrise over St Mary's Lighthouse at Whitley Bay on the North East coast of England

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Activists from Friends of the Earth during a demonstration calling for an end to all new oil and gas projects in the North Sea outside the UK Government's Cop26 hub during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow

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Protesters take part in a rally organised by the Cop26 Coalition in Glasgow demanding global climate justice

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Final touches are made to a life sized Sir David Attenborough cake surrounded by animals as part of a display created by a group of cake artists during Cake International at NEC Birmingham

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A spectacular display of the Northern Lights seen over Derwentwater, near Keswick in the Lake District

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Police and demonstrators at a Extinction Rebellion protest on Buchanan Street, during the Cop26 summit in Glasgow

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A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire

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Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow

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Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow

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First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice

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Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow

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A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street

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Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget

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Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London

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Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period

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Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran

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Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London

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Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace.

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Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France

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A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire

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Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk'

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A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change

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Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea

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Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death

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A person lays flowers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Eastwood Road North, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after he was stabbed several times at a constituency surgery. A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else

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A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer

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Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock

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The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh

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A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel.

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How has Brexit affected the migrant crisis? - The Independent