A Personal Reflection on Immigration and Asylum in the UK
Trinh Tu, Managing Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos, arrived in Britain in 1979 as a child refugee from Vietnam. Her family fled on a small boat. Upon reaching the UK, she did not speak English and knew nothing of British customs. Yet, she recalls the generosity she encountered: a teacher who helped her learn to read, a local family in Kent who supported them and still exchange Christmas cards today.
Britain at that time was emerging from an economic crisis, and Vietnamese refugees were dispersed across communities with little prior experience of newcomers. Tu experienced both kindness and playground taunts. Back then, understanding was shaped locally, not through the prism of blunt national debates. People encountered refugees like her primarily in classrooms, workplaces, and neighborhoods, not through headlines.
More than four decades later, even though support for the principle of refuge remains high, Ipsos data shows greater skepticism around asylum claims. According to Ipsos’ latest research for World Refugee Day, 73% of Britons agree that people fleeing war or persecution should be able to find safety in another country, including the UK. Yet 60% believe that many asylum seekers are not genuine refugees.
At first glance, this looks contradictory. But it reveals something important: Britain has not abandoned the principle of refuge. What has weakened is confidence in how that principle is being applied. Ipsos data shows Britain is operating in a climate of economic pessimism, low institutional trust, and high concern about immigration. These things are connected.
Asylum has become one of the most visible tests of whether people believe systems in Britain are working. Public debate is shaped by highly visible and often politically charged images of small boats crossing the Channel, asylum hotels, processing backlogs, and political disputes. These signals contribute to perceptions of a system out of control.
Those concerns do not always match the numbers. ONS data shows net migration fell sharply to 171,000 in the year ending December 2025, down from 944,000 in 2023. Yet Ipsos polling shows 49% of Britons still believe immigration is rising. As someone who was once one of those numbers, Tu finds this sobering. The debate has become so detached from individual stories.
Part of the challenge is that refugees, asylum seekers, irregular migrants, and immigration more broadly are often discussed interchangeably, despite being governed by different rules. When these distinctions blur, often due to political debate or media coverage, attitudes towards one group can shape perceptions of others.
At Ipsos, research consistently shows that Britons are more accepting of immigration when its purpose is clear and when it is seen to be well managed. Migration to fill skills shortages in sectors such as the NHS attracts significantly greater support than migration perceived as uncontrolled. Among those skeptical of asylum claims, common concerns include: 54% believe genuine refugees should remain in the first safe country they reach, 54% point to the predominance of young men among Channel arrivals, and 50% cite concerns about people having the financial means to make the journey.
Accurate or not, these perceptions shape how people judge the system. This is why the debate is often miscast as a choice between compassion and control. Most people want both. The public response to Ukraine illustrated this clearly. Support for accepting refugees rose sharply, reaching 84%. Communities mobilized and homes were opened. Support increased in response to a clearly defined crisis.
That response was about compassion, but it was also about clarity. People felt they understood who was arriving, why they were arriving, and how protection was being provided more clearly than in other recent refugee crises. Some will ask whether this is simply a failure of government communication. But the difference with Ukraine was not better messaging – it was that people could see a system responding quickly and coherently.
The lesson is not that some refugees are more deserving than others. It is that public support depends heavily on confidence that the system is fair and functioning visibly. Tougher rhetoric will not restore that. Nor will dismissing public concerns as prejudice. What matters is whether decisions are timely, rules are consistently applied, and the process makes sense to people.
Tu thinks back to her own childhood. When her family arrived, they were called ‘boat people’. Today, it is ‘small boats’. The language has changed surprisingly little. Britain still believes in refuge. But support becomes fragile when people lose confidence in the system responsible for delivering it. The challenge today is not persuading people to care. Most already do. It is restoring confidence that the asylum system is fair, comprehensible, and working as intended – even when politics, images, and headlines pull in different directions.
