British journalist Isabel Oakeshott is infamous for speaking out against migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers online:

The UK must say a very simple NO to Palestinian refugees. We are full.

— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) February 11, 2025

When it comes to the Great British Debate, this is something she can only do online at the moment, because she’s a migrant herself (specifically to Dubai).

In a recent post, Oakeshott asked the following:

I think we need to ask why the Left don’t actually WANT to stop the boats? What exactly is going on here, as they cry “impossible” ?? Other countries have NO problem turning back boats. Who cares if we fall out with the piss-taking French? It is time.

— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) November 8, 2025

Let’s take a look at that, shall we?

Isabel Oakeshott — “NO problem”

Firstly, you’ll note Oakeshott said:

Other countries have NO problem turning back boats

There are two problems with this:

Most countries aren’t islands, so migrants aren’t entering them via the sea.If other European countries were turning away all these asylum seekers, there wouldn’t be any travelling across the continent, would there?

YouTuber Jimmy the Giant answered Oakeshott’s question.

We want safe and legal routes.

That stops the boats tomorrow.

You just find it easier to ignore our argument and pretend we want boat crossings. https://t.co/3aK0KGB1ae

— JimmyTheGiant (@jimthegiant) November 8, 2025

Mr The Giant went into much greater detail on this topic here:

A ‘safe and legal route’ is a way for refugees to claim asylum without first travelling to the UK. As Amnesty UK note, it’s currently the case that:

The Government doesn’t allow anybody to make a claim for asylum in the UK unless they are physically present in the UK.It is impossible to come to the UK for the purpose of seeking asylum in any way permitted by the Government’s immigration rules.The Government makes almost no safe and legal route available to any refugee other than someone from Ukraine.Seeking asylum from persecution is lawful – refugees don’t need anyone’s permission to do so.

Because there are no safe and legal routes, asylum seekers make the unsafe decision to cross the sea.

While the British right likes to give the impression that we receive more asylum seekers than other European countries, this isn’t true. As the Migration Observatory report:

Compared against EU countries, the UK ranked 5th for number of people claiming asylum in 2024, and 17th when adjusted for population size

Obviously it makes sense that fewer people make their way here, because we’re at the far left of Europe (geographically, at least). We’re also – as you might remember – an island.

The number of people making boat crossings has significantly increased since Brexit, as the European Parliamentary Research Service highlighted in June this year:

Since 2020, there has also been a noticeable increase in the number of irregular arrivals in the UK. In 2018, only 299 people were detected crossing the English Channel in small boats, but by 2023 this number had risen to 29 437 (still less than the peak of 45 774 a year earlier). Additionally, the number of asylum applications has significantly increased since 2020.

It could be argued that leaving the EU has limited the UK’s ability to tackle irregular migration, as it is no longer able to send migrants back to the EU country where they first arrived.

I think we need to ask why the Right don’t actually WANT to address the results of them constantly getting their own way since 1979?

Hermit Britain

Many people in the UK seem to think we should be exempt from the responsibility of accepting asylum seekers because we’re an island, and that this issue should instead fall on the shoulders of our continental neighbours. The problem is that we also want to trade with these same countries, and it becomes difficult to do that when your attitude to every topic is: ‘fuck off, not our problem, you deal with it‘.

Unfortunately, ‘fuck off’ is often the UK’s default diplomatic position when it comes to our closest neighbours and refugees. This is one of the reasons why the UK is increasingly impoverished in both wealth and spirit.

Featured image via Piers Morgan (YouTube) / Caleb Whiting (Wikimedia)

By Willem Moore

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