Philafrenzy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Another day, another shocking/horrific/laughable (delete as applicable) case of the British state failing to carry out the public’s wish of stopping ludicrous migrant asylum claims. This time, a Nigerian woman succeeded on her ninth attempt to secure asylum in the UK—not, this time, because of her son’s dislike of foreign chicken nuggets, but because she joined a terror group.
Upper tribunal judge Gemma Loughran ruled that because the 49-year-old woman joined the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)—which, as the British government itself reports, has been implicated in acts of violence against the state and other actors—she had a “well-founded fear of persecution” in Nigeria.
The judge overturned a previous ruling by lower tribunal judge Iain Burnett, who said that the woman joined the group purely “in order to create a claim for asylum.”
That a migrant should believe becoming a member of a terror group is a sure way of being granted asylum is itself a sign of the gross failure of the British state to maintain a safe border.
The Daily Telegraph, which was the first on the story, splashed today with the line: “Join a terror group, stay in the UK.”
🇬🇧 Join A Terror Group, Stay In The UK
— 𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚝 𝙿𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜 𝚃𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢 📰 (@ukpapers) February 13, 2025
▫Nigerian migrant had case thrown out eight times before succeeding with claim that even judge admitted was not honest
▫@charleshymas @SAshworthHayes @tjsigsworth
▫https://t.co/TS6j3KOGna#frontpagestoday #UK @Telegraph pic.twitter.com/xsO6qAAwTu
Commentator Ian Acheson said the case was another example of the judiciary colluding in the exploitation of the asylum system, describing this as “the low trust society in action.” And Tory peer Daniel Hannan highlighted that this was merely the latest in a long history of wrong asylum verdicts.
In recent days, border experts from the Migration Watch and Centre for Migration Contol think tanks have told europeanconservative.com that immigration tribunal judges need stripping of their powers to work on behalf of illegal migrants regardless of the rules determined by Parliament. This would likely depend on the UK’s withdrawal from the European Convention of Human Rights, which Labour prime minister Keir Starmer says will “never” happen under his watch. So much for his ‘desire’ to clamp down on illegal migration.