UNCOVERED: Refugee charity blaming British Empire for ‘racism in asylum system’ receives millions in taxpayer cash

The charity, formed in 1981, has published a paper this month titled “Asylum in the UK: A front line for racial justice” which calls for the next government to commission a review of “structural racism in asylum policy and practice within the Home Office and its private contractors."

Refugee Action also wants the next government to “fund reparative justice programmes led by people seeking asylum.”

The policy demands, which include calls for major government u-turns such as the scrapping of the Rwanda plan, come after the charity received over £4.5 million in taxpayer-funded government contracts and grants.

According to Refugee Action’s latest accounts published on the Charity Commission, the charity received £11,485,000 in total income up to March 31 last year.

Its income includes £4,488,000 from four government contracts and an additional £184,000 from three grants.

GB News understands that the funding has been used to run Government resettlement programmes for refugees from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

Taxpayer funding does not support campaigning work.

In a media drive for its latest report, the charity has posted on X that “Britain’s imperial history shapes the nature of racism as it exists in the asylum system today.”

In an attached video on the Empire, a speaker says “in so many ways, the state of the modern world was set by the British Empire.”

Another continues: “That colonial history has also shaped asylum’s system as it exists now in the UK’s post-imperialist era.”

The video claims that the “volatility, repression and violence that people are escaping are often long-term consequences of Britain’s actions in the past.”

It then describes some examples of activity during the colonial era, such as “forcibly transporting black and brown people against their will, pushing the UK’s borders into East Africa.”

The video claims that “these are not just practices from the 19th century, they are a description of the government’s current Rwanda plan.

The speaker claims that the “the racialisation and dehumanisation” of the Empire is repeated through the Rwanda plan.

He adds: “They’re here because Britain was there.”

In 2022, some 16,000 Albanians applied for asylum in Britain, constituting 16% of the UK’s total asylum applicants.

Albanians were also the most popular nationality to arrive by small boat in 2022 at 12,301.

Britain has no imperial history in Albania.

With over 90,000 applications, Iranians are the most common nationality for seeking asylum in Britain from 2001-2023. The UK does not have a colonial history with Iran.

Refugee Action outlines in its paper that 40 countries of origin “account for nearly all of asylum applications since 2001. Of these, 23 experienced some form of direct British rule.”

Its chief executive told GB News that “Seven out of 10 people who claimed asylum in the UK since 2001 are from countries that were once part of the Empire or been at the receiving end of often violent foreign policy.”

Refugee Action’s campaign video ends with another speaker saying: “the truth is that safety is the bare minimum that the UK should provide to descendants of the British Empire’s victims.”

In the foreword for the charity’s latest paper, Chief Executive Tim Naor Hilton said that the idea of charity itself is racist.

“The very concept of charity is rooted in the 19th century ideas of deserving or undeserving that, at a time when the UK was colonising and enslaving, was deeply ingrained with hateful notions of racial hierarchies,” he said.

Mr Hilton added: “We are on our own anti-racist journey, which we have made an organisational priority.”

Dr Radomir Tylecote, managing director of the Legatum Institute think tank, told GB News: “Not a single penny from the public purse should find its way into the hands of activist charities that make extreme policy demands.

“As Britons continue to adjust to surging energy costs and strains created by mass migration, it is unacceptable that the public sector is splashing cash on charities that campaign against the national interest and will of the electorate.”

He added: “The British Empire is not to blame for our borders being in disarray and we should reject any attempt to twist our history to guilt us into passing unwanted laws.”

Tim Naor Hilton, chief executive of Refugee Action, said: “Organisations who receive some Government funding for services should not be gagged just for being critical of Government policy.

“As a charity our legal responsibility is to our beneficiaries, whether by providing essential and statutory services, or by scrutinising leaders when their policies harm the people we support.

“Government policy for decades has created a system in which some people’s rights – such as access to a safe route or the right to work – are weaker because of where they come from.

“The fact is there is an indisputable link between history, foreign policy, and refugee migration.

“Seven out of 10 people who claimed asylum in the UK since 2001 are from countries that were once part of the Empire or been at the receiving end of often violent foreign policy.

“This is supported by a Home Office report prepared for Government Ministers in 2020 that said colonialism influences refugee migration.”

The 2020 Home Office report referred to by Mr Hilton was written to assess the drivers and impact on asylum migration journeys.

Titled “Sovereign Borders: International Asylum Comparisons Report,” it said that shared languages “will often be the product of a shared colonial past.”

It added that countries with a shared colonial past “may have similar institutions and political ties that stimulate movement between the two, leading to the general perception of an easier integration into society.”

The report said that some asylum seekers “may believe that, as a former imperial ruler, the destination country has an obligation to protect them.”