The details are always dramatic, never verifiable, and somehow everyone is expected to treat it as obvious truth.
The bigger question is why people are so ready to believe stories like this.
If anyone has real evidence of wildlife crime, the answer is simple: report it properly, with specifics, to the police and the relevant authorities.
But hearsay isn’t evidence – and repeating it doesn’t protect anyone.
It just turns desperate people into an all-purpose villain for every frustration we’re living with: NHS delays, lack of social housing, rising food prices.
Meanwhile, the facts are far more boring and far more important.
In the year ending June 2025, around 43,000 people were recorded arriving in the UK by small boat.
Almost all claim asylum, and while a claim is pending they cannot be returned to their home country.
Seeking asylum is lawful; what’s broken is the system – slowed in part by policy choices, including claims being put on hold under the Illegal Migration Act 2023, which reduced decisions in 2024.
So no, 40,000–odd asylum seekers are not the cause of our woes.
Years of cuts and underinvestment are.
A little critical thinking would puncture these fairy tales immediately.
Louise Hart, Caersws