Reform’s Rupert Lowe has led a furious backlash to new figures showing that asylum claims in Britain reached a record high in 2024, surpassing every other year since they began being collected in 2001.

A total of 108,138 people applied for asylum in the UK in 2024, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.

The number is up 18% from 91,811 in 2023, according to figures published by the Home Office.

While the number being allowed to stay has fallen from 63,000 to 39,600, the number being housed in hotels is actually up despite Labour’s pledge to end their use.

A total of 38,079 asylum seekers are now being housed in hotels.

The number of people being officially age checked due to suspicions they are over 18 has also hit a record high of 6,270, while another record was hit as 1,873 migrants claiming to be children were found to be over 18.

Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe has also highlighted figures revealing that 87% of migrants claiming asylum in Britain are men.

Mr Lowe blasted: “87%. Not desperate women and children. Men. Mainly young foreign men from alien cultures that share none of our values and hold no respect for women.”

“I do not want them in our country.”

“34,978 small boat illegal migrants claimed asylum last year. They broke into our country.

“My view is clear – every single one should be detained and deported. No ifs, no buts. Gone. And never allowed back.”

He also condemned the figure showing just 3% of asylum seekers have been deported, branding it “pathetic”.

He added: “Britain is being humiliated.”

The Home Office data says 8,200 migrants were subject to enforce returns, with Albanians the most common nationality deported.

In total small boat arrivals were up 25% last year, however.

Amid a major red-on-red row about Keir Starmer’s new plan to cut foreign aid in order to fund an uplift in military spending, last night it was revealed that nearly half of the new overseas aid budget is now being spent on housing asylum seekers in Britain.

The new foreign aid budget will be reduced to £9.2 billion – around 0.3% of gross national income – with £4.2 billion being spent domestically on refugees.

A government official warned that the “actual figure spent on aid is going to be really, really small”.

Minister for Border Security and Asylum, Dame Angela Eagle said:

“Over the last six years, legal migration soared, a criminal smuggler industry was allowed to establish itself in the Channel, and the asylum system was broken.

“Through our Plan for Change we’re restoring order to the system and substantially increasing enforcement. Since July, returns are up to their highest level in half a decade, with 19,000 people with no right to be here removed. Enforced returns up 24% and illegal working arrests and visits increased by 38%.

“Under the previous government, in the last few months before the election, asylum decision making collapsed by more than 70% pushing the backlog right up. We have spent the summer and autumn reversing that damage increasing asylum decision making by 52% in the last three months of 2024, putting us on track to close more asylum hotels next month.

“We are also ensuring that legal migration continues to come down after the previous government quadrupled net migration in the space of four years. And we have already taken action to reverse some of the loosening of visa requirements introduced by the last government where we have found evidence of abuse.

“Under the Plan for Change our Immigration White Paper will set out a comprehensive plan to restore order to our broken immigration system.”