Saturday Morning Live | Saturday 25th April
GB News
Quotes from Candice
“a lot of people have sort of lost faith in the asylum system to adjudicate these claims properly”
Candice Holdsworth discusses two interconnected concerns: the asylum system's credibility crisis, noting that Afghan asylum acceptance rates have dropped to 35.2% due to tightened proof standards, and the retail sector's loss of consumer trust as shoplifting epidemics force stores like Greggs to remove self-service machines. She argues that overly permissive asylum policies create pull factors while lamenting the erosion of the trust-based retail models that previously characterized modern comme
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world of trafficking that we need to crack down on. I suppose, Candace, just quickly, on that point, Diane's talking about a well-founded fear of persecution. The standard of proof required to meet that has been tightened. And so, a few years ago, the vast majority of Afghans who came to Britain were granted asylum.
That's now dropped down to just 35.2% last year of claims being accepted. But if you take the view that if you've got a fear of persecution, you should be granted asylum, that we should have these safe and legal routes, it potentially opens us up to billions of people
having the right or opportunities they might think, I'll give it a go. Yes, it just creates an even more powerful pull factor. And I think that a lot of people have sort of lost faith in the asylum system to adjudicate these claims properly. I mean, you've seen a lot of claims of people saying
that they are being persecuted. Then it turns out that it was false, it was a lie, or they even go back to their home country on holiday. So, I think at the moment, scepticism is very, very high around all this. And I'm not sure that people will be ready to trust it.
Candice, can I also ask you about this story on the front page of The Sun newspaper, Greg's axing self-service machines to try and crack down on thieves? Yeah, and this I find quite sad because I think the history of retail in the last 100 years
has been that there's been a lot of trust between whoever's selling and whoever's buying. And I think places like Selfridges, for instance, pioneered the style where they would lay all the goods out and then the customer would go through the shop and have this really pleasant experience, be able to choose.
Whereas before, the shopkeeper used to keep everything behind the desk and you would ask him or her what you wanted. And now, with this shoplifting epidemic, that trust has been lost. And I think this retail experience that was pioneered in the mid-century
and sort of led to a rise in living standards and a new middle class.
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