THE LAUNCH OF THE ASYLUM PROJECT
ESA BUTT AND ADRIJA ZAMAN
Across the political sphere, from ministerial speeches to sensationalist headlines, the language used to describe those seeking asylum in the United Kingdom has become increasingly charged. It should not be dismissed as mere rhetoric or seen as peripheral to the issue itself. The words we use are not neutral: they have consequences. This language has become a catalyst, feeding the currents of resentment and fear that have intensified across the country.
“...illegal working and streams of taxis – BBC gains rare access into asylum seeker hotel…”
The summer of 2024 marked a profound turning point. The riots that erupted across Britain, triggered by the Southport stabbings, revealed how swiftly misinformation can ignite underlying tensions. Rumours circulated online — first that the perpetrator was a migrant, then an asylum seeker, and even that he was on an intelligence watchlist. Each distortion gathered speed through social media, inflamed by far-right networks and political opportunists. Within days, thousands took to the streets, many in areas where asylum seekers had recently been housed. The violence was later condemned as “far-right thuggery” by the Prime Minister, a description that, while accurate in part, obscured the deeper issue at hand.
“Stop the Boats”
To reduce these events to a story of online misinformation or extremist manipulation would be to overlook a far more entrenched cause. The riots did not emerge in a vacuum, nor were they the work of a few fringe agitators. The participation of ordinary citizens reflected a climate of fear and alienation that has been steadily normalised through political discourse. As Luke de Noronha observed, “Racist street violence and immigration controls are both forms of bordering which feed off one another.” The borders being policed are not only physical but linguistic and psychological – boundaries drawn through words, policies, and narratives.
“I think it is inevitable a man I grant asylum to will rape or murder a young girl.”
In the aftermath of the pandemic, political attention turned sharply toward migration. Campaigns such as Stop the Boats and the Rwanda policy recast asylum not as a humanitarian obligation but as a question of cost, security, and national identity. In this reframing, migrants were no longer individuals with rights and stories but figures of economic burden or potential threat. The collapse of linguistic precision, the conflation of “asylum seeker”, “migrant”, “refugee”, and “citizen”, has further blurred understanding, allowing rhetoric to eclipse reality, a dichotomy defined by division, surveillance, and suspicion rather than empathy and truth.
“Invasion of our southern coast”
It was from this recognition that The Asylum Project, co-directed by Esa Butt and Adrija Zaman, was founded. The project begins from the premise that the unrest and polarisation witnessed in recent years are not spontaneous eruptions of prejudice but symptoms of a deeper narrative architecture, one sustained by political language, media framing, and public misunderstanding. Its purpose is not to apportion blame but to illuminate these patterns, to expose how words become policies, and how policies, in turn, shape lives.
By combining rigorous research with storytelling grounded in lived experience, The Asylum Project seeks to recentre the human within the asylum debate. Its mission is to replace fear with fact, rhetoric with reality, and silence with dialogue. In doing so, it does not seek to hold ideology or agenda but to hold space for truth – a truth that acknowledges both the challenges of migration and the enduring moral duty to treat every person with dignity.
