OPINIONS: How to lie with statistics: The British Government version with respect to visas

It is a common refrain prior to the execution of punishment – that the proverbial “Peter pays for Paul and Paul pays for all.”

Nowhere was this more evident than waking up to the news that the UK would impose visa restrictions on Saint Lucians seeking entry in the near future. My concern lies less with the British measure itself, though I will touch on its rationale, and more with the nature of the conversation it has sparked among our people.

What is appalling is how quickly many imbued the UK’s position with rationality, despite the unconvincing evidence provided. This is not about a country’s sovereign right to impose visa restrictions; that legal position is clear. Rather, it is about the underlying logic, rationale, evidence, and, most tellingly, our own interpretations.

This reveals a deeper psychosis of colonisation: the acceptance of knowledge produced by the West, even when it is only weakly substantiated. The British relied not only on military power but on the enduring logic of colonial division. Divide-and-rule conditioned societies to fight internally rather than confront the imposed structures. It sometimes feels as though all that is required is the political equivalent of throwing scraps into a yard; instead of asking who is feeding us scraps and why, we fight each other over them.

Thus, the logic goes: if the UK says it, it must be true, rational, and necessary to protect its elusive “national security” objectives.

The UK’s Explanatory Memorandum to Parliament noted that “there has been a significant number of nationals of Saint Lucia from 2022, who have claimed asylum, that being 360 people with 128 being made at the port, and also out of that 222 nationals received asylum support, of which 213 were residing in premises of the Government.”

Yet this number hardly seems disproportionate enough to justify a blanket removal of visa-free access. British asylum statistics show that applications account for around 9% of total immigration (approximately 89,000 people). Compared to countries like Pakistan, where asylum claims run into the tens of thousands, Saint Lucia’s numbers are minuscule.

Between 2001 and 2025, Caribbean nationals made 11,194 asylum claims in the UK, just 0.9% of the 1.24 million total global claims. Even within the Caribbean, higher numbers often come from countries without Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programmes. The UK memorandum vaguely links asylum growth to Saint Lucian passports, but provides no concrete figures tying CBI holders to the claims.

Meanwhile, more Caribbean nationals have entered the British army under the Commonwealth Recruitment Programme than have sought asylum. It seems our young men are welcome to fight and die for King and country, but not to seek refuge.

This raises questions: Is the number of Saint Lucian asylum seekers truly unmanageable? Or is the visa requirement less about reducing asylum claims and more about generating revenue from visa fees? After all, CBI passport holders who can afford the passport can surely afford the visa – and still seek asylum.

What is striking in the UK’s memorandum is how the data presented does not reflect the number of individuals actually entering the UK system via CBI passports, but rather the number of applications received (about 5,000) versus the far smaller number of passports issued (about 1,000). The risk is therefore significantly lower than suggested, raising the question: Is this an accurate basis for policy, or a false comparison?

Placed in a regional context, Saint Lucia’s asylum claims rose from just 5 in 2010 to 123 in 2025, an increase of 118 claims, or about 2,360 per cent growth. Yet similar upward trends are evident across the Eastern Caribbean: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines grew from 5 to 92 claims, Grenada from 2 to 78. The pattern is regional, not isolated, implying broader migration dynamics rather than a uniquely Saint Lucian issue.

Importantly, asylum claims are recorded by nationality, not place of birth, so the data cannot confirm whether claimants obtained citizenship through CBI. Nor has there been factual evidence of Saint Lucian passport holders causing mayhem abroad. The UK’s rationale thus rests on speculative risk rather than demonstrable threat. Moreover, the memorandum provides no objective threshold for when visa restrictions become necessary, leaving unclear why a few hundred claims from Saint Lucia trigger restrictions while far larger flows from other countries do not.

Kristen Sunak’s The Golden Passport reminds us that motivations for acquiring second citizenship are diverse: geopolitical instability, personal safety, ease of business, wealth restructuring, lifestyle choices, or simply insurance against future uncertainty. Many applicants are not oligarchs but middle-class professionals seeking mobility. In fact, for many, the first stop is the US embassy, where a ten-year visa unlocks wider global access.

Yet Britain’s decision cannot be divorced from its domestic political climate. Immigration has become a lightning rod in UK politics, with anti-immigrant sentiment increasingly shaping policy. The irony is sharp: nationals of former colonies, still within the constitutional orbit of the Crown, now face restrictive entry regimes. Caribbean citizens, whose labour and resources once fuelled Britain’s development, are burdened with new financial and bureaucratic barriers to access institutions that historically claimed to protect their rights.

This climate is not new. Since the arrival of Caribbean migrants on the Empire Windrush, successive governments have curtailed Commonwealth mobility through legislation: the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts of 1962 and 1968, the Immigration Act of 1971, and later the “hostile environment” policies that culminated in the Windrush scandal. Thousands of legal residents were wrongly classified as offenders, denied housing, healthcare and even deported.

Seen against this backdrop, contemporary restrictions appear less like neutral administrative measures and more like part of a recurring cycle in which immigration is politicised for domestic gain. The rise of Reform UK has intensified pressure on mainstream parties to appear tough, producing policies such as the Rwanda deportation scheme. Migration management has become entangled with electoral competition, rather than grounded in proportionality or fairness.

History cautions us: Caribbean migration has often been judged not by numbers but via narratives. The lesson of Windrush is clear – restrictions framed as technocratic solutions are deeply embedded in political and racialised debates about belonging, citizenship, and empire.

There are circumstances in which Peter must pay for Paul, but the justice meted out to Peter may certainly be sufficient. Punishing all, without proportion, is neither rational nor just.