Britain receives fewer asylum seekers in a year than Germany does in a month, as polls in two countries show contrasting attitudes towards immigration

For each asylum application by a Syrian in the UK over the past year, Germany received 27, according to figures released by the Home Office.

Data on international migration in the year to June shows that the UK received 25,571 applications for asylum over the 12-month period. Germany received 296,710 over the same period, according to Eurostat data.

In fact, Germany received 37,531 asylum applications in July this year alone – over 10,000 more than the UK for the entire year.

The UK received the most applications from Eritreans, with 3,568 requesting asylum in Britain. They were followed by Pakistanis (2,302), Syrians (2,204), Iranians (2,049) and Sudanese (1,799).

With the exception of Sudan, Germany received more applications from every single one of Britain’s top five applicants by country of origin.

Just under one in five asylum applicants to EU countries is from Syria, a trend largely due to the ongoing civil war in the country. Between July 2014 and June 2015, Germany fielded 59,605 applications from Syrians, compared with the UK’s 2,204.

To look at this in a slightly different way, the UK represents 12.7% of the EU population while Germany makes up 16%. Looking at the latest figures available for all 28 EU countries, the UK received 1.9% of Syrian asylum applications in the year up to March 2015 while Germany took on 37%.

In total, the EU received some 626,000 asylum seekers in 2014. Although Germany received by far the most, Sweden was the member state with the highest number relative to its population size.

A poll released this week by Ipsos Mori found that concerns over immigration are at an all time high as more than half of UK adults now view it as one of the top three issues facing the country. Figures by YouGov, also released this week, reveal that for a majority of Britons immigration is one of the “worst things about the country today”.

Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) "What are the worst things about Britain today?" YouGov asked Britons. http://t.co/i84BpxMuTG pic.twitter.com/sOqjvBTljO

In comparison, an FgW poll for German broadcaster ZDF this week showed that 60% of Germans thought the country could cope with the high number of refugees, and 86% said that Germany was a country of migrants.

The German government announced last week that it expected to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year and has urgently called on other EU member states to do more to “to rise to the great challenge posed by these people looking for help” as “the response so far does not meet the standards that Europe must set for itself”.

The different views within the two countries’ public opinion does not necessarily signal that Germans are more generous or kind-hearted than Britons. Instead, the findings are the likely consequence of the contrasting approaches of German and UK political leaders and the media debate surrounding the refugee crisis in the two countries.

In total, 636,600 people immigrated to the UK in the year ending March 2015, with net migration to the country hitting a record high 330,000. That number includes people moving legally to work in the country or to study, as well as Brits returning home. Asylum seekers represent a small fraction of that figure.