Are 350 ‘illegal boat migrants’ living in Gorton and Denton?

A leaflet being shared by Reform UK as part of its by-election campaign in Gorton and Denton claims that “350 illegal boat migrants” live in the constituency.

But it is misleading to present this as fact—there’s actually no data showing the exact number of small boat arrivals being housed in each parliamentary constituency. The claim appears to refer to people who have arrived in the UK via small boat crossing, and is based on a broad estimate extrapolated from council-level data showing the overall number of asylum seekers receiving support from the government last September.

But we don’t know how many of the asylum seekers being housed in the local authorities covering the Gorton and Denton constituency arrived via small boat crossing. Nor do we have specific figures on how many asylum seekers are actually being housed in the constituency.

While most small boat arrivals apply for asylum, most asylum seekers didn’t arrive via this route. Government figures suggest that small boat arrivals accounted for only around two-fifths of all asylum applications in the year to September 2025.

We’ve written more about the use of the term “illegal migrants” here.

Where the figure comes from

Reform UK told Full Fact that the 350 figure is based on government data showing the number of asylum seekers receiving support in each local authority.

The Gorton and Denton constituency is covered by two local authorities—part of it by Tameside Council, and the rest by Manchester City Council.

According to the latest figures, as of 30 September 2025 a total of 515 asylum seekers were receiving support from the government in Tameside Council, and 2,108 in Manchester City Council.

The majority of these were being housed by the government, with a small number (two in Tameside and 91 in Manchester City Council) receiving only subsistence support.

Reform UK has then calculated the percentage of Tameside Council and Manchester City Council’s electoral wards that are located in the Gorton and Denton constituency—three of Tameside’s 19 wards (15.7%) and four of Manchester’s 32 wards (12.5%).

It has applied these percentages to the total number of asylum seekers in each local authority—so it assumes that 15.7% of the 515 asylum seekers in Tameside Council, and 12.5% of the 2,108 asylum seekers in Manchester City Council, are being housed in Gorton and Denton.

This produces a total of about 345 asylum seekers Reform UK says are living in Gorton and Denton.

There are a few things to note about this.

Firstly, the calculation assumes that asylum seekers are spread out evenly across all wards in each local authority—we don’t know if this is actually the case, and this figure is therefore illustrative.

It’s also worth being clear that these figures refer specifically to people with open asylum cases who are receiving support from the government. We don’t know how many asylum seekers receiving support arrived via small boat crossing—some may have arrived via other irregular routes (for example, in the back of a lorry) while others may have arrived on a visa and gone on to claim asylum.

We also don’t know how many people who arrived by small boat crossing but are not receiving asylum support from the government (for example, those who have subsequently had their asylum application approved), are living in a given local area.