The act of seeking asylum is not illegal, however attempting to entry a country by a route that is clearly defined as part of the criminal enterprise of 'people -trafficking' and defined by that country as being illegal, is!
Yes, people feel forced into this illegal route because the UK government does not allow anything different, except in defined cases, e.g. Hong Kong, Ukraine, etc. latterly, and such as East Asians from Kenya, and others, earlier. However, it is still taking part in an illegal criminal enterprise and something
any government has to stop, and be seen to being attempting to do so, and provides effective cover for the inadequate overall migration policy of the Tories.
This is part of what I have referred to in earlier posts, that there is no coherent migration strategy. This government has just been reacting to situations that have been developing, but they are not the main problem, it mixes up asylum and economic migrants in its pronouncements in order in some cases to deliberately cause confusion, or as
@Paul the Wolf would have it, 'telling lies'.
Such misdirection (if that's what it is) leads on to nonsense policies like the Rwanda debacle and further muddies the waters.
I don't know if it is or not, but the UK government adheres to the idea of it, and is another indication of how unprepared, even after all this time the present government is on these matters. Along with Climate, Energy, and Natural Resources, Migration policy will dominate the next two decades at least.
This is precisely the point I am making, this government and previous ones have virtually made up migration policy 'on the hoof', whether it was 'Windrush', or other situations that came later, it was all a matter of responding to 'events' as they occurred. This approach is no longer either capable of being pursued, or in self -interest terms alone, feasible. We now know that climate change alone will render parts of the world uninhabitable, millions will be on the move, not just to avoid unjust regimes, persecution etc. but simply to survive; the northern hemisphere will be the likely preferred destination and at the moment at least in public very few countries in the Northern hemisphere are ready for it.