An economic migrant who survives the journey across the Mediterranean has a 73 per cent chance of remaining in the EU even if served with an order to leave, official statistics show. Less than a third of those told to leave are removed, creating an incentive for economic migrants to join refugees striving to reach Europe, The Times reports.

Examples of asylum seekers who remained at large after their applications were rejected included Anis Amri, who drove a hijacked lorry into a Christmas market in Berlin in 2016, and Rakhmat Akilov, who ran deliberately targeted children in another lorry attack in Stockholm.