| What is the least-bad global asylum system that might be politically feasible? I’ve pondered this question since the first time I set foot in a wretched camp for Angolans fleeing their country’s civil war, a quarter of a century ago.
The debate in the West focuses almost entirely on asylum-seekers who reach the West—the ones voters see on television. The numbers involved—2.7m in 2023—have been enough to cause a backlash against all kinds of immigration. Yet they are a tiny fraction of the 123m people who have been displaced worldwide by war, disaster or persecution. For this week’s cover package in most of the world, I tried to look at the global picture. I went to Chad to talk to fugitives from Sudan’s civil war. My colleagues reported from Texas and London.
The only plausible way to give sanctuary to all who need it, we argue, is to do so close to home—typically in the first safe country or region that refugees reach. Rich countries should properly fund the UN’s refugee agencies, and assist the front-line refugee-hosting states. At the same time, to win voters’ consent for orderly labour migration, they need to disentangle it from the asylum system. Our leader explains how.
Our cover in Britain, meanwhile, finds space for optimism amid the country’s gloomy economic outlook. Sure, growth is dismal, public services are starved of funds and taxes are high and look likely to drift higher. But Britain is cheap—cheaper than warranted by the obvious risks. If the Labour government can seize the opportunity, our leader argues, then being value for money offers Britons a pathway to better economic growth. | 
