> people rowing themselves over to live illegally.

Complete misdirection. It's lawful for asylum seekers to arrive by otherwise-unlawful transport. It'd be better if they didn't have to, of course.

They aren't seeking asylum as evidenced by the number of places they could have stopped beforehand.

There's no legal or moral requirement for asylum seekers to seek asylum in the nearest safe neighbouring country.

I know France is awful, but it’s not that bad.

So what? They are mostly fleeing from the chaos that the Western nations are responsible for: Western "donations" of surplus food (to keep our prices from collapsing) have wrecked local farmers in Africa, Western "donations" of second-hand clothing (aka mitumba) have wrecked the African textile industry, Western shelters and laundromats for dark money have enabled countless dictators to steal from their people, and it was Western colonialism and the handling of the collapse of said colonialism that is directly responsible for many of the border and land conflicts in Africa. And now, with climate change where the Western nations have emitted the vast majority of CO2 responsible for said climate change, it is once again the Western nations that drive the next wave of people fleeing from droughts and hunger.

People risking everything on the dangerous migration paths out of Africa don't do that out of fun, they do it because they have literally no other option left. The chickens are coming home to roost, one might say.

Besides: the hurdles that "point systems" place are, similarly to many social security/unemployment insurance systems, set up in a way that allows deceptive politicians to claim "but we have a system!!!" while fully knowing that the hurdles allow only a tiny amount of people to actually use it.

This kind of difference is exactly what the home office are trying so hard to manipulate. There is no such thing as a refugee if you listen to the way the home office speak.