So what can in practical terms fully halt illegal immigration?

Which take in the vast majority of refugees. If you suddenly needed to leave your country with nothing in your hands, no documents, where would you go and stay? Countries that you passed through where you were beaten just for being a refugee? countries where you didn’t speak the language? or if you were sold the idea that the UK were welcoming and the likelihood that you would be able to settle and work, would you try and make it there? I’m not saying it’s right, but just as we are exposed to propaganda that all young able men with dodgy backgrounds are heading our way for the benefits (ignoring the vast numbers that are taken in elsewhere), there is an equal amount of propaganda coming from those profiteering from that travel.

Well of course I understand them fleeing from an unsafe country. It's going from safe country to safe country and then risking their lives in a small boat to get here that I don't understand.

If they want to risk their own lives fine but to risk lives of children is incredibly selfish

No, they would rather risk their and their childrens' lives crossing to the UK in a small boat!!!

There are many safe countries before you reach the UK.

Or would you think, my female relatives are relatively safe at the moment but I am not as I am a young fit male who can easily be made to fight for whichever group is running the country down. I can maybe get to a safe place, earn some money then pay for my relatives to where I am.

💯 agree

Incorrect, surely?

2024–2024 days indicates over 95% of long-term immigration into the UK is legal, with roughly 948,000–1 million people arriving through legal visa routes (work, study, or family) compared to approximately 44,000–49,000 who arrive via irregular methods, such as small boats

Indeed. Most genuine asylum seekers will go to the first place of safety. Women, children, the elderly won’t have the strength or means to travel much further.

So that’s why we get all the young and able-bodied men.

They get free housing, food, phones, clothing etc given to them. Also a small allowance, which is more if food is not included in their accommodation. They won’t have any utility bills to pay.

Saying they don’t get benefits is disingenuous. All their basic needs are paid for when they are an asylum seeker, so they don’t need conventional ‘benefits’ at that point. They have zero costs.

If they get refugee status then they’re entitled to benefits. Top of the housing priority list, and entitled to housing benefit, universal credit, child benefit etc.

Oh but the vast majority do. We have something like 0.4% of the world’s refugees. Most stay close to their country of origin. Germany take far more in than us, and within Europe, we are way down the list of the numbers within each country.

Your deleted post might be one of the better and more considered posts on this thread 🤭

In answer to the op the best place to look is countries who’ve done it and still top the human rights tables.

The ECHR was primarily founded by us, under Winston Churchill. It is widely misunderstood. Cases are very rare and do not affect UK immigration.

Since 1980, the Court has found against the UK in only 13 deportation or extradition cases ( look up proper 2025/2026 data). So when charlatan, chancer politicians bang on about it they have too much time on their hands to fuss about 13 ( justified) cases in 46 years.

Of the minuscule cases, only four concerned family life (Article 8). The Court very very rarely finds against the UK, with only one violation found in 2023.

So….In a country of a population of approximately 69.9 million, it is not even peanuts. It’s not even peanut crumbs. As a percentage it affects 0.0000186% of the population over nearly 50 years.

So if politicians bang on about the important benefits of joining Belarus and Russia by leaving it, they are either incapable of proper research or are deliberately tricking you about what is important.

Well yes it is comfortable to be in a house with a garden. Most wouldn’t prefer a flat over it if they have that.

unless you are going to set up some kind of physical barrier that runs the entire length of the British coast, you can’t. People will continue to come.

what the UK could do:

introduce id cards and require them to be shown when accessing all public services including health care
clamp down massively on the black / cash in hand / informal economy
clamp down massively on criminal activities that are using enslaved / trafficked / illegal workers.
Invest in robust enforcement of existing laws to track, and deport failed asylum seekers and visa overstayers.

This would all require huge investment in public services including the police, the tax authorities, immigration and customs etc. So it won’t happen.

The only thing that will ever stop ‘illegal’ immigration to the UK or anywhere else is world peace, stability and prosperity for all.

What is almost always ignored in media reports, and right now even with the BBC, is the many desperate situations that people are trying to escape and the reasons for people wanting to leave their home country in the first place. Until you fix those reasons, there will always be people looking to other countries for safety and opportunity. But tabloids want you to believe these people are all liars and criminals.

Do you think if people had the same safety and opportunities for themselves and their families as we do here they would be risking their lives travelling thousands of miles to get here?

If the west would stop cutting aid and starting wars and abandoning countries with no exit plan and zero fucks and then do their very best to stop people who fought for them and are now massively at risk of being killed, coming to the UK legally, then we might stand a chance of stopping or reducing asylum claims.

But no one wants to hear that side. All most people see are numbers (and the tabloids love to shock you with numbers). Not the people.

Do you think if you were born in Syria or Afghanistan or Sudan you would stay put with your children and just accept your fate?

So we either become an even worse version of ourselves and send war ships into the channel and lump all foreigners together as leeches or rapists or we look at the role our own governments and ones like ours have had in creating a situation that’s impossible to fix.

It has been made into an issue by Farage and the media but without admitting why we have immigration.

Firstly let's all admit that not all immigration is small boats. It's a tiny minority in fact. But let's start there.

For most people there is no legal way to claim asylum in the UK without being in the UK. And many people cannot get a visa to enter. If they could then why don't they pay for a Ryanair flight?

I agree illegal working happens but not in reputable organisations. A big clampdown needs to happen on that though and at the moment, fines are far too small. I would agree to much tougher penalties in the form of a meaty fine and that can pay for enforcement. I don't think that's unethical as people working illegally are likely to be exploited.

Processing of claims has to happen far quicker. The last government left a huge backlog which hasn't helped but it's improving. Also the various dubious routes lawyers are using are now being exposed.

I believe temporary leave to remain is being considered, like the Danish system. Again, this seems fair that if the conditions in a country change that should change the status.

ID cards to access everything from NHS to work is baffling that those on the right of politics don't support.

Ok, more regular migration routes. These are high because we need working, tax paying labour. In the UK we have an old population who, much as they'd like to think otherwise, have not been paying into a piggy bank throughout their working years. The working population pay for the elderly who are the biggest recipients of welfare and NHS spending. We also have a large number of people on long term sick of working age.

So we have hugh immigration now from, say, Asia because our economy needs it. Our public services need it. They will go on needing it unless there are ways to vastly increase automation across our economy and aggressively get people back into work.

Add to that the situation with UK tax receipts and the vast cost of financing the huge amount of debt built up in austerity and covid and that has other impacts. One is that universities now are very reliant on fees to survive and particularly foreign student fees.

Before 2019, lots of the immigrants coming to our unis, working in our hospitals we're from the EU. After, the origin countries changed but the need didn't.

So to my mind the legal immigration situation is not easily solvable. We need to get people back in work, that will help a bit but it won't solve it all.

I find therefore that the arguments of Farage might be being accepted by large numbers of the electorate but they're disingenuous. They do not address any of the causes of why we are where we are.

I understand people not wanting the cultures of their country to change but remember saying this to someone in 2016. Leaving the EU won't stop immigration, it will just mean people from countries further away will come. They are more likely to bring families and settle for good because of distance. Why does Farage want that? Well obviously he doesn't it would seem but it was obvious it would happen.

Because they don't have to.

Yes and the point is that some immigrants in the UK don't speak English or adopt our culture. And some British immigrants in the Middle East, for example, don't speak Arabic or adopt their culture.

Why are only the former demonised?

Extremely cruel to withhold medical care to people who need it.

Then the police should be checking on them . They’d have a field day where I live!

Oh, I know perfectly well what you’re doing!

Why would we have any sort of collective action or shared responsibility with the EU?

I’m answering your comment 14.22