So what can in practical terms fully halt illegal immigration?

[Wellwhatnowbellaboo]

Reform has won by a landslide .... immigration is probably by the look of it the biggest issue. What can realistically without breaking laws be done to really halt this with a big impact ? What would Farage actually do ? Would and should we as a country break some laws to get this done and speak to what people really feel is an issue ? (Many countries do). This is not in labour's dna so I doubt anything will come if it now ... but if you've thought about it or you have solutions what are they ?
And if you are opposed- why and what's the answer ?

I meant the leaving of the initial unsafe country not further movement

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The point of my post was to make a factual statement of the law to counter balance your stated opinion that they’re no longer asylum seekers once they’re in a safe country. Which doesn’t accord with the Refugee Convention.

“Once they choose to go through another safe country, or many other safe countries, imo they are no longer asylum seekers”

A lot did, including myself!

Objectively, the only solution is to go back into the EU and fully utilise the provision that allows return to the 1st safe (EU) country

Family reunion and unaccompanied minors have a higher criteria than 'first safe country' in any case. Some countries, such as Poland are refusing to take back any Dublin returns, legal challenges will stop us returning asylum seekers to countries with poor reception facilities such as Greece...

The Irish Government are not having much success with returns;

Feb 2026
Only 2% of asylum seekers transferred back to EU state where they first applied.

https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2026/02/16/only-2-of-asylum-seekers-transferred-back-to-eu-state-where-they-first-applied/

😂😂 how should women be treated? I don’t think white British men are a good example.

Iran has a number of vibrant and active Armenian churches (Iran having given asylum to Armenian refugees fleeing the genocide of the early 20th century).

Edited to say I agree with your post, just wanted to add a comment about the Armenian churches in Iran (which I’ve visited!)

You know our benefits system is less generous that what's on offer in many EU countries, yeah?

The migrants cross through quite a few countries before they get here. They don’t walk, they take trains I assume. If you’ve passed through 6 countries to get here, then maybe a much stronger approach needs to be taken every step of the way. It’s not just a Uk problem, it’s a Europe wide issue.

Why isn’t there interception along the way in each country? This could be financed by a collective Europe, where they are then held and processed at a central point, and each EU country including the UK has their proportional share of genuine refugees and the others deported back or to a 3rd county out of the central pot.

We could have 1 European force that patrols the med, popular landing points and points of entry who “meet” those fleeing persecution and bring them to safety.

I’m sure those fleeing harm would be glad of being met and wouldn’t care which European country they’d be housed in, and those looking for an easy gig would be put off at wanting to get the UK, but it’s a lottery and they may be swapping their lack of prospects at home for worse ones.

A lot of immigrants in the UK speak English and live just like we do.

What's your point?

You know perfectly well what I mean! British men often leave a lot to be desired, but some from different cultures are known for suppression, cruelty etc towards women, plus first cousin marriage, underage marriage There’s enough in the media about it.

95% of the immigrants we get are not assylum seekers and have never seen a small boat- mostly they overstay visas or didn't need a visa, they come as tourists or contract workers then they don't go home. There are very few checks, unless they work for a company that is well known for using illegal immigrants the chances you will get caught are almost zero, because all the checks and staff, who would have caught them have been sacrificed to 30 years of ongoing cuts.
We are targetted by immigrants who don't want to work or are too old or sick to work because there are plenty of information sources on the internet which tell them they will never be caught, and once they have been here a while they can claim benefits.
Nothing Farage has proposed will do anything about this- so 95% of illegal immigration will continue even if they manage to stop the small boats (even this is very doubtful TBH).

I’m answering your comment 14.22

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

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

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

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

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?

Because they don't have to.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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