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 ?

There are many reasons that people group together. Language, culture, religion, housing, food are just a few. Look at the Dordogne-full of English people who socialise together. Germany has taken 1.9m migrants. The problem is bigger than the UK.

What comfy life? Be precise. Data please.

Who is 'you lot'?

So we would have all the same difficulties deporting them that we have now then?

Flame incoming. Very dangerous policy. Which of your human rights would you mind not having? Be precise.

It does make it a lot harder! I regularly sit in on the substantive interviews with the HO and their solicitors appointments. Lack of documentation causes barriers, not easy to overcome, not impossible either. There is a big difference in the length of time decisions are made for people who come from different countries.

Some of our client group get their asylum within 6 months, a year perhaps. Many are waiting for years. Thats the difference.

There are countries not part of it who top the human rights tables. Some of which emulate the U.K. legally.

Half Iranian, as I said, but I didn’t travel with him, I travelled for work so a mixed group of British and local people.

I have heard that a lot about parts of N Africa, haven’t been myself so can’t comment.

Don't hand out taxpayers' money.
Shoot people smugglers.

Anyone read "Snakehead" by Patrick Radden Keefe?

Please let me know where I have gaslit anyone, as that’s a pretty serious accusation.

Sticking with Iran for the moment, if you believe all the men there support the values of the regime, how do you explain the many thousands who have lost their lives protesting it?

That’s great they were in a position to migrate legally. You recognise those men as contributing so presumably are not afraid they have imported the regime’s values - why would they, when they chose to escape it?

I wonder why you would deny that opportunity to people who, for whatever reason, came via an irregular route. Because they’re not surgeons? Because you think they’re dangerous?

Ive worked with aslyum seeking children and their families for nearly 30 years as part of a cohort of a wider service user group

I am not convinced much of the time of the 'smuggled' or trafficked context. People want to come, so arrange for someone to get them there, whether it be Spain, here, Germany or whatever, you have to arrange your passage, you cant just set off on your own. Think of it like an underground travel agent.

Ive worked with people who have genuinely been trafficked, families threatened back home, work promised and then held up in accommodation and not allowed to leave, sexually abused and exploited. They are not the majority.

So I dont know what the general public think a 'people smuggler' is. Quite often its just someone with links and geographical/strategic knowledge and arrangements. Its not always someone who is exploitative. They make money out of it yes, but so does TUI when you book to travel somewhere.

Considering the lies told around Brexit, or the complete absence of information, I’d be extremely wary of removing the UK from any legal framework. Which countries, btw?

Questioning the circumstances about the pp being spat at, when it doesn’t matter what they were. Spitting at someone is always disgusting and inexcusable and it sounds like it happened more than once.

Maybe you didn’t mean it like that but it came across that because your experience was ok, the pp must have done something wrong to be spat at.

Please tell me you’re not comparing a people smuggler to TUI?

They are exploitative because they’re making money out of doing something illegal AND it’s very dangerous. People die on those crossings. The smugglers don’t care. They just want money and for people to keep coming.

Most people in the UK dont get the nuance in different groups of people from different regimes. We tend to separate people out into goodies and baddies

You're a goodie if you have fought against a regime and want to come here because now your life is in danger becuase of that. But you're still from a cultural background that may clash with progressive and modern values in the UK

You're a baddie though if you have beliefs and values which clash with our values.

There is a big difference in class of asylum seeker, there are some who have vey middle class educated, westernised one might say, liberal backgrounds. There are some from the same countries who may be very tribal, lots of blood feuds going back generations which have also travelled over here, lots of prejudice about other groups from their own countries and other countries, not educated and not progressive. No different to any country in the world where you have good positive citizens and then there are the others.

Aus and NZ

Yep, and the people coming want to come. Who have to pay someone to come. Usually they are not forced to come. The only way to travel is illegally, there is no other way. The whole route is dangerous whether you're talking about land or other seaways. The UK tends to focus on the danger of the channel. These people have already crossed very dangerous passages, by land and by water already.

If you have no legitimate way of making your passage, you employ someone to do that for you, its that simple.

You know that quite often parents are deemed as having 'trafficked' their children in to the UK. Does that sound logical to you?

Of course, there isn’t a blanket rule you can apply to anyone from anywhere, there are always exceptions and any system is bound to fail some time.

According to this article the smugglers are tracking down the people returned to France and forcing them to return, as it undermines their operation:

“The smugglers know where the shelter is in Paris where people sleep in the first few days after being returned to France. They caught me near the shelter and sent me back to UK by force in a lorry. The smugglers have guns, they control everything, we have to try to stay alive.”
The second man who returned said he was also caught by smugglers close to the Paris shelter and forced back to the UK in a lorry.“

It sounds like both men said this independently.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/19/one-in-one-out-asylum-seekers-france-uk-lorries

...which is what Snakehead describes.

Remove the financial incentives for making the journey.
Everyone is an asylum-seeker, as no one is going to admit to being an economic migrant.
The UK cannot sustain it's current population so don't load it with more unskilled males

I didn’t question anything, I asked the circumstances and I said how horrible it must have been. I didn’t say or imply it didn’t happen, I wanted to understand the pp’s experience. How else can I do that without asking?

You’ve chosen to take the worst possible interpretation and accuse me of gaslighting, so I will assume the rest of your posts are in bad faith too.

Apologies, it was probably just how it came across in writing.

It was more a comment about the discussion above about Iranians. I could contradict myself and give a blanket overview and say that in general Iranians who come here tend to be more middle class, more educated, more culturally matched to the UK than people from other places and I would be doing what Ive cautioned against doing!!

NZ does have its own HR legislation and framework though, Australia strangely doesn’t.

Pulling out of the ECHR would require new legislation, and look what a long and messy thing that is on anything contentious. Any perceived benefits of not being in the ECHR (and to be clear I don’t see any, but understand others do) would be massively outweighed by the opportunity cost of parliamentary time spent on replacement legislation.