Rhiannon's Law - calls for electronic tagging of boat migrants following tragedy

[Bedhead1234]

Rhiannon Whyte, the young women
working in a migrant hotel - stabbed 23 times by a man staying there

'After the killing he displayed no remorse, with footage captured him dancing and laughing on CCTV. He was jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 29 years.

The Conservatives have demanded that all illegal migrants be electronically tagged and subjected to curfews, as the mother of a woman murdered by a failed asylum seeker led calls for a new law to bear her daughter's name.'

I'm concerned the only solutions to these issues the government seems to have is to roll out a surveillance state - however
Rhiannon's Law, makes sense - her mum is now fighting for electronic tagging to be used.
if nothing but a slight
deterrent to criminal activity, it has to be positive step

It's absolutely ridiculous that they're not tagged.

Many of these migrants 'lose' their passports en route or shortly after arriving and become undetected by the authorities.

It's one of the reasons why the population of this country is probably far bigger than the official number.

Of course we should keep track of these people.

The first duty of a government is to keep its citizens safe.

The Tories are fucking hypocrites who had 14 fucking years to enact whatever they believed in. How dare they make political capital off violence against women. Haddaway and shite.

This.

I don't see how tagging this man would have prevented him killing this poor woman working in the hotel where he was living.

I think there's a case to be made for tagging boat migrants, but I'm not sure that this is it. Seems more like this horrific murder is being used for political gain.

From what I can see, Rhiannon's mum is trying to make this law and the driving force and tory mp is the one ( only one?) who backed her and perhaps he is politically motivated- I'm not sure, I do agree that it's the tories fault and it's not the best to have it backed by them - but I did see she's had no response from labour so perhaps she took whatever support was on offer

Rhiannon's mum has also made a plea for trump and Elon to pick this up ( yes that's another can of worms ) - but I think she must feel very unheard by uk gov

Agree that tagging wouldn't nessiaryly stop acts like this, but I do feel it would give a very different impression for visitors, who may be operatoring under different assumptions about the law and accountability, and the citizenship requirements of any nation they wished to apply to live in.

Seems like a positive step that could be fairly achievable

Poll results intresting

well, they tried to introduce Rwanda scheme which would be a strong deterrent. Remember the outcry?

‘Introducing’ a scheme that was illegal, unworkable and cost a fortune in order to get headlines wasn’t much use. This government have actually cut immigration, if that’s what you want.

Forgive my ignorance, but if they're able to tag them, why don't think just send them back if they're here illegally?

Hadaway and shite I’ve not heard that for ages!

Partly because we don’t have effective arrangements with every country for returning people. Even where someone has exhausted their asylum claim, the UK still needs to establish their nationality, obtain travel documents and have the receiving country accept them back. That’s often where removals get delayed or fail.

What? Like microchipping them like animals?

No, microchipping animals is for their protection.
Tagging illegal migrants is for our protection.

I feel desperately sorry for Rhiannon’s family, but tagging people wouldn’t have prevented this tragedy. And Conservatives jumping on it is absolutely an attempt to capitalise on a devastating murder, which is disgusting in itself.

I’m also somewhat baffled as to what Trump or Musk have to do with anything. Even if they think it’s a great idea, they have no political sway here 🤷🏻‍♀️

All that said, I do think failed asylum seekers should be detained pending removal where legally possible. I’m fully supportive of people’s right to seek asylum, but if a claim has been finally refused, they no longer have a legal right to remain in the UK.

Yep

Of course there was an outcry, it was ludicrously expensive and we were trying to move people offshore to a country we deemed unsafe as we were currently accepting asylum applicants from there.

It wasn’t a place to send failed asylum seekers either, so not sure why it’s relevant to this conversation. The plan was to send as many new irregular arrivals there as possible to have their claims processed.

No it wasn’t failed asylum, that wouldn’t do much and would be overwhelmed.

One big impact was the flow of people from NI to ROI, this has now reversed and people will be moving up via Dublin to NI. Belfast will see more problems as they’re the end of the line.

Well something has to be done.

Would it be a deterrent to have compulsory tagging, dna testing, and incarcerate illegal inmigrants in warehouses in metal cages like they did in the USA when Trump first came in?

No! Because our government never gets its act together to implement policy effectually. It is WEAK. The legal system is soft and allows people to find loopholes and appeals endlessly.

I am still appalled that BBC journalists made major breakthroughs cracking the identity of key ringleaders of small boat trafficking organisations - why didn’t the police and border authorities do it? If journos can surely our authorities can?

Our government and law and order authorities are utterly incompetent, powerless, snagged by political correctness. If government passes laws it doesn’t enforce, what’s the point wasting time on the legislation?

I don’t honestly even believe the statistics about immigration falling. And if it’s “good” legal immigrants we are blocking, but hordes of thugs on boats are coming in illegally (and frankly how does the government even count them all?) then what does the policy achieve?

Immigrants, on average, and when you adjust for sex and for age, commit fewer crimes than British citizens (source: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/commentaries/migrant-convictions-and-prison-population/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

It's men who are the problem. If we're going to tag anyone, it's all men.

I am not sure how tagging would prevent crime?

I worry people are taking advantage of a grieving mother for political capital. I remember reading Rhiannon Whyte's sister's statement about her murder, and it seemed very different in attitude to this.

One big impact of what, exactly? I don’t understand what the movement of people between Northern Ireland and the Republic has to do with that point.

Immigrants as in anyone arriving here including with work visas?

Rwanda impacted it.

Ah, I see what you’re saying now, sorry. That the threat of being sent to Rwanda may have pushed some asylum seekers towards Ireland instead. Fair enough.

Not sure what that has to do with tagging failed asylum seekers but hey ho!

They haven't cut illegal immegration/ asylum seekers which is what this thread is about.
108,138 people claimed asylum in 2025.

I just answered a post, each followed on the next in relation to a deterrent