I agree it would be good to have fewer foreign prisoners in our jails.They are expensive and have in recent years added to the overcrowding.
The first thing government needs to do to cut numbers is to get proper control of our borders. Stopping the current big flow of new arrivals would stop the expansion of migrants and so reduce numbers which include some future criminals. Better border control backed by intelligence could also do a better job stopping people with a criminal record coming here.
The government says it now plans to send people found guilty of a crime back to their home country. As Robert Jenrick has pointed out their home country might not want them .The UK should withdraw aid money and visas from any country not cooperating with returns.
That leaves the issue of what if the receiving country lets them off any time in prison? The government should get agreement from the main countries involved that where a returnee is guilty of something that’s a crime in their country as well there will be punishment.
There also needs to be better border checks to ensure no criminal sent abroad is given entry to the UK if they return.None of this is possible without much better records of who comes in how long, with proper follow up when visas expire.
August 11, 2025
Good morning.
That is akin to be told by someone that they are ‘planning’ to get up in the morning and go to bed at night. ie It is something that we all take for granted and have no need to be explained to us.
Our kind host is correct. If their own country refuses to take them then we should refuse all visas and any aid. But this is the thing. Are any countries refusing to take back their citizens ? To my knowledge, what sometimes happens is, when their jail term ends they claim asylum. And so the merry-go-round begins.
Maybe it would be better if we only granted visas to countries similar to our own. ie The USA, Australia, Japan etc. Countries where we can vet those coming in. If you are from say, Albania then no, you do not come in as there is a disproportionate amount of Albanians in out jails.
August 11, 2025
Indeed but many politicians rarely say much that is not either A. a statement of the blindingly obvious truth (and thus should not really need to be said) or B. blatant lies – things like we do not run a two tier criminal justice system, we have policies for growth, growth, growth, Net Zero is vital to save the world and a vital “investment”… Criminal.
August 11, 2025
This is perhaps the best/most honest coverage of the Air India 171 crash I have found.
Air India Crash – Root Cause? #airindiacrash
Airline News with Geoffrey Thomas – Youtube
When will the official authorities and MSM update their vague and surely inaccurate report?
August 11, 2025
Things today are no different to the times of Charkes Dickens! Everything you say can almost be found in his novels. Only the divine / the miraculous can actually really change things. Relying just on the natural, we’re stuck in a perpetual loop of repetition / Groundhog Day
August 11, 2025
Some folk have suggested we could rent space in foreign prisons. Many of those will be less expensive than the estimated £54k per prisoner per year that the UK expends holding miscreants here. We could happily pay those prison services an enhanced rate of say £30k per prisoner, in appreciation of the harsher conditions prevailing; well worth the premium.
August 11, 2025
John, you know as well as we do very few will get deported. Human rights mob will be all over it funded by the taxpayer finding reasons they should stay.
The government has no intention of stopping the invasion of military age population replacement because they think it’s a vote winner.
There’s been mass demonstrations all weekend and these are set to increase. Westminster will have to remove their collective fingers from their ears because there’s trouble brewing.
Get ready for a very strong backlash from the normally passive population. It will only take one windmill or pylon to trigger opposition.
August 11, 2025
Ian
Never understood why someone from outside our Country who enters it illegally, gets legal aid, when an actual citizen of this Country is very unlikely to get such help.
Stop the free legal aid gravy train, and you may get some success in the courts, if it ever got that far.
The answer is staring the Government in the face, immediately hold and return within 24 hours anyone who enters the UK (by whatever means) without the correct documentation.
Stop meeting the boats halfway and ask the French to supply official paperwork for all individuals whom they escort, with the reason why they are not safe in France, let the French boats come all the way across, keep the people on board the French vessel until all the paperwork is inspected and passed to our satisfaction, no paperwork, then the French boats can take them back to France.
August 11, 2025
Don’t blame the French because the UK entices these people over with free everything and being put up in a plush hotel.
August 11, 2025
DA
I am not blaming the French who are just facilitating our complete stupidity.
I have said many time before on here stop the pull factor of benefits etc etc etc.
August 11, 2025
BA. You live in a parallel world infected by common sense. The government is happy with this invasion and it’s not their money being used to facilitate it.
August 14, 2025
As the decades of the uniparty charade has shown.
August 11, 2025
I agree wholeheartedly with this comment, especially about legal aid.
August 11, 2025
The Government have at last named the 14 NGOs whose business it is to bring and secure foreign criminals to the U.K.
Some are both government advisors and benefit from taxpayer funding to bring or care for these criminals.
Even the UN is now a Government Advisor.
This is unique.
This political class are now terrified of the majority. The latest online crackdown will be vicious ‘to defend children’ – from a political and state class that knowlingly allowed tiny children to be prostituted for decades.
August 11, 2025
@Mark B +1
We live in a Socialist State were everyone is equal as long as they believe in the same religion as me. Difference, quirks, abilities, freedom are not permitted unless they conform to the directions coming from the Politburo.
Our Politburo ruling top table its MP’s want a quiet life, they will do what keeps them from decisions and nothing else
August 11, 2025
Morning Sir John,
Perhaps I am nieve, but I thought it was announced years ago that foreign criminals would be deported.
The only people I imagine who will love this policy, are the lawyers…. It’s going to be a nice little earner for them.
August 11, 2025
@Cliff.. Wokingham. – just talk by a corrupt Parliament and its top table. they talk about power we just want to see a demonstration of will – but that takes integrity and that has gone AWOL
August 11, 2025
If the foreign prisoner is let out early in their home country, does it matter much to us? Punishment comes in many forms, presumably sending them back to their country of origin will be an additional punishment in most cases, as they will have invested much time and money in getting here, legally or illegally.
As a society it’s more important for us to deport them and make sure they never return, than worry about how long they serve. A big argument for prison is keeping people off our streets and deterrence, rather than pure punishment.
With exceptional high profile cases (child murderers and the like) we can still elect to keep them in prison here, if our public really demands it.
August 11, 2025
Call me a sceptic, but isn’t this just another policy to enrich the ‘uman rights’ lawyers? The debates and cost of deciding who to send back will be interminable.
First, STOP paying the legal fees of non British passport holders. That will prevent a large number of illegal immigrants from gaining entry in the first place.
August 11, 2025
Kier Starmer’s government is certainly a vast parasitic job creation industry for lawyers, HR consultants, net zero consultants and the likes. Killing productivity and our ability to compete in the world hugely and making everyone else poorer.
August 11, 2025
Interesting that he seems against normal private employment (that creates tax) but encourages the above careers (leeches) where he came through the ranks.
August 12, 2025
+1
August 11, 2025
@Peter Wood – Human Rights as it gets interpreted in the UK fights just as does Parliament against the ‘Human Rights’ of the majority
August 11, 2025
And our “not fit for purpose” Home Office is going to be able to cope with all the consequential measures of such a policy?
Despite some 12 per cent. of the prison population comprising of foreign nationals, will there be any savings after taking into account the costs of endless appeals and any compensation settlements from those and new offenders who wish to remain in the UK?
August 11, 2025
@formula57 – the Home Office maybe the front end but it is the Government and the majority of our Parliament (Hoc & HoL) that supports them in the direction they take – otherwise it wouldn’t happen
August 11, 2025
Not a chance of it ever happening, the ECHR will see to that. Though the ECHR is strangely silent about Lucy Connely.
August 11, 2025
@Old Albion – None. Given that they(the ECHR) do not have any legitimate laws and in that context it is therefore not a legitimate Court. It is our own Parliament that is the only body empowered to make Laws, Amend them and Repeal them the UK Courts is as always taking orders from Parliament.
You have answered your own question on Lucy Connely, Parliament has deemed her a right-wing activists and freedoms for that sort of thinking (just thinking) as we know is ‘verboten’ if they are not aligned with the personal religion of the Politburo
August 11, 2025
The legions of left-wing Activist Judges, Human Rights Lawyers and the ECHR are not going to permit foreign criminals to be deported.
It’s just more gas-lighting from an increasingly desperate Labour Government.
Meanwhile, in the DT it is reported that the Chagos treachery is going to cost us ten times what Two-Tier claimed, £34 billion, not £3.4 billion. They have used an accountancy trick to arrive at the lower figure.
Two-Tier has basically LIED to Parliament. He should be forced from Office.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/10/revealed-chagos-deal-to-cost-10-times-what-starmer-claimed/
August 11, 2025
Correct. This is all flannel. There will be no more criminal returns than there are now.
August 11, 2025
I’ll suggest that they should also be birched and have their wealth confiscated. Deportation alone isn’t enough of a punishment.
August 11, 2025
I would have thought “flogged” is a more appropriate word from an old seaman.
August 11, 2025
I did think about using the word!
August 11, 2025
We are not Iran, where flogging and hanging is a weekly occurrence.
August 11, 2025
I very much agree especially about the checking. I am curious why there are 10,000 foreign criminals in British prisons in the first place and where is the accountability within the Home Office for letting them enter the UK?
I suspect most of them would have arrived here with a criminal / dubious past so why are they here? I think there needs to be better accountability for such mistakes to prevent them happening again.
August 11, 2025
John
I am all in favour of sending them back home, but when we have returned the criminals to their own Country, what do we do with their families etc, etc, pay them Benefits so they can stay, or send them back as well.
August 11, 2025
The first thing government needs to do to cut numbers is to get proper control of our borders.
You should be on the stage Sir John because you don’t half come out with some great one liners, I’ve been saying this for years but governments of all colours haven’t had the backbone to do it, no doubt Labour will put something before parliament and as usual the opposition will object even if it will work, then there’s the parasites or human rights lawyers, here’s a idea stop all foreigners from being able to have access to money to pay these lawyers and get us out of the ECHR
August 11, 2025
Once a criminal always a criminal – anyone prepared to break laws to get here is likely t break laws once they get here.
I assume that those here on legal visas are much easier to depart than those claiming asylum so it is those illegal entryist criminal element we are discussing.
Change the law so if you break the law you may not claim asylum, why should mercy be shown to those who do not show consideration to others.
We have plenty of our own miscreants without importing and retaining those from other countries.
I note that few middle eastern and south Asian countries are on the home secretaries return list and yet that is where our illegal entry doctors and engineers are coming from.
August 11, 2025
Perhaps we can try some old ideas. Leave of your own volition or be immured. Cheap to build, no risk of escape and very unpleasant – except for those of a religious bent. Recycle in about 5 years.
As for our sea border, perhaps Ms Braverman can join a few friends in a speedboat whilst using a machine gun. Defending our shores would be the mantra. As we see, the courts are very amenable to political pressure, so no worries.
As for returns, we know passports and ID cards are worthless. Restoring an old idea, we could try branding, some suitably expensive large logo could be devised and applied red hot. Then leave or be immured.
Otherwise all we have is motherhood and apple pie.
August 11, 2025
We should certainly advise the receiving country how much of the sentence is left to serve and the nature of the crime but, surely, once they are deported, it’s up to the receiving country to do whatever they want with the deportee.
I cannot see how we have any right to tell another country what to do.
August 11, 2025
“That leaves the issue of what if the receiving country lets them off any time in prison? The government should get agreement from the main countries involved that where a returnee is guilty of something that’s a crime in their country as well there will be punishment.”
Unfortunately there are some crimes which we consider heinous but which other countries and cultures do not consider to be a crime at all. This not only means that such crimes will not be punished in these countries but worse it mean that the communities from these countries and cultures living in the UK also do not accept this behaviour to be criminal and will cover up these crimes and welcome back into their community such criminals after release from prison. This inevitably causes social division in the country.
August 11, 2025
I assume by sending prisoners back to their own countries we can free up spaces in UK prisons so we don’t have to build any more.I also assume that these criminals have British nationality or a passport otherwise they would be here illegally and could automatically be sent back to where they came from whether or not their own country wanted them back.
To be returned to your own country to serve their time is probably a deterrent in itself as conditions anywhere else in the World will be far worse than in the UK where we are generally viewed as being weak and soft on prisoners.
Prison needs to be a deterrent so that those who have served their sentences never want to go near a gaol for the rest of their lives.They need to be harsh places and disciplined regimes where they have no access to drugs, televisions, alcohol etc. and the ECHR doesn’t apply.
For certain crimes, such as murder, and rape,there should be minimum sentences and the criminal should know he won’t be released early for good behaviour ie; 20 years means just that.
Questions need to be asked as to why we are currently housing war criminals from abroad who are sentenced in The Hague but sent to the UK to serve their time such as Radovan Karadzic,a Bosnian Serb, a mass murderer who since 2016 resides at his Majesty’s pleasure in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight serving a 40 year sentence.
August 11, 2025
Every one of these illegal immigrants is a criminal who has broken into our country with the intention of robbing us.
I was under the impression that they could not be returned to their home country because we had no idea which it was.
I we do know why should they remain until they are convicted of a crime?
August 11, 2025
As you say, accurate records are essential if anything is to be done about the problem. But equally essential is a determined will on the part of the Government to take the necessary action, which seems to be completely lacking, and indeed a cynic might say that poor records are quite convenient for a Government that at the moment appears to be on the side of the criminal immigrants.
August 11, 2025
Without a complete adoption of finger print identity processing and recording there is little point ejecting any of these serial criminals, because they will simply return under a new identity and carry on.
The only way we will be able to control who is actually who in our country is for a complete finger print record for everyone. That may sound like an attack on individual freedom and an invasion of person privacy but there is no other sensible option outside bio recognition which would be even more involved to roll out.
Anyone found not to have a finger print identity would be considered an alien presence living among us and further investigation would be needed to resolve their status and ID.
August 11, 2025
@Rod Evans. Why finger print us all? Just do it to the illegals while we taxi them in. I don’t want this or any other government having my prints.
August 11, 2025
15 years ago the former Labour Home Secretary John Reid famously described the Home Office as “not fit for purpose”.
The Home Office does not seem to have improved much during the intervening years. They are still incapable of tracking migrants whose visas have expired, or deporting those who they can track or preventing the villains from issuing dodgy migrants with fraudulent documentation.
If our highly paid, expensively educated, Latin speaking, Home Office civil servants cannot sort these issues out it’s time they were replaced by a much cheaper and more efficient AI. That ought to generate substantial savings for Rachel Reeves, enabling her to increase the pensioner’s winter fuel allowance or cut a penny off income tax. Or more.
August 11, 2025
Most people in Home Office probably bored / hate their jobs. Just surviving by trying to look busy (if that!) whilst dreaming of weekends, holidays and retirement.
Currently reading Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit who says the same sort of thing about a similar group of people. Reading Dickens is great cause he puts it much more succinctly and with more wit – and relieves a lot of frustration!
August 11, 2025
I suspect home office officials are more likely to speak Swahili or Urdu than Latin.
Therein lies the rub.
August 11, 2025
It would be nice to know why the French do not stop the overloaded small boats leaving French waters.
It is clear that they have a duty under various laws of the sea to prevent them leaving or “rescue” those in the the boats if at sea. The people in the boats are clearly in danger.
The people in the boats are not asylum seekers as they depart from France.
If they enter the country illegally then they are “criminals” technically and should be held in detention in the same style of accommodation as in France. They need to be looked after but not in hotels, not given phones, not given credit cards. The money we give to France should be used to establish suitable dentation centres of a reasonable standard. Maybe a bit better than in France.
They would not put their lives at risk if it were not for the total failure of common sense of this and previous governments who don’t seem to live in the same world as the rest of us and know how ordinary people tick, including those in the small boats.
August 12, 2025
JD
The French do not stop them because they want them out of their Country, simples !
The illegals in rubber boats do not want help because they are not in danger when in waist deep water, and when they are escorted by the French Navy to mid point channel, safety is at hand nearby if needed, so they are never in distress (until remarkably they enter UK waters)
August 11, 2025
Sir John
It is not hard to agree with today’s thought. Why should any of us pay for therefore encourage the criminal activity of others.
We don’t need agreements we should just ‘do’ the mathematically the whole situation evaporates. What should not be forgotten is that it is our safety and security that comes first.
Your passing on the views of those that had the collective responsibility when in power to remedy the situation and just refused, who still want their personal safety blanket of continuation and continuity of Socialism that has led to this situation. Aren’t in a position to have a meaningful opinion until such time the can prove otherwise with real actions
People that carry personal baggage seemingly don’t change, they don’t change religion and carry it and its beliefs with them still act as they always did.
The situation you site is not new, its inbreed in this Socialist run Parliament that have tied to justify failure for the last 25 years, by maintaining the status quo of doing nothing
August 11, 2025
The rot continues – ‘according to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act’ verified by the Governments own departments
The real story not only have government been caught red-handed lying to the British public, but lying to Parliament. Back in the days of integrity, democracy, not rule by dictation a 2 tier nation this would have been an instant resigning situation.
What will this weak disgusting excuse of a Parliament do when its own protocols for integrity are trashed – as we have seen ‘nothing’
August 11, 2025
The situation you Cite is not new
For Context
https://order-order.com/2025/08/11/full-figures-actual-cost-of-chagos-surrender-deal-is-35-billion/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/10/revealed-chagos-deal-to-cost-10-times-what-starmer-claimed/
Badenoch said this morning: “Starmer betrayed public trust by misrepresenting the real cost, which will fund tax cuts in Mauritius. Now tax rises are coming to pay for this nonsense. When Labour negotiates Britain loses.“
August 11, 2025
In order to enter the EU we will shortlyhave to provide all sorts of identifiaction, including proof of funds and insurance. Are we to assume that all those arriving from the EU by whatever means, will have this also?
August 11, 2025
NO to high immigration.
NO to EU, socialism and bureaucracy.
And no to ghastly American culture / values destroying our great British culture / values like the grey squirrel killing off the British red squirrel.
August 11, 2025
Our Parliament should change the law so that those arriving illegally are automatically detained and deported. No appeals, no legal aid, no hotels, no pocket money and no chance of staying in the UK. If they refuse to disclose their country of origin or lack documentation, deport them to the Falkland Islands.
Foreign criminals should be immediately deported, and their families deported with them.
Until we get tough, we will continue to be treated with contempt.
We need a recall system for MPs so they cannot ignore voters, as they have disgracefully for the last ten years over immigration, both legal and illegal.
This PM and the Government are a disgrace, totally unfit for office!
August 11, 2025
281 criminals were illicitly shipped, into the UK yesterday on the 10th August from France……
August 11, 2025
an octogenerian I have lived through many changes of government.
Overall on balance I have to say each was every bit as performance
ordure as the the one before.
For most of my time this country had growth prospects.
Now?nowt.
just listen to them.Who is pulling the strings?
August 12, 2025
Does the UK take DNA of every immigrant whether legal or illegal?