Illegal Immigrants: Offshore Detention and Deportation

Debate between Rupert Lowe and Julie Minns

Monday 13th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth) (Restore Britain)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. First, I want to thank the 720,772 British men and women who signed our petition demanding the mass deportation of illegal migrants—a policy position that has moved from the so-called mad fringe to the acceptable mainstream in less than two years. The question is no longer whether Britain has a problem. We know the problem; it has been well documented. Now we need solutions. Restore Britain is the first and only political party to publish a comprehensive plan not just to stop future illegal immigration but to remove those who have no legal right to remain in this country. All of them—every man, woman and child—must be deported. A Restore Britain Government will do exactly that.

I am not going to stand here and outline the problem; we all know what is wrong. I will tell this Parliament exactly how we can remove millions of illegal migrants. As we have seen time and again, deportation is routinely frustrated by a carefully designed maze of legislation, international treaties and legal challenges. A Restore Britain Government would repeal or amend the domestic legislation that prevents swift deportation; repeal the Human Rights Act; withdraw from the European convention on human rights; and remove the refugee convention from domestic immigration law.

We would also introduce what we call the great clarification Act, reaffirming that we in these buildings have the final say on immigration policy and allowing Parliament to overturn court rulings that obstruct the democratic will on immigration—not activist judges, but elected politicians held to account by the British electorate.

Legal reform would just be the start, setting the scene for the most ambitious set of deportations ever seen. The real question is this: how can we remove all those with no legal right to be in Britain? The answer is making illegal residence impossible to sustain—as we call it, the “hostile environment”: no legal employment, no legal tenancy, no access to public services and no banking facilities. That single reform would become the backbone of our immigration enforcement, making life so incredibly uncomfortable and unsustainable that many would simply deport themselves.

Employers must face real-time right-to-work checks. The gig economy, construction, hospitality and other sectors with persistent illegal working would face regular audits. If Uber Eats, Deliveroo and the rest were found to be employing illegal migrants, they would be fined, prosecuted or even shut down. The farce of young Sudanese illegal migrant men on mopeds delivering spring rolls and pepperoni pizzas in every British suburb would end. The Government must lead by example. Every company bidding for public contracts would have to demonstrate strict compliance with immigration law before receiving any taxpayer money—environmental, social and governance regulations, but for mass deportations.

Housing enforcement would change completely. Every landlord would be required to carry out right-to-rent checks at the beginning of every tenancy. Those who knowingly rented properties to illegal migrants would face severe financial penalties, and persistent offenders could face asset seizure and prosecution. Owners of houses in multiple occupation who imposed gangs of feral illegal men on quiet British villages would be prosecuted. Public officials who knowingly placed dangerous and unvetted migrants near schools and nurseries would be sent to prison. Homelessness legislation must also be amended so that illegal migrants are no longer recycled through local authority housing systems but instead enter the immigration enforcement process. We would not house illegal migrant tramps; we would deport them. It is really that simple.

Healthcare would no longer operate as a loophole. So-called “safe surgeries” must end. Proof of lawful status must become a requirement for routine NHS access. Illegal migrants in hospitals would be reported to immigration enforcement, as they should be now. We are not evil: emergency care would be provided, but they would be deported as soon as it was medically safe for that to happen.

Government Departments would finally begin sharing data across the Home Office, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the NHS, local councils, the Department for Work and Pensions and banks. Instead of operating in silos, the Government would work as one system to identify those with no legal right to remain. The full power of the British state would be directed to implement this one policy: mass deportation. Financial enforcement would become another powerful tool. Banks would verify immigration status before accounts were opened. Existing accounts without lawful status would be frozen or closed. The hostile environment measures would force out hundreds of thousands; a concurrent programme of enforced deportations would be implemented alongside that to remove the rest.

Restore Britain proposes a major expansion of immigration enforcement, recruiting thousands of additional officers, drawing on former police officers, military veterans and experienced investigators. A specific recruitment campaign for military veterans would be implemented, drawing former soldiers into field enforcement roles. Detention capacity would be expanded dramatically, including through the use of purpose-built detention facilities capable of holding thousands awaiting removal. Commercial airlines would continue to be used where appropriate. Dedicated charter flights would become routine. Military transport aircraft would also be available where operationally necessary. Time would not be wasted.

[Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)]

I would like to understand the point about detention centres. How many places would be required, and over what period? How does the hon. Gentleman think that this is even feasible, given that the previous Government managed to build only one new prison in 14 years?

[Rupert Lowe]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I am not going to go into detail; it is all in this policy document. I will give her one to take away.

Specialist detention facilities would be constructed near airfields to hasten the process. Britain would negotiate far stronger bilateral return agreements while working with allies to create a deportation NATO—a coalition of like-minded countries applying co-ordinated diplomatic and economic pressure on Governments that refused to accept back their own citizens. That would include harmonised visa sanctions, co-ordinated suspension of visa issuance, foreign aid suspension, targeted trade measures and tariffs, remittance and dividend controls and taxation, and a rapid response returns taskforce. Pakistan would be the first country to feel the full force of those measures.

Sanctions from a single country are easier to absorb, but a unified bloc of economies and travel markets creates systematic and severe pressure. Co-ordinated restrictions would also close loopholes whereby nationals bypass one state’s measures by moving to another jurisdiction. All that would be delivered alongside the credible and proven threat of action. Do it once, hard enough, and it would not be required again.

We must also revoke all asylum grants awarded following illegal entry and retrospectively revoke protection so that those individuals are also removed. If someone arrived in Britain illegally on a small boat, they would be deported, regardless of what their current status may claim. People ask whether this is achievable. Restore Britain says yes, but only if the Government finally demonstrate the robust political will required.

What about cost? Britain is already paying billions: billions every year on accommodation, billions on asylum, billions on public services for illegal migrants, billions supporting people who have no legal entitlement to remain here. In the short term, ending those long-term costs would offset the expenditure required to carry out removals, with estimated annual savings of more than £12 billion once the programme was complete. Put simply, mass deportation pays for itself.

This policy is popular, cost-effective and possible. I have just one question for my fellow MPs: what are we all waiting for? This is a costed, comprehensive and legally sound plan that would, as those 720,772 British patriots demand, remove the illegal migrant population. We have outlined exactly what needs to happen, in excruciating detail. It can be done. It must be done. It will be done. I invite Members to help themselves to a “Mass Deportations” policy document on their way out. It makes glorious reading.