Britain’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood arrives to attend a cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street in central London on November 26, 2025, ahead of the government’s budget presentation.
Henry Nicholss / AFP
The government has no clue about the whereabouts of well over 50,000 illegal migrants.
But how can any of this be true if the government doesn’t even know the whereabouts of tens of thousands of illegal migrants? The answer, of course, is that it can’t.
Reports on Wednesday claimed that more than 53,000 illegals are missing. That is according to a leaked Home Office document. The true figure is likely much higher.
The leak was handed to Rupert Lowe MP, who formerly represented Nigel Farage’s Reform party. He stressed that “there is plenty more to come on this story, trust me…”
Our work with Home Office whistleblowers has uncovered a national scandal – 53,298 missing illegal migrants.
Other figures released in August showed that the government also has no idea how many foreign workers hired by the sector in recent years are still working in it, and that 150,000 of them have effectively ‘disappeared.’
Not that this is just a Labour issue. The Conservative Party, which really ought to care about proper border control if it is to be worth its name, allowed thousands of migrants to go missing under its ‘watch’—for want of a better word—too, including many who were supposed to be deported.
Tony Smith, who used to be director-general of Border Force, which is responsible for protecting UK border entry points, told the Telegraph it is “quite easy” for illegals to breach their immigration bail.
We haven’t really got to grips with identifying and catching people who are working cash-in-hand here. I know we have right-to-work checks and right-to-rent checks but it is quite easy to lose yourself in the black economy in this country.
The Home Office has, of course, refused to confirm the figures—not that voters would believe what it would have to say, anyway.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
