Here's 5 Simple Ways to Encourage "Self-Deportation"
- Alistair McConnachie
- 51 minutes ago
- 6 min read
The message was clear at A Force For Good's "Enough is Enough" rally outside Holyrood on Saturday 6th September 2025.
Deportation is something of a "hot topic" these days and emotions can run high around it. In this article we look at 5 democratic and constitutional ways in which many people can be encouraged simply to leave by their own accord – that is, to "self-deport".
The first thing is to get serious about deporting the 6 categories of people who can, and should, be removed under current laws. This demonstrates to ourselves, and to the world, that we respect our own laws highly enough to enforce them without fear or favour.
1. People we are Entitled to Deport, and must do so Straight Away
a) Inadmissible asylum seekers
These are people whose claim for "asylum" is clearly bogus.
At the moment, we are required to treat every claim seriously, no matter how absurd. For example, everyone who comes over from France – a safe country – should automatically be considered "inadmissible".
However, under Britain's membership of the UN Refugee Convention, even if we declare their claim to be inadmissible, we still cannot send the person back to the country in which they claim to be "unsafe" without an expensive and lengthy investigation which proves otherwise!
So we are stuck with them, unless we can off-load them onto another "safe country". That was the thinking behind the convoluted "Rwanda Plan".
However, we should not be bound by such restraints. We need to be able to send them back either to France or, more likely, to the country they originally came from.
We cannot do that under the constraints of membership of the UN Refugee Convention, and so that's one of the reasons why we need to leave it. We must replace it with a UK Temporary Asylum Programme (UK-TAP) as detailed in chapter 10 of our book Protect our Country: Policies to Stop Mass Immigration.
b) Failed asylum seekers
These are people whose claims we have examined and considered to be bogus. They must go home.
c) Clandestine Illegals
These are people who have entered the country in a hidden manner and whom we've discovered without documentation. They must go to prison for breaking our law of entry, then they must go home.
d) Visa-breaching Migrants
These are formerly legal migrants who have breached the terms of their visa by, for example, working when they are on a study visa.
e) Visa-expired Migrants
These are formerly legal migrants who have over-stayed their visa.
f) Convicted Criminals
These will be foreign citizens, or dual-nationals, who have been convicted of crimes in this country and who, after serving their sentence, must be sent home.
There should be no controversy around removing the above categories of people. They are simply not entitled to be here, or they have broken the law.
A programme to deport these 6 categories of people would show to the rest of the world that we take the matter of border control seriously. That, in itself, would discourage a certain number of people from entering in the first place.
2. Stop Treating Refugees as we Treat British Citizens
It's important to make the distinction: An "asylum seeker" is someone who comes off the dinghy and claims "asylum". A "refugee" is someone whose case has been assessed and who has been granted official "refugee status".
Unknown to most people, an official refugee has the automatic right to be treated exactly the same as a British Citizen on all matters related to Benefits, NHS and Social Housing. This is as a consequence of Articles 23 and 24 in the UN Refugee Convention (and we explain all this in detail in chapter 8 of Protect our Country).
What this means in reality is that a refugee, who may have arrived only a matter of months ago, will automatically be given more rights than a legal immigrant who will not get access to such welfare benefits until he or she has been in the country for a minimum of 5 years, and who has successfully acquired "Indefinite Leave to Remain" (ILR).
That seems entirely wrong, and it's another reason why we must leave the UN Refugee Convention.
If we removed these benefits from refugees, then this would end a massive "pull factor" which encourages many people to try to acquire refugee status in the UK.
Furthermore, when people already granted "refugee status" realise that they are no longer going to get all the welfare benefits that they thought they would get, then many will "self-deport"; that is, go elsewhere!
3. End or severely restrict all Benefits, including Social Housing, for Non-Citizens
Once a legal immigrant successfully acquires Indefinite Leave to Remain (after 5 years' legal residence) he or she can apply for all benefits, including social housing. We explain how it all works in chapter 7 of Protect our Country.
Why should non-citizens be getting any welfare benefits at all? Why are we being so incredibly generous when this is not even economically sustainable, let alone the matter of its unfairness to the native population?
Again, this is a massive "pull factor" for a lot of people to come to the UK and to stay here. They have a motivation to stay long enough to be able to apply for benefits and housing.
If we ended such extremely generous privileges, then a lot of immigrants would not bother to arrive in the first place, or would simply leave once these benefits were no longer available.
4. At the same time, Make Citizenship difficult to Acquire
At present, a legal immigrant (including a refugee) only needs to have successfully applied for ILR (after 5 years' legal residence) and then wait another year. That is, there is a 6-year pathway to citizenship.
It should be at least 25 years! We suggest the new qualifications for citizenship in chapter 7 of Protect our Country.
That, in itself, will also reduce immigration as people realise that it is not so easy to acquire citizenship after all. Again, a lengthy pathway to citizenship will also encourage some people simply to leave.
5. Remove Voting Rights from Non-Citizens
Many people perhaps don't realise that at all British Elections, citizens of 55 Commonwealth countries, plus Zimbabwe, can vote at every election, providing they are here legally.
That means that 100s of thousands of immigrants each year from India, Pakistan, Nigeria and all the other Commonwealth countries are automatically entitled to vote as soon as they arrive.
Why is our country giving the vote to people who are not its citizens?
Many, if not most, will vote for their own interests, which are not likely to include our suggestions above!
Furthermore, at devolved and local elections in Scotland and Wales, anyone from anywhere in the world, who is legally resident, can also vote. We explain how all this came about and how we can change it in chapters 15 and 16 of Protect our Country.
If we do these 5 things then we'll see fewer people arriving here in the first place and lots of people leaving of their own accord!
Seriously Limit Legal Immigration
Also remember that people are leaving the UK every year.
This means that if we limit the level of legal immigration into the country (other than British citizens returning), and simply allow emigration out of the country to fall where it may, then we'll very quickly hit a level of net emigration (more people leaving than entering), and the overwhelming number of people leaving will be foreigners and non-citizens.
We look at an example of how this works in chapter 2 of Protect our Country.
To Conclude
By the example of properly enforcing the law as it stands; by leaving the UN Refugee Convention; by ending or restricting benefits for non-citizens; by restricting citizenship itself; and by removing voting rights from non-citizens, we can go a long way to legally and humanely ensure that many people simply choose to leave on their own behalf.
For more articles on immigration see our Territorial Sovereignty: Article Index
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