17 Apr 2021
Mass immigration into the United Kingdom increased by tens of thousands in the year to mid-2020, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
“Net migration, largely driven by non-EU arrivals but also some British citizens coming home before the pandemic fully hit the UK, was higher than the historical average up to March 2020,” the state agency explained in a blog post although it cautioned that its figures are “highly provisional and uncertain” due to already inadequate data collection methods being disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The ONS said that there appeared to be “a notable change due to the impact of travel restrictions” from March, with net migration over April, May, and June the endpoint for the estimates thought to be around -50,000.
6 Mar 2021
Iranian military veteran Fariboz Rakei has received a short prison sentence for leading a boatload of migrants, including a seven-year-old child, on a perilous journey across the English Channel.
The 49-year-old is one of ten people who have been convicted for offences related to people-smuggling migrants in the Channel so far this year, and has received the longest sentence yet of just four-and-a-half years.
This is despite the fact he is a so-called “boomerang migrant”, having already been deported from Britain to Germany as recently as 2019 following a previous illegal channel crossing, according to KentOnline.
Criminals in Britain who receive non-“life” sentences are almost always automatically released early on licence halfway or, more rarely, two-thirds of the way through their terms, too, so the headline figure of four-and-a-half years is not likely to reflect the amount of time he Rakei will actually serve in prison.