London is home to as many as 585,000 illegal migrants, equivalent to one in 12 of the city’s population, according to a previously confidential report. The Telegraph has the story.
There is mounting concern over the failure to control Britain’s borders and the pressure that places on public services such as schools and the NHS. The use of illegal migrants in the black economy, working in roles such as food delivery drivers, is also a concern.
Despite this, no official figures on the scale of the problem are provided by the Home Office.
The new estimate has emerged in a study commissioned by Thames Water, obtained by the Telegraph under freedom of information-style laws for the environment.
In total, there are estimated to be more than one million illegal migrants in the UK, with 60% of those in the capital.
The report suggests most illegal migrants arrived in the UK on work, study or visitor visas and then overstayed.
Migration experts suggested that the figures could be an underestimate as some of the underlying data dates from 2017, before the surge in migrants crossing the Channel.
On Tuesday, the Home Office confirmed 1,000 migrants had crossed so far this year, following 38,816 in 2024, the second highest total on record.
Chris Philp, the Shadow Home Secretary, said the figures in the report were “deeply alarming”.
“Having lost control of illegal immigration over the Channel, the Labour Government must now urgently start deporting far more illegal immigrants,” he said.
“It is totally unacceptable to have these numbers of illegal immigrants in the UK. The law needs to be looked at so that spurious human rights, modern slavery and asylum claims cannot be used to delay or prevent removals of illegal immigrants.”
Alp Mehmet, Chairman of think tank Migration Watch, said: “A population underestimate on this scale has colossal implications for utility and local authority planning. Utilities, housing, the NHS, GP surgeries and schools will all come under severe pressure, further risking community cohesion.”
The Telegraph has previously revealed accusations that the NHS is giving undocumented migrants priority for appointments and at A&E, as the health service continues to battle to bring down waiting lists.
Richard Tice, the Deputy Leader of Reform UK, said: “One in 12 people in London are here illegally, probably working illegally using taxpayer-funded public infrastructure and services. It is totally unacceptable.
“It’s another reason why we need to properly control our borders.”
Worth reading in full.
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Wow, this is undeniably bad. And if it’s Home Office figures I’d expect the reality to be even worse. Haven’t they lost loads of illegals and don’t know their whereabouts? So god knows how many are roaming around the country;
”Foreign national offenders living in the UK in 2017 = 5,933
Foreign national offenders living in the UK in 2024 = 18,069
Home Office data, just released.”
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1882438214780440888
Funny but true;
https://x.com/Cherub_Rock_23/status/1882503973170798643
Allowing for bureaucratic incompetence, delayed reporting, and cunning on the part of the illegals, we’re probably looking at more like 1 person in 8, then?
One wonders how population estimates can ever be even approximately correct, anywhere in the world.
Come to think of it, “overpopulation” may well be specious.
It sound a bit medieval, but wouldn’t it be fascinating to complete a full, house by house sweep across the country to count the population, and visitors, tourists etc… just to see a semi accurate figure. All indicators suggest it’s much higher that officially recorded, yet we still use those numbers for planning etc… impossible I know in our modern world, but I’d love to know the actual real position!
I’ve always been aware of the number of foreign nationals in London. That’s the nature of a capital city and major tourist destination, so the immigrants probably go unnoticed to some extent. It’s in regional towns that the societal change being inflicted on local communities against their will is most noticeable. If you ignore the architecture, my own county town no longer feels particularly British.
Undercounting.
3 million Muzzies in Londonistan.
More than 1 million illegals – mostly Black, Muzzie, a sprinkling of east euros for diversity sake.
London is not English, not British.
It is North Africa mixed with Nigeria.
All hail the multi-culti and diversity.
It’s a bit rich for the Tories to be criticising this when they opened the borders to the flood of gimmegrants in the country and were happy to do nothing to curtail them.
The jobs these illegals are doing is a job somebody on benefits should be forced to do.
But —WHY? —–Why would a country allow itself to be flooded with illegals that cost huge amounts of money to feed and house and where this absurdity puts enormous strain on every bit of infrastructure like housing, schools, hospitals, surgeries, dentists etc, who are all supposed to cater for these people? The answer is that our Politicians who pander to the UN and WEF One World Government Agenda have basically handed over the running of the country to International Courts and Treaties because they have decided to abandon their own voters and join the Globalist One World Government Club at Davos. —You know that place that Stermer prefers to Westminster. ——These people do not care where all the people they want to govern live and infact destruction of National Identities helps them with their control of the whole world—-.We vote for people who no longer represent us. They represent the UN and WEF and Global Governance.
I wouldn’t blame the politicians alone. Our courts and legal system actively work against the interests of British people when it comes to immigration. The law should be there to serve the people whose country this is. Trump gets that. How much longer will our governments look the other way and try not to notice that he’s right?
It is the horse that pulls the cart not the other way around. Mass illegal immigration could be ended tomorrow if the politicians wanted it. Perhaps the gaping holes in legislation are there for a reason.
It’s not by accident, it’s by design. Only Reform and a few other minor parties think differently!
We can call it The Great Replacement theory, which may be true!
Exactly – it’s like inflation… western governments are 100% reliant on inflation to keep their fiat currencies afloat, its inflation that ‘inflates’ away the debt from all the new money they keep printing and borrowing, without that they’d be totally screwed, as the system would collapse. Hence the need for constant growth – think about it, if we achieved all the growth promised in the UK for the last 30-40 years our economy would dwarf the US!
And people wonder why we have so much knife crime in London? And they also plead that there is a housing shortage. Remigrating them and cutting down the number of university students will free up a large amount of accommodation.
This is why we need picture ID cards and an enforceable law to produce them when asked. Our lack of ID cards is one of the reasons the UK is seen as a desirable destination by economic migrants. It’s easy to lose yourself in our larger cities when working in the black economy.