The Sentencing Council – already embroiled in a political storm over its two-tier justice measures – plans to slash the penalties for illegally entering the UK, making deportations far harder. The Mail has more.
New guidelines for judges which propose watering down punishments for illegal immigration offences risk “blowing a hole” in Britain’s border controls, the Conservatives have warned.
The Sentencing Council – which is already embroiled in a political storm over its ‘two-tier justice’ measures – plans to slash the maximum jail terms for a range of immigration crimes.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said the proposals will lead to hundreds of illegal immigrants a year being handed far weaker punishments than those approved by Parliament.
The guidelines could ultimately allow offenders to remain in Britain indefinitely because they will no longer meet a legal threshold to qualify for ‘automatic deportation’.
The Labour Government will be powerless to act because earlier this month it voted down Tory measures which would have granted Ministers a veto over the council’s work.
Mr Jenrick blasted the independent Sentencing Council for “disregarding Parliament’s will” on how severely illegal migrants and other immigration offenders should be punished.
“The guidelines the Sentencing Council has drafted will blow a hole in border enforcement,” the Conservative frontbencher said.
“Yet again it is acting in a way that disregards Parliament’s will.
“That’s why I brought forward a bill to restore ministerial oversight to the Council, but shamefully Labour opposed it.
“The Justice Secretary has chosen to be powerless to stop madness like this and the two-tier sentencing rules.”
An analysis of the Council’s draft guidelines, carried out by the Conservatives, showed the offence of knowingly entering Britain without leave – which Parliament said should carry up to four years in jail, and can be used against small boat migrants – could receive as little as nine months’ imprisonment even in serious cases.
In cases of lower culpability it could even be dealt with by a community sentence, the guidelines suggest.
The offence of “deception” to enter or remain in Britain can carry up to two years’ imprisonment under laws passed by Parliament.
But under the Council’s proposals high culpability cases would get as little as nine months and lower culpability ones would, again, escape with a community sentence.
Parliament set out how the offence of “possession of false identity documents with improper intention” should carry up to 10 years in jail.
But the draft guidelines suggest an upper ceiling of eight years for the worst cases, with as little as six months’ imprisonment for high- and medium-ranking offences, or a community sentence for less serious examples.
The proposals would curtail the Home Office’s ability to deport hundreds of foreign criminals convicted of immigration offences, the Tories suggested.
It’s almost as though the judiciary has been captured by an unaccountable Leftist cabal.
Worth reading in full.
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It is hard to come to any other conclusion than the Sentencing Council and the Justice Secretary are politically motivated, swaying the Sentencing guidelines and governance process around the Sentencing Council to suit their own latent agenda.
I wonder if you’re a foreign criminal and you avoid deportation you can eventually become a British citizen, or are you not allowed a criminal record or any convictions in order to gain citizenship? The standards are so low in the UK and other European countries it wouldn’t surprise me if these scumbags get to remain indefinitely and eventually call themselves ‘British’. And let’s get real, many of these so-called ‘asylum seekers’ will be criminals ( or guilty of offenses that aren’t actually classed as ‘illegal’, such as sexual assault/violence against women, where they come from because ‘Sharia Law’ ) in their native countries to start with. Arriving sans documentation is quite the red flag, I think;
”Should foreign paedophiles be granted asylum in the UK? Incredibly, according to Britain’s immigration judges, armed with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the answer seems to be a resounding yes.
Most perverse of all, migration judges have effectively decided that being a paedophile should actually increase your chances of gaining asylum in Britain. Last month, it emerged that another Pakistani paedophile could not be deported on ‘human rights’ grounds. After he was convicted for preying on ‘barely pubescent girls’, he was supposed to have been deported in 2022. But a judge overruled this decision, due to the fact that his family (understandably) took a ‘dim view’ of his crimes. Being a paedophile, it was ruled, would thus cause him ‘significant difficulties’ in Pakistan.
Britain’s asylum system has become a dangerous joke. Judges have effectively turned the UK into a haven for sex offenders and violent criminals. Our human-rights laws have become a paedos’ charter. We cannot go on like this.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/03/26/our-human-rights-laws-have-become-a-paedos-charter/
I assume the next step will be some kind of arrangement whereby illegal migrants who have managed to evade deportation for a certain number of years (not difficult under the current arrangements) will automatically be granted the right to stay, with no further action.
I thought I had read that is exactly what Labour intend. It will not be “a certain number of years” but days.
Shock!
lt is surely not surprising that leftists appointed or confirmed by the late “Conservative” government would not put forward leftist policies.
Government Agencies and Quangos were designed by Blair to perpetuate socialism regardless of elections or public opinion.
Clearly one of the policies for Reform has written itself.
BTW. Why would the public not be strongly represented on any body charged with recommending sentencing policy, let alone the power to insist.
Yes, Yes, Yes! Let’s have the ordinary public represented on any such sentencing council, with the power of veto. Good idea.
Or better still, just Abolish The Sentencing Council and bring back the Law Lords.
I was under the impression that the sentence for illegally entering the country should be to return them henceforth from where they came. If we treat it like a gameshow, with prizes and little punishments if they get ‘across the line’, then it will never stop.
That’s clearly far too straightforward…
Slightly off-topic I have experienced this week our District Council, which is wealthy and supposedly respectable, flatly refusing to prosecute a serious breach of planning in a National Landscape because it does not consider it in the public interest to do so. This overseen by our prominent Conservative MP and two elected Councillors and in complete defiance of the Planning Inspectorate’s Appeal Decision. The unelected executives at the District Council are the law and not to be gainsaid by pesky interference from anyone – least of all the public. The public interest is always served by prosecuting criminal activity, but the Council takes a different view and there seems to be absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. How did we get here?
In my area too
I’m certain it’s nationwide. Trivial and slightly boring if one is not directly affected, but a cancer nevertheless, eating away at the fabric of democracy and justice. Bit by bit the legal population is being silenced, subjugated and mocked.
Is there a common theme to the issue?
The reason for my comment, yes I am sure there is but it’s more below the radar. Not sensational.
That photo – the very picture of Judicial Smugness. Which, of course, is why you chose it!
…. With white men significantly under-represented.
Ah, liberal judges, what could go wrong…?
Liberal FEMALE judges, ruining the world.
Sorry to burst your biased bubble, but 11% of judges are from an ethnic minority, 43% of all judges are female, so white men are hardly “significantly under-represented”, are they?
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-2024-statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-legal-professions-new-appointments-and-current-post-holders-2024-statistics#:~:text=40%25%20of%20barristers%2C%2053%25,their%20selection%20to%20judicial%20posts
I was talking about the photo, in response to Pete Sutton’s comment, not the profession as a whole.
So you’re getting bent out of shape because a snapshot showing literally three women ( don’t know who the fourth figure is as their face is obscured ) walking doesn’t have a man in it? As I say: grievance mentality. Very common around these parts with the menfolk, so you’re far from alone.
Steady on, ‘Charles the Brown-noser’. We know you’ve got one foot in each camp but you don’t want to be adding more fuel to the rumours, now. I think my cringeometer has just maxed out;
”The House of Windsor views its future Monarchic dynasty in centuries. King Charles knows Britain will be Islamic within 2-3 decades. Has he already converted in an attempt to maintain the Windsor Crown? Demographics are dynasty!”
https://x.com/PWestoff/status/1904994556732428576
Doesn’t bode well for the Royal Lochnagar Distillery…
And no more Laphroaig, Chuck!
Laphroaig tastes like aviation fuel, in my view, so no loss there.
I love it.
Each day the elites are feeding lines to Reform UK. Their manifesto almost writes itself.
While elsewhere :Poland bans migrants from claiming asylum
Wait til the EU gets wind of it…
Take a look at the demographic of the image accompanying the article and draw your own conclusions why sentencing for illegal immigration offences has gone soft.
Come back Judge Jeffreys, all is forgiven.
Women also look ridiculous in judicial wigs.
43% of all judges are female. A tad naive to jump to conclusions based on a partial snapshot of a few individuals;
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-2024-statistics/diversity-of-the-judiciary-legal-professions-new-appointments-and-current-post-holders-2024-statistics#:~:text=40%25%20of%20barristers%2C%2053%25,their%20selection%20to%20judicial%20posts.
Absolutely spot on summary in one sentence by Will Jones:
“It’s almost as though the Judiciary has been captured by an Unaccountable Leftist Cabal.”
Another uncomfortable fact that won’t go down well with men who have a permanent grievance mentality and need to point the finger of blame at women at all times: 8 out of 14 members of the Sentencing Council are white men.
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/sentencing-and-the-council/about-the-sentencing-council/sentencing-council/
I’ll be blunt because it’s becoming increasingly true. A lot of judicial types who support this treason are immigrants or children of immigrants. They have a fellowship with brown skinned people. Yoy van say it’s not true, but I think it is. People are tribal, and the first and easiest way of determining if someone if likely to be on your side is skin colour.
And….the civil war will sort out all these problems. It’ll be a busy time, but we native English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish can do it.
Remigration!
If Two Tier’s government can scrap one quango, NHSE, and take matters back under ministerial control it can do the same with this quango. Only it won’t because for some inexplicable reason they want to destroy this country, culturally, socially and economically.
Will a future government undo all that is happning under this government? Cameron didn’t and adopted Blair’s treacherous Bills.
and if elected politicians can create planning law, how come elected MPs are not allowed to intervene in the planning decisions of unelected council executives? When did this transfer of power take place? Our LPA has just explained to local residents that its priority is helping the lawbreakers rather than prosecuting them. I’m not making that up. The policy is ubiquitous and insidious.
All the branches of the State are corrupted. They are implementing UN Agenda 2030 and flooding the UK with immigrants …. as swiftly as they can.
The only solution is a Government made up of non-Establishment figures and Dr David Starkey’s: “Great Repeal Bill” to reverse ALL the Constitutional damage Blair did …. prior to a massive clear-out of the House of Frauds; Civil Service; Quangocracy and Judiciary.
This simple UN propaganda film explains the policy in language an eight yr old could understand:
https://migrationnetwork.un.org/videos/migration-and-2030-agenda
But why do we have this self-imposed one year of imprisonment as a test for deportation? Any foreigner who commits criminal offences, except minor motoring offences, should be asked to leave. For example, even persistent shoplifters rarely get 12 months, but certainly are not welcome to the UK.
I was taught judges were in power to apply the law as intended. I would say the majority of our population are against illegal immigration and its costing our country millions, so if Judges are reducing sentences for that crime they are acting against the public interest. They need to be denied the power to do that and before changes are made, the public interest and our country’s financial interest should absolutely be taken into account.