Immigration
Firm on the illegal system, fair on legal migration. Illegal arrivals are returned to the nearest safe country, foreign criminals are deported, and every pound spent translating is a pound not spent on patient care.
Our Vision
Upgrade UK believes immigration policy should be firm on the illegal system and honest about integration. Crossing the Channel in a small boat should not be a route to settlement in Britain, it should mean removal to the nearest safe country to your country of origin. Foreign nationals who commit serious crimes here should not be able to use the system to avoid deportation. And building a life here should mean learning to communicate in English, not relying on a taxpayer funded interpreter indefinitely.
The Challenge
Small boat crossings run into the tens of thousands every year, with the overwhelming majority of arrivals going on to claim asylum, yet only a tiny fraction of those who have crossed illegally since 2018 have ever actually been removed. Hotel accommodation for asylum seekers costs the taxpayer billions a year. Thousands of foreign national offenders sit in UK prisons at huge cost, many with routes to delay deportation for years. Employers who knowingly hire illegal workers are rarely prosecuted. And the NHS interpreter bill has more than doubled in five years.
Returning Illegal Arrivals
Anyone who enters the UK illegally, including by small boat, is returned to the nearest safe country to their country of origin, not settled in the UK. Asylum is protection from danger, not a choice of destination, and a system where paying a smuggler to reach Britain specifically leads to a good chance of staying regardless of the outcome is rewarding exactly the wrong thing.
A hotel night for an asylum seeker is estimated to cost around £170 per person, compared with roughly £27 for other types of housing, with the Home Office spending an estimated £4.76 billion on the asylum system in a single year, the large majority of it on hotel accommodation. Source: Home Office data, reported via the Migration Observatory.
Key Policies
- Return anyone who enters the UK illegally, including by small boat, to the nearest safe country to their country of origin, removing the incentive to cross the Channel specifically for the UK rather than claiming protection in the first safe country reached
- Allow the Royal Navy and Border Force to turn boats back in the Channel where it's safe to do so, taking the smugglers' business model apart at the point of crossing rather than dealing with the consequences after arrival
- End the use of hotels for asylum accommodation and redirect that spending toward faster processing and stronger border security, hotels cost roughly six times more per night than alternative housing
- Negotiate formal return agreements with safe countries along common crossing routes, without agreements in place there's nowhere for the nearest safe country policy to actually send people
- Fast track decisions for anyone who has entered illegally, resolving claims in weeks rather than years, since delay is what allows people to build a life here before a decision has even been made
- Where the UK genuinely is the nearest safe country to someone's home country, their claim is heard here, this will be the exception, not the rule
Cutting The Translation Bill
The NHS interpreter and translation bill has more than doubled in five years, and every pound spent on it is a pound not spent on a nurse, a scan, or bringing down a waiting list. The fix isn't more interpreters, it's more people learning English, so care can be delivered directly and money goes further.
Total spending on translation and interpretation across the NHS over the last five financial years comes to around £243 million, roughly equivalent to the cost of employing almost 2,000 NHS nurses. Source: NHS Freedom of Information data.
Key Policies
- Make free or subsidised English lessons available to migrants when they arrive, with a clear expectation that they're taken up, prevention is far cheaper than translating for the same person year after year
- After a set period, reduce access to translated NHS services for non-urgent, non-emergency care for those who haven't engaged with English provision, so there's a real incentive to learn
- Keep interpreters fully available for emergency care, safeguarding, and any situation where a language barrier would put someone's safety at risk, no one is denied urgent treatment
- Redirect the savings from a falling interpreter bill into English provision and frontline patient care, moving the money from managing the problem to actually solving it
Deporting Foreign Criminals
British citizens, including those who've naturalised, are dealt with by the British justice system in the normal way, that doesn't change. This is about foreign nationals with no long term right to be here who go on to commit serious crimes, and closing the loopholes that currently let many of them stay regardless.
Almost 5,200 foreign national offenders were deported in the twelve months to mid 2025, but with thousands more still in the system and appeals routinely used to delay removal for years, the current process still leaves large numbers of foreign offenders in the UK long after their case should have been settled. Source: Home Office removals data.
Key Policies
- Illegal immigrants convicted of an offence are deported to the nearest safe country to their home country once any sentence is served, in line with the wider return policy
- Foreign nationals visiting the UK on a visitor, tourist or short stay visa who are convicted of a serious crime are deported to their home country to face sentencing there, rather than serving a prison sentence in the UK at taxpayer expense
- Remove the loopholes that allow repeated appeals on family or private life grounds to delay the deportation of foreign offenders who have no long term right to remain
- Speed up removals so foreign offenders are deported as soon as it's operationally possible, rather than serving a full sentence in a UK prison at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds a year to the taxpayer
Cracking Down On Illegal Working
Illegal immigration doesn't happen in a vacuum, it happens because there's work waiting at the other end. Employers who knowingly hire illegal workers undercut wages, exploit vulnerable people, and give people a reason to come or stay illegally in the first place.
In that same period the Home Office issued over 1,500 civil penalty notices to employers, with fines of up to £60,000 per illegal worker, yet knowingly employing an illegal worker can also lead to criminal prosecution and up to five years' imprisonment, a route that's rarely used in practice. Source: Home Office transparency data.
Key Policies
- Keep heavy civil fines for employers who knowingly hire illegal workers, with higher penalties for repeat breaches
- Introduce criminal prosecution, including the possibility of imprisonment, for employers who repeatedly or systematically hire illegal workers, a fine alone is just a cost of doing business for the worst offenders
- Fund dedicated Home Office enforcement teams to carry out workplace checks in high risk sectors
- Publish a public register of businesses found employing illegal workers, so the public and other employers can see exactly who is breaking the rules
Why This Matters
A fair immigration system is one where the rules mean something. Crossing illegally shouldn't lead to years in a hotel and a good chance of staying anyway, it should lead to a fast decision and removal to the nearest safe country. Committing a serious crime as a foreign national shouldn't be met with years of appeals, it should be met with deportation. And every pound spent on translation for someone who could be learning English instead is a pound taken away from the patients the NHS exists to treat.