Return People with No Right to Be Here
Conservative · what the evidence says
An independent, source-checked look at Conservative’s policy “Return People with No Right to Be Here” — what it would actually do across the things that affect your life. Every claim below quotes the source behind it. How this works.
Personal liberty & free speech — Hurts
minor · moderate confidence
Signing more returns deals expands the state's practical capacity to detain and forcibly remove people from the UK, which is a form of coercive state control over individuals' bodies and movement. The effect on liberty is real but targeted narrowly at those without legal status, and the stated policy instrument is diplomatic rather than a direct new domestic coercion power.
The evidence
- The policy commits to signing further bilateral returns deals to remove people with no right to remain in the UK, modelled on the Albanian deal. — conservatives.com (manifesto) — “sign further returns deals, like the one agreed with Albania, to return people with no right to be in the UK to their own countries”
- Enforced returns — which involve detention and physical coercion — cost on average £48,800 per person compared to £4,300 for voluntary returns, indicating enforced removals are the more coercively intensive pathway. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “In the 2024/25 financial year, an enforced return cost an average of £48,800, while a voluntary return cost £4,300”
- Enforced returns rose by 13% to 9,700 in the measured period, showing the existing system already uses coercive removal at significant scale. — gov.uk (media) — “enforced returns rose by 13% to 9,700”
- The Migration Observatory notes difficulty in attributing rises in returns solely to new deals, suggesting the causal effect of any new agreement on the scale of coercive removals is uncertain. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “highlights the difficulty in definitively attributing this rise solely to new policies, suggesting that increased resources for Immigration Enforcement or a continuation of existing trends could also be factors”
- The Albanian deal is credited by government with a 95% reduction in Albanian small boat arrivals, but the Migration Observatory notes the decline began before the agreement was announced. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “the Migration Observatory notes that the decline began before the agreement's announcement, suggesting other contributing factors”
Biggest unknown: Whether future deals produce primarily voluntary returns (lower coercion) or enforced removals (higher coercion) determines the true magnitude of the liberty worsening — the Albanian deal baseline shows enforced returns are significantly more costly and intrusive than voluntary ones.
Our reading: O10 scores the liberty cost of state coercion — detention and forced physical removal are paradigm cases of coercive state action over individuals' bodies, regardless of the legal status of those subject to it. Signing returns deals expands the diplomatic and operational infrastructure enabling those acts. The stated policy is a diplomatic instrument, but its purpose and downstream effect is to increase the volume of removals, including enforced ones. The evidence shows enforced returns already run at nearly 10,000 per year and are far more coercively intensive than voluntary departures (nearly 11× the cost, reflecting detention and physical escort). Additional deals would, at the margin, extend this apparatus to more nationalities. This is a genuine, if targeted, worsening of O10: the state acquires greater practical capacity to detain and remove people by body. The effect is minor rather than moderate because: (a) the stated policy instrument is a diplomatic deal, not a new domestic coercion power like detention-without-charge or surveillance; (b) the causal link between signing a deal and additional enforced removals (versus voluntary ones) is uncertain per E18 and E26; and (c) the affected population is those without legal right to remain, limiting breadth across the general population. The broader BORDERS plan (E15, abolishing tribunals and judicial review) would represent a much larger O10 worsening, but that is outside the stated policy text being judged here.
Crime, justice & national security — Helps
minor · low confidence
Signing more returns deals could remove more foreign national offenders from the UK, which would have a small but real safety benefit. However, the evidence on how much of the improvement in Albanian arrivals is genuinely due to the deal — rather than other factors — is disputed.
The evidence
- The policy commits to signing further returns deals, modelled on the Albania agreement, to remove people with no right to be in the UK. — conservatives.com (manifesto) — “sign further returns deals, like the one agreed with Albania, to return people with no right to be in the UK to their own countries”
- Foreign National Offender returns reached 5,430 in the year ending October 2025, a 12% increase. — gov.uk (media) — “Foreign National Offender (FNO) returns reached 5,430 in the year ending October 2025, an increase of 12%”
- Albanian nationals were the most common nationality for FNO returns in each of the last four years. — gov.uk (media) — “Albanian nationals were the most common nationality for FNO returns in each of the last four years”
- The UK government reported a 95% reduction in Albanian small boat arrivals in the last three years. — intellinews.com (media) — “The UK government reported a 95% reduction in Albanian small boat arrivals in the last three years (as of May 2025)”
- The Migration Observatory notes that Albanian small boat arrivals had already begun to fall before the deal was announced, casting doubt on straightforward attribution to the returns deal. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “these numbers had already begun to decrease significantly before the deal was announced”
- Analysts highlight difficulty in definitively attributing rising returns to new policies alone, noting that increased enforcement resources or existing trends could also be factors. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “highlights the difficulty in definitively attributing this rise solely to new policies, suggesting that increased resources for Immigration Enforcement or a continuation of existing trends could also be factors”
Biggest unknown: Whether new returns deals with other countries would replicate the Albanian precedent, given that the decline in Albanian small boat crossings may have begun before the deal was signed.
Our reading: The direct O5 mechanism is straightforward: returning foreign national offenders removes individuals who have committed crimes in the UK and prevents further offending here. The measurable data show FNO returns are already rising (5,430 in the year to October 2025, up 12%), and Albanian nationals — a key target of the precedent deal — have been the leading FNO returns nationality for four years. A 95% reported drop in Albanian small boat arrivals is consistent with the deal reducing a channel that disproportionately generated FNO caseload. However, the policy's marginal contribution on top of the current trend is uncertain. The Migration Observatory finds the Albanian decline began before the deal, so the deal's independent causal effect is unclear. Whether replicating this model with other countries would yield similar FNO-reduction dividends is unproven — the Albanian case had specific features (high FNO share, low asylum grant rate of 3%) that may not generalise. The policy text commits to a specific instrument (bilateral returns deals), not just aspiration, so it clears the soft-verb threshold. But the scale of the O5 benefit — removing a few thousand FNOs per year against a backdrop of millions of crimes recorded annually — is real but minor at population level. Confidence is low because attribution of past gains is disputed and future deal success is speculative.
Equal treatment & democratic rights — Little effect
minor · low confidence
Signing bilateral returns deals is primarily an immigration-enforcement mechanism and does not, on its own, alter the legal standards for who has rights in the UK, anti-discrimination protections, or democratic rights. The due-process implications depend almost entirely on how deals are implemented, which this policy text does not specify.
The evidence
- The policy commits to signing further bilateral returns deals to remove people deemed to have no right to remain in the UK, citing the Albania deal as the model. — conservatives.com (manifesto) — “sign further returns deals, like the one agreed with Albania, to return people with no right to be in the UK to their own countries”
- Albanian nationals were the most returned foreign national offender group for four consecutive years under the existing framework. — gov.uk (media) — “Albanian nationals were the most common nationality for FNO returns in each of the last four years”
- The Migration Observatory notes it is difficult to attribute changes in returns solely to deal-based policies, as other factors such as resource increases may be responsible. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “highlights the difficulty in definitively attributing this rise solely to new policies, suggesting that increased resources for Immigration Enforcement or a continuation of existing trends could also be factors”
- The decline in Albanian small boat arrivals may pre-date the returns deal, complicating claims about the deal's causal role. — migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk (academic) — “these numbers had already begun to decrease significantly before the deal was announced”
Biggest unknown: Whether future returns deals, like the Albania agreement, include or bypass independent appeal rights before removal — if they strip due-process safeguards, the verdict would shift to 'worsens'; if conducted within existing legal frameworks, O9 effects remain negligible.
Our reading: O9 covers equal treatment, anti-discrimination, minority protections, due process, and democratic rights. The specific policy — signing bilateral diplomatic returns agreements — is an enforcement instrument that operates within the existing legal determination framework (who has 'no right to be here' is a legal status already adjudicated). The policy text itself does not alter the determination process, does not remove appeal rights, does not change anti-discrimination law, and does not affect voting or democratic participation. The Albania-model deal (the stated exemplar) was conducted within existing legal structures, and the evidence provided does not document systematic due-process violations attributable specifically to it. The Migration Observatory evidence does raise uncertainty about causal attribution of the deal's effects, but does not document O9-relevant harms from the deal mechanism itself. The magnitude is therefore minor rather than negligible only in the sense that any acceleration of removals at scale could, in practice, raise due-process risk at the margins — but no cited evidence establishes that this policy, as stated, operationally bypasses due process. The broader BORDERS plan (E15) — abolishing immigration tribunals and ending judicial review — would score very differently on O9, but that is a separate policy not being judged here. Confidence is low because the evidence gaps noted by the Migration Observatory (E20) mean the operational due-process record of returns deals is not fully visible.