United Kingdom

Oh god, this is going to be a fucking wheeze for influencers.
They take a £1000 commission for a video saying "don't cross guys, it's not worth it".
Smugglers and their ilk continue pushing the other message.

When your life is shit, and one person is saying "life is wonderful in the UK, minimum wage is 5x what it is here, you can easily find work, we'll offer you finance for the transit fees", and the other is saying "don't go to the UK, you might get deported", which one is going to have more effect?

Deport the HomeOffice. So many problems will go away. FFS these clowns. It's a cursed brief for anyone.

What do you bet they haven't actually got any information to suggest that the immigrants are even watching these influences?

Surely they would be looking at content created by their fellow countrymen who have already gone through the immigration process, so presumably they already know what it's like and still reckon it's worth it.

This is clearly aimed more at a home audience than the migrants. Who knows if the migrants even speak English

Look if you've got people fleeing war and poverty via small boat channel crossings the only effective deterrent to disuade those making the crossing for a chance at a much better life for them and their children will be shooting the small boats.

Needless to say, that'd be a horrific crime against humanity.

So how about actually having grown-up conversations with the EU about how to tackle migration and fix the broken legal immigration system.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The government has been using taxpayer money for social media adverts aimed at deterring potential asylum-seekers for the past three years, in France, Belgium and Albania – but The Independent has previously reported how they had instead targeted tourists and business travellers.

Under this expansion, the government will also seek to pay influencers on sites such as TikTok to warn of the risks and repercussions of travelling to the UK by small boat, and has been drawing up lists of social media celebrities who could be suitable.

Research shared with The Independent showed the Home Office paid Meta at least £35,000 for hundreds of Facebook and Instagram adverts shown to people in northern France and Belgium between January 2021 and September 2022.

A prior investigation by The Independent in 2022 also found the Home Office had paid £2.7m to Hong Kong-based firm Seefar since 2016, which conducts “migration awareness-raising and behavioural change campaigns”, including a controversial government website which saw ministers seek to deter asylum-seekers.

While such arrivals fell by more than a third in 2023, nearly 30,000 people did enter Britain that way, making it the second highest year on record, despite the government criminalising such crossings and pressing on with its ailing plans to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda as a deterrent.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “People smugglers frequently use social media to peddle lies and promote their criminal activities, and it is vital that we utilise the same platforms to inform migrants about the truths about crossing the Channel and coming to the UK illegally.

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