Stop the Boats

When someone enters the United Kingdom irregularly, claims asylum and later commits a serious crime, can they be removed?

Politicians from every side now say that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights would solve the problem. Some go further and propose leaving the Refugee Convention as well. This book tests that claim against the law and the evidence.

Stop the Boats? follows people who reached the United Kingdom without permission: by small boat across the Channel, hidden in a lorry, smuggled by people they paid or moved by people who exploited them. It traces what happens next, through refusal or protection and, for a small number, subsequent offending, to removal or non-removal. At each point it asks which legal rule or practical fact actually decided the outcome, where that rule comes from, and whether it would change if the Convention were removed.

What official statistics show about the outcomes for the small-boat cohort from 2018 to 2025, including where cases accumulate between refusal and departure• A map of the constraints on removal, tracing each one to its source: the ECHR, the Refugee Convention, the Convention against Torture, other treaties, domestic law, or practical and diplomatic facts• Seven cases chosen by route and outcome• Comparisons with Denmark, which has pursued restriction inside the Convention, and Australia, which has never been subject to a regional human rights court• A counterfactual test of what ECHR withdrawal would and would not change

Drawing on legislation, official statistics, case law and identified secondary sources, the book separates political claims from the legal rules and practical realities that determine what governments can actually do. It does not argue for or against leaving the Convention. It sets out the evidence so that readers can judge for themselves.