UK spending millions on ad campaign painting gloomy picture of Britain to deter Albanian immigrants
15 February 2025, 15:28
The UK is running an expensive social media campaign that involves advertisements posted on social media platforms telling Albanian migrants not to illegally come to the UK.
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The social media campaign is designed to deter Albanian people from illegally moving to the UK by highlighting the negative aspects of living here, including the cost of living crisis, Brexit and high levels of racial discrimination.
The advertisements feature videos posted on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram titled Histori Nga Britania (Stories from Britain), in which Albanian migrants who live in the UK share their experiences of living here.
Many videos show these migrants complaining about the high cost of living and housing, and the discrimination they have faced since moving to the UK.
The videos paint a grim picture of Britain, and some photos posted by the same campaign show dilapidated buildings covered in graffiti, or fences with barbed wire.
The social media posts do not show they are funded by the Foreign Office, or that they are funded by British taxpayers.
Government has not explicitly made clear how much the campaign is costing taxpayers, but its funding comes from the Foreign office as part of a £3.75m a year campaign to combat “irregular Albanian migration”.
But despite its high cost, the scheme is apparently not as effective as the government had hoped, the i Paper reports.
An internal Foreign Office assessment seen by the newspaper said: “There is limited evidence on the effectiveness of a dissuasive communications approach.”
The project has been called a “costly failure” by its critics, who claim it is a waste of public money on a scheme that paints a negative image of Britain.
The scheme forms part of the government’s desperate attempts to bring illegal migration down, as some 19,000 illegal immigrants have been deported from the UK since Labour took power, according to Home Office figures.
The project was apparently started after a huge increase in the number of Albanians seeking asylum in the UK, as around 12,000 people arrived from the country in 2022.
Though this particular scheme was started by the Conservatives in 2023, Labour has continued it, despite their repeated criticism of the Tories for using such ‘gimmicks’.
The Home Office has recently published videos of immigrants being deported on removal flights for the first time, in an attempt to scare off asylum seekers.
The footage shows detention custody officers escorting each individual as they walk up steps to board a charter flight, in videos highly reminiscent of those seen in the US in the days following Trump’s inauguration.
