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Many questions were raised about the effectiveness of the scheme, while critics called it a waste of public money...
The British government appears to have failed with the campaign launched months ago through which it aimed to discourage illegal immigrants from targeting the United Kingdom. A series of videos published on social networks, including those in Albanian, through the stories told, aimed to reduce the numbers of immigrants landing on the shores of the United Kingdom, mainly via small boats.
A project that cost several million pounds has not yielded the expected results, which seems to be the main reason why Keir Starmer's Government stopped further campaigning.
A costly government-funded social media campaign to deter Albanian migrants from moving illegally to Britain has been cancelled after concerns were raised about its effectiveness.
Videos of Albanian immigrants speaking openly about the difficulties of living in Britain were posted on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok in a scheme that began under the Conservatives in 2023. Published under the title History from Britain, the videos depicted the country as bigoted and Brexit as evil.
While the Government did not confirm the cost of the project, it was funded by the Foreign Office as part of its £3.75 million a year campaign to combat “irregular Albanian migration”.
However, The i Paper previously revealed that a Foreign Office report had questioned the chances of success of such a campaign, with an internal document noting that there was “limited evidence on the effectiveness of a persuasive communications approach”.
The government faced backlash for the campaign, which was called a "costly failure" that wasted taxpayers' money.
Now, the Government has confirmed that the campaign has ended, but that "combating irregular migration and protecting Britain's borders" remains a priority.
The campaign that discouraged Britain
The campaign relied on social media posts to portray a negative image of Britain, with black-and-white images showing shuttered shop windows covered in graffiti, run-down apartments and piles of broken furniture dumped near a housing estate.
They highlighted the problems of the cost of living, the poor state of housing, and the difficulties in finding work.
This followed a sharp increase in illegal Albanian migration, with many people travelling in small boats, in 2022. Figures have fallen sharply since then, partly due to a scheme to return Albanian nationals without the right to remain, but hundreds of people still travel to the UK.
In a video, an Albanian immigrant said that Brexit and the cost of living crisis had made his life difficult.
"I came here on a visa. There have been a lot of changes, especially in the last 8 years because of Brexit and some other changes because of the pandemic we went through. A lot of things have changed and the cost of living has become very high," he said.
In another video, a graduate said she had difficulty breaking into her chosen profession and suffered discrimination while in the United Kingdom.
The decision to abandon the campaign, run by an international company based in Westminster, did not surprise Daniel Sohege, director of human rights consultancy Stand for All, who said: “This is not even the first time such a policy has been adopted, and each time they have proven to be ineffective and pointless.”
“People don’t choose the country they are seeking asylum in as if it were some kind of holiday package they saw on the internet. In the case of Albanians in particular, many of them are trafficked into the country, with little say in what happens to them by those who exploit them.” / Adapted from The i Paper /
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