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  "path": "/opinion/migrant-crisis-labour-crackdown-shabana-mahmood-alex-armstrong",
  "publishedAt": "2026-03-05T22:43:16.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.gbnews.com",
  "tags": [
    "'Britons being taken for MUGS!' Zia Yusuf rips into Labour's plan to PAY asylum seekers to leave UK",
    "Shabana Mahmood outlines asylum system overhaul as 100 Labour MPs rebel",
    "Shabana Mahmood scolded for 'completely perverse' plan to pay illegal migrants to leave Britain",
    "The GB News Editorial Charter"
  ],
  "textContent": "\n\n\nHow would you like £40,000 in tax-free cash to leave the United Kingdom?\n\nHome Secretary Shabana Mahmood has announced her latest so-called deterrent to stop the small boats. And it is a whopper.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nA taxpayer-funded golden goodbye. Some £40,000 per family for failed asylum seekers to leave voluntarily.\n\nRight. Well, well. This all comes as she's jetted off to Denmark and recently getting ideas on illegal migrant deterrence.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nTRENDING\n\nStories\n\nVideos\n\nYour Say\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nBut to be honest, it looks like she's come back with a cash incentive for them instead. Because this is a jackpot at the end of the rainbow, isn't it?\n\nAnd in my opinion, it's so obviously going to act as a magnet for even more illegal migrants crossing the channel, fuelling human trafficking gangs, and putting more lives at risk in dangerous boats, and of course, boosting the chances of migrants returning after cashing in once already.\n\nThe scheme announced today only targets failed, families failed asylum families, should I say. But imagine if every undocumented migrant took a similar payout.\n\nWell, Conservative estimates put the undocumented population at around 700 to 900,000. Quite a lot of people.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nAnd at £40,000 each, that would cost us, as a country, between £28 and £36 billion of your hard-earned money.\n\nWorse still, that sum is life changing in origin countries, and Eritrean could live modestly for up to 14 years without working a Pakistani around 12 years.\n\nAnd in Afghanistan, for example, this is worth up to 27 years' worth of salary.\n\nWhat do you think they're going to tell their mates when they get home? Go to Britain, get free cash, never work again. It is totally moronic, isn't it? It really is.\n\n### SHABANA MAHMOOD'S LATEST MIGRATION CRACKDOWN - READ MORE:\n\n\n\n\n  * 'Britons being taken for MUGS!' Zia Yusuf rips into Labour's plan to PAY asylum seekers to leave UK\n  * Shabana Mahmood outlines asylum system overhaul as 100 Labour MPs rebel\n  * Shabana Mahmood scolded for 'completely perverse' plan to pay illegal migrants to leave Britain\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nIn fact, to me it feels like a bit of a stealth way to deliver reparations. And for the average full time working Briton earning £39,000 a year, it would take nearly two years of solid work to pocket 40 grand, wouldn't it?\n\nAnd I'm not even including all the stealth taxes you have to pay as well.\n\nHow many Britons do you think would snap up 40 grand in tax free cash to leave this country right now? Oh, and on cue. Surprise, surprise.\n\nWhatsApp messages leaked to the times reveal that Labour MPs are in open revolt over these plans.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n###\n\n\n\n\nStella Creasy MP claims they will result in another Windrush-style scandal, and other MPs are refusing to come out in support of the Home Secretary.\n\nThis is nothing short of a big fat slap in the face to every law-abiding, hard-working Briton struggling with bills under record high taxation under this Government.\n\nNow they know those taxes will go to people that shouldn't even be here. What a shambles. I've got another idea for you, Shabana Mahmood.\n\nWhy don't you just round up the illegal migrants and put them on the first flight out of here instead? It'd be far more popular and far more cost effective.\n\n###\n\n\n\n\n**Our Standards:The GB News Editorial Charter**",
  "title": "'Labour's £40k handout to asylum seekers to leave UK is a stealth method to pay reparations,' Alex Armstrong says"
}