# Tax-free new-builds for migrants... I fear Britain is lost: LITTLEJOHN **By:** Richard Littlejohn **Published:** 2026-07-02T17:25:37+0100 **Source:** [Daily Mail](https://www.dailymail.com/columnists/article-15948425/Tax-free-homes-migrants-grooming-gang-deport-smuggling-Britain-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN.html?ico=authors_pagination_mobile) --- Advertisement Tax-free new-builds for migrants, the 'godfather' of people smuggling running a Leicester vape shop and we can't even deport a grooming gang kingpin... why I fear Britain is lost: RICHARD LITTLEJOHN Don’t say you weren’t warned. When the Government announced last October that migrant hotels were being closed, I told you there was no cause for celebration. The ‘asylum seekers’ weren’t being returned to their countries of origin, they were being dispersed into the ‘community’. As I wrote at the time: ‘In other words, to a residential street near you. One minute you’ll be sitting in Mon Repose in Acacia Avenue, the next you’ll find yourself living next door to a dozen young men from goodness-knows-where crammed into what used to be a three-bed semi. I bet you’re feeling safer already.’ What I hadn’t anticipated was that the Government would start hooevering up new-build homes for migrants. But that’s exactly what’s happened in Stoke Heath, Shropshire, where an entire estate of houses worth £250,000 each has been earmarked for asylum seekers. When the homes were built, residents were told they would provide affordable accommodation for local people on the housing register. Instead, they are being handed over to 83 migrants. The Stoke Heath scheme is just one of a number of new build developments bought by private relocation agencies such as Serco on behalf of the Home Office. It was recently reported that several £300,000 townhouses in Suffolk have been allocated to asylum seekers, along with other properties in Huddersfield, in Yorkshire, Chelmsford in Essex, and Bournemouth, Dorset. I learned a couple of weeks ago that in Potters Bar, Herts, just over the M25 from me, a number of homes have already been occupied by migrants, mainly undocumented young men. When the Government announced last October that migrant hotels were being closed, I told you there was no cause for celebration, writes Richard Littlejohn. Pictured: Police outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex An entire estate of houses worth £250,000 each has been earmarked for asylum seekers in Stoke Heath, Shropshire Long-term residents are now trying to move out but are finding their homes unsellable. No doubt the Home Office will make them an offer they can’t refuse in the fullness of time. The dispersal of migrants into HMOs – Houses in Multiple Occupation – has been carried out without any consultation with local residents. But what else have we come to expect? At the height of last summer’s migrant hotel protests, three judges sitting in the Court of Appeal, including a Left-wing alumnus of Cherie Blair’s Matrix Chambers, agreed with the Home Office that our obligation to comply with international laws meant the yuman rites of migrants were paramount over those of British citizens. So, as I wrote back in October, one minute you’re living the good life in sleepy suburbia, the next you find the house next door is full of foreign men of dubious backgrounds. If you’re really unlucky, your new neighbour might be Shabir Ahmed, ringleader of a rape gang who was released from prison yesterday after serving 14 years of a 22-year sentence. Ahmed, who held joint British-Pakistani citizenship was convicted on 30 counts of drugging and raping young white girls in Rochdale. He was stripped of his British citizenship and marked for deportation after completing his sentence. We now discover that thanks to a loophole in the law dating back to 1971, he can’t be deported. And, anyway, Pakistan refuses to take him back. This vile monster even had the gall to play the ‘Islamophobia’ card at his trial and now claims he won’t feel safe being returned to the community he once terrorised. No doubt the Home Office will relocate him in due course. Potters Bar, here he comes. Lock up your daughters. Shabir Ahmed, ringleader of a rape gang, was released from prison yesterday after serving 14 years of a 22-year sentence Three judges sitting in the Court of Appeal agreed with the Home Office last year that our obligation to comply with international laws meant the yuman rites of migrants were paramount over those of British citizens, writes Richard Littlejohn In response to the public outcry, Prime Minister Presumptive Andy Burnham says ‘nothing is off the table’ when it comes to deporting Ahmed. Take that with a pinch of Maldon’s finest. This is the same Burnham who, when Mayor of Manchester, resisted calls for a national inquiry into the grooming gangs on his patch. And one thing which is definitely ‘off the table’ is quitting the pernicious European human rights regime, which prevents us deporting evil, racist scum like Ahmed and has turned Britain into a dumping ground for foreign rapists, terrorists and assorted ne’er-do-wells. The Government could threaten to withdraw the £100 million we bung Pakistan in overseas aid every year unless they agree to take Ahmed back. But that’s ‘off the table’ too. Meanwhile, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood claims to be getting tough on migration while doing the precise opposite. Admittedly she’s taking asylum claims out of the hands of activist judges. But she’s replacing them with lay members, inevitably sympathetic Lefties, who will be equally susceptible to any old sob story. And she’s setting up ‘safe and legal’ routes for migrants which will allow ‘asylum seekers’ to be redefined as ‘refugees’ and granted leave to live here. None of this will stop the small boats from decanting tens of thousands of illegals every year. Few, if any of them will ever be sent back. They destroy their ID papers and passports and claim to be freeing oppression, even when they come from perfectly safe countries. How are the lay members of asylum panels going to be able to work out who is telling the truth? Ninety-nine per cent of them will be given the benefit of the doubt. Mahmood also says she will stop foreign criminals, illegals and visa overstayers from using the ‘right to a family life’ provision of the European act to prevent them being deported. The most recent abuse of that came when an Albanian criminal argued successfully that he couldn’t be sent back because his son had an aversion to the chicken nuggets served up in his homeland. Mahmood certainly talks a good game, but I can’t see her getting that one past far Left Labour backbenchers, either. She also says migrants granted leave to remain will have to pay back £10,000 for their board and lodging. No, they won’t. Trust me. And remember when Surkeir promised to ‘smash the gangs’? How’s that working out, then? Turns out some of the most notorious people smugglers are living here and the Home Office has no idea who, or where, they are. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood claims to be getting tough on migration while doing the precise opposite PETER HITCHENS: The BBC has banned me from Desert Island Discs for life. This is why Yesterday, the BBC tracked down one Twana Jamal, once described as the ‘godfather’ of the French migrant camps, responsible for transporting thousands across the Channel, netting him millions of pounds. He was given a five-year sentence in France for people smuggling. French police said at the time he was the ‘most successful people smuggler in history’. He subsequently vanished off the radar and has since turned up in Blaby, Leicestershire, where the BBC found Jamal (if that’s his real name) and his brother running a couple of those ubiquitous, vape and sweet shops which infest every High Street in Britain. I’m surprised they haven’t got round to opening a ‘Turkish barber’s shop’ yet. Only a matter of time, I guess. All Jamal had to do to avoid detection was change his surname. He’s also driving a car without a licence and working illegally. And the Home Office hadn’t a scooby. It’s reported that law enforcement agencies in mainland Europe say that Ahmed is just one of more than 20 convicted people smugglers now living in the UK under false identities. Week after week, we read court reports of foreign criminals, most of them claiming to be ‘asylum seekers’ being convicted of the most heinous crimes, from child rape and sexual assault to murder. Yet even when they are brought to justice the chances of them being deported are less than zero. Rape gang ringleader being the most notorious case in point. Meanwhile, in soft-touch Britain, the Government is spending a small fortune on not guying up housing estates so that migrants can live rent-free in the kind of luxury way beyond the means of local residents. When you don’t enforce your borders, you don’t have a country any more. Same goes for putting the ‘rights’ of foreign criminals and illegal immigrants above those of your own citizens. I fear that as far as Britain is concerned, the point of no return has already been passed. More top stories DAILY MAIL COLUMNISTS ALISON BOSHOFF CRAIG BROWN ALEX BRUMMER NADINE DORRIES STEPHEN GLOVER BORIS JOHNSON RICHARD KAY DOMINIC LAWSON QUENTIN LETTS RICHARD LITTLEJOHN JAN MOIR BEL MOONEY ANDREW NEIL ANDREW PIERCE AMANDA PLATELL RUTH SUNDERLAND TOM UTLEY SARAH VINE DAN HATFIELD MICHAEL WOLFF MAIL ON SUNDAY COLUMNISTS PETER HITCHENS DAN HODGES OLIVER HOLT LIZ JONES ALEXANDRA SHULMAN Subscribe Daily Mail Follow @dailymail Follow DailyMail Follow Daily Mail DON'T MISS LIVEFirst glimpse from inside Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's opulent wedding party... and MAJOR clue about who will perform at the big blowout: Live updates From Claire Kittle to Erin Andrews: All the best dressed stars from night one of Taylor Swift's wedding EXCLUSIVELewis Hamilton credits girlfriend Kim Kardashian for making him a 'happier man' on stage at Silverstone ahead of British Grand Prix Taylor and Travis wedding spectacle descends into one big grift as groom promotes his podcast, 'bridesmaids' peddle their own brands, and the bride makes sure it's ALL on camera Hailey Bieber called 'most powerful model in the world' as she helps Kim Kardashian sell new SKIMS bras like 'hotcakes' The joy starts NOW: Greece, Spain, Turkey or Morocco... where will that just-booked feeling take YOU this summer? 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