The disturbing mainstreaming of remigration in Europe and Britain

“Patriotism is the love of one’s own, and nationalism is the hatred of others,” wrote French novelist and former diplomat Romain Gary in his 1945 novel Éducation Européenne.

When Gary wrote those words in the aftermath of the Second World War, he was drawing a clear moral distinction between two very different political instincts. Patriotism, for Gary, meant affection for one’s country and a commitment to its people. Nationalism, by contrast, defined itself not by what it loved but by what it feared and excluded. It required an enemy.

For decades, liberal democracies broadly accepted that distinction. Governments could argue about immigration levels, border security or asylum policy without abandoning the principle that citizenship should not be defined by ethnicity or race, nor that people should be removed simply because they did not belong to the ‘right’ national or cultural group.

Today, however, that dividing line is becoming increasingly blurred.

The final Right-Wing Watch before our summer break – returning in September – takes us to one of the most disturbing developments in contemporary European politics – the mainstreaming of remigration.

Originally promoted by white nationalist activists advocating the mass removal of non-white immigrants and ethnic minorities from Europe, the term remigration was once confined to neo-Nazi circles and the darkest corners of the far right. It was long dismissed as a fringe fantasy rooted in the racist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory.

That is no longer the case.

While few mainstream politicians openly embrace the term itself, many of the policies once associated with remigration, mass deportations, offshore detention centres, expanded detention powers and making residency increasingly precarious for migrants, are steadily becoming embedded within mainstream politics across Europe. The language remains controversial, but the policy direction increasingly reflects the same underlying logic: reducing immigration not simply by limiting future arrivals, but by facilitating the large-scale removal of those already living in Europe.

The question is no longer whether remigration exists as an extremist ideology. It is how rapidly elements of that ideology are infiltrating mainstream politics.

Europe’s rightward shift

The 2024 European Parliament elections marked a watershed moment.

Far-right parties secured roughly a quarter of all parliamentary seats, increasing their influence over the European Union’s political agenda. Immigration quickly became the defining issue, with centre-right parties adopting positions previously associated with the populist and far right.

In May 2024, the EU formally adopted its new Migration and Asylum Pact, expanding border detention and placing deterrence at the heart of European migration policy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argued the reforms would prevent a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis, when around one million people arrived in Europe following the Syrian civil war.
And the political trajectory did not stop there.

In June 2026, negotiators from the European Commission, Council and Parliament reached agreement on another major overhaul of EU migration policy. The reforms would accelerate deportations and formally allow the establishment of so-called ‘return hubs’ in third countries, enabling failed asylum seekers to be transferred to detention facilities outside the European Union, even where they have no previous connection to the destination country.

Critics argue these proposals represent a worrying shift away from Europe’s post-war human rights framework.

French Green MEP Mélissa Camara described the agreement as “a historic setback” for human rights, warning that “the legal arsenal serving a xenophobic ideology is now complete.” She pointed to the legalisation of external return hubs, expanded detention powers, including for minors, and enforcement measures resembling those used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The European Council on Refugees and Exiles similarly condemned the reforms as “Byzantine in their complexity and Orban-esque in their cruelty.”

Silvia Carta, spokesperson for the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, warned that Europe was constructing “a draconian detention and deportation machine,” arguing that rather than learning from the controversy surrounding US immigration enforcement, the EU was building its own version.

The most worrying aspect, perhaps, is not just the content of these reforms but the political coalition that delivered them. Centre-right parties increasingly worked alongside the far right to overcome opposition from liberals, Greens and the left.

The policies now being implemented are not identical to the maximalist vision promoted by extremist remigration activists. But they move unmistakably in the same direction. Ideas once dismissed as politically untouchable are increasingly informing mainstream legislative agendas.

How remigration entered Britain

Britain has followed a different political path, but the underlying trend is similar.

The concept of remigration has become worrying visible within British online political debate. A recent study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found more than 76,000 social media posts in 2025 calling for Britain to adopt remigration policies involving the forced deportation of people with migrant backgrounds.

Nearly one in five of those posts originated from US-based accounts, confirming the increasingly transnational nature of anti-immigration networks. Rather than emerging organically within Britain, remigration messaging is being amplified across borders by interconnected online networks.

The study also found that anti-migrant rhetoric had intensified rather than diminished following the far-right riots of summer 2024. Protests around asylum accommodation in places including Epping and Canary Wharf have become fertile ground for radical messaging that would once have remained confined to extremist circles.

The emergence of Remigration Now

That changing environment has created space for organisations explicitly campaigning for remigration.
One of the most prominent is Remigration Now, a pressure group founded by Steve Laws.

The organisation describes itself as a movement dedicated to securing the implementation of remigration policies and presents supporters with the slogan “Help Save Our Country” alongside fundraising appeals.

And its founder, Steve Laws, is no political newcomer. The anti-fascist group Hope Not Hate describe him as a notorious fascist influencer from Folkestone, whose political journey has taken him through For Britain, UKIP, the English Democrats, Reform UK and the Homeland Party before establishing Remigration Now after concluding that even Homeland had become insufficiently committed to remigration.

He has also maintained close links with Patriotic Alternative, one of Britain’s most prominent neo-Nazi organisations.

Hope Not Hate credits Laws with helping popularise so-called “migrant hunting,” filming and harassing refugees arriving on the Kent coast to generate online content. Beginning in Dover in 2019, these videos quickly attracted a large audience on YouTube. In late 2025, Laws enjoyed greater visibility still, when he was quote-tweeted by Elon Musk and made a series of media appearances on more moderate right-wing podcasts.

More recently, investigations suggest that activists associated with Remigration Now have begun embedding themselves within Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain movement.

According to Hope Not Hate, Laws has claimed to enjoy “daily” contact with senior figures around Restore Britain. After becoming a vocal supporter of MP Rupert Lowe, Laws signed up to Restore Britain, telling his supporters:

“It’s not enough to just join Restore. You need to get out and campaign. Leafleting, door to door canvassing, help out with local and national elections and everything in between. Take the online momentum to the streets. Restore has given us the vehicle. It’s on all of us to secure the victory.”

Investigations have also identified members linked to racist abuse, praise for Adolf Hitler and other explicitly fascist activity being connected to Remigration Now. The Times reports that Simon Birkett, leader of The Woodlander Initiative (TWI), which is buying up land to build enclaves for white people, has told his followers that Restore Britain is the far right’s last hope for a political route into power. 

Urging his thousands of YouTube followers to support Restore Britain before the next general election, Birkett said: “Those elections in 2029 are our last shot. It has to be now. It has to be 2029. It’s the last chance.” 

Worryingly, it seems activists promoting an ideology once confined to extremist organisations are increasingly seeing mainstream political movements as viable vehicles through which their ideas can gain influence.

Remigration by stealth?

Britain is not pursuing official mass deportation on the scale advocated by remigration activists. Yet recent immigration reforms raise uncomfortable questions about whether aspects of the same political logic are becoming embedded through less explicit means.

In his paper Remigration by stealth? The government’s earned settlement proposals, James Bowes of the University of Warwick, argues that proposed reforms to settlement rules represent one of the most significant changes to migrants’ legal status in decades.

Unlike previous immigration restrictions, these proposals would affect not only future arrivals but more than two million migrants already living legally in Britain. Longer pathways to Indefinite Leave to Remain would leave migrants facing years of additional visa costs, continued legal insecurity and a substantially greater risk of ultimately losing the right to remain.
As Bowes notes, many people who moved to Britain under one set of expectations may ultimately be forced to leave altogether unless substantial transitional protections are introduced.

The government insists this is not an attempt at mass removal. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of these policies resemble what remigration advocates have long argued for, making long-term residence more difficult, more precarious and ultimately more temporary.

When the fringe becomes the mainstream

With mass deportations, offshore detention, external processing, expanding detention powers, stricter settlement rules, and the growing emphasis on “return,” the organising principle of migration policy all point in the same direction. Remigration is no longer only an extremist slogan. It has become a point of reference in European migration politics, even when politicians avoid using the term itself.

That should concern anyone who cares about liberal democracy. When the language of exclusion becomes ordinary, the ideas behind it rarely remain at the margins for long.

As Romain Gary warned more than eighty years ago, “Patriotism is the love of one’s own, and nationalism is the hatred of others.”

Europe would do well to remember the difference.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch