Albanian ambassador attacks UK right wing for ‘unhinged’ fixation with 2022 migrant surge
Albania's ambassador to the UK has said rightwing politicians and media are still fixated on the 2022 small-boat migration surge, describing much of the criticism as “unhinged” and “hysterical”. Uran Ferizi called on Reform UK to abandon “Albanian-spotting” and suggested restrictive visa policies may have made vulnerable people more susceptible to traffickers.
Uran Ferizi, Albania's ambassador to the UK, has accused rightwing politicians and the media of keeping an “unhinged” and “hysterical” focus on the 2022 influx of Albanian migrants, even though the spike proved short-lived. He said the arrival of more than 12,000 people from the Balkan state in 2022 was real, exceptional and temporary, but that Reform UK and the Daily Telegraph continue to frame the Albanian community through those events.
The ambassador's office compiled a 10-page report relying mainly on Home Office data and the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. It records that 12,658 Albanians crossed the Channel in 2022 — a dramatic rise, yet equivalent to only about 1% of all long-term immigration to the UK that year. Arrivals then dropped sharply, and the embassy's analysis suggests most of that group has since left the country.
Ferizi, who first came to Britain as a teenage stowaway and later studied mathematics at Oxford, said some of the fixation “sounds unhinged”. He recalled attending Reform UK's conference last year, where participants at his pub quiz table concluded that the Albanian ambassador was “actually alright”. He argued Reform could do more for Britain by focusing on youth unemployment and welfare than by “Albanian-spotting”. He also warned that the framing was contagious, with Conservatives and even some in government appearing keener to match Reform's headlines than to examine the evidence.
The report highlights that Albanian visa applicants had a 65.5% approval rate over 2018–25, compared with about 90% for the other western Balkan countries, with more than 70,000 Albanian applications refused. Ferizi said that when the legal route is unusually difficult, the irregular route cannot be discussed as if it were unrelated. The report stops short of claiming visa refusals caused the surge, but suggests restricted legal access may have made some young Albanians more vulnerable to smugglers.
Ferizi also criticised the Daily Telegraph for demonising Albanians as criminals, citing a 2024 article claiming one in 50 Albanians in the UK was in prison, the worst rate of any nationality. He said that after adjusting for age, sex and other factors, the rate shrinks dramatically; without such adjustments, “you get the headline you want”. Reform and the Telegraph have been approached for comment.
