Albanians are being unfairly demonised in illegal immigration debate

Uran Ferizi, the Albanian ambassador to the UK: ‘What is rarely reported is that Albania cooperates more closely with British law enforcement than almost any other country on the continent.’ Photograph: Albanian Embassy in the United Kingdom

These are challenging times in Britain. Economic pressure has a long history of finding a foreign face to blame. For several years now, that face has been Albanian – caricatured by certain media outlets and politicians in ways that are neither fair nor, frankly, very British.

The statistics most often cited do not bear scrutiny. For example, the Telegraph’s claim in 2024 that one in 50 Albanians in the UK was in prison was derived by selectively narrowing the total Albanian population in the UK by multiple factors, producing a ratio designed to alarm rather than inform. When adjusted for age, sex, income and residency status, the figure collapses to the British average.