The country’s Government has implemented strict rules at its borders to prevent illegal migration.
The country’s Government has implemented strict rules at its borders to prevent illegal migration (Image: Getty)
One major European country has successfully reduced its illegal migration figures to almost zero thanks to its security measures at its 109-mile border with Serbia. Established during the 2015 European migrant crisis, with the aim of ensuring border security, Hungary installed a 9.6-mile-wide and 15-foot-high double fence, topped with coils of barbed wire.
Border police continuously patrol the fences, looking for suspicious activity, aided by thousands of surveillance cameras and a continuous length of the fibre optic cable that alerts officers to any interference with the fences. The number of illegal entries into Hungary declined significantly after the barrier was completed, as it effectively prevented unauthorised entry into Hungary. In fact, the number of attempted crossings decreased from over 100,000 in 2022 to just 12,000 last year.
Hungary declared the EU “too slow to act”, and started construction of the barrier in June 2015 (Image: Getty)
While most attempts are stopped by police, those migrants who do successfully make it through the fence are not allowed to remain in Hungary. According to GB News, Police Colonel Levente Bauko said that Hungarian law allows the police to use force to detain migrants and return them through a gate in the fence to Serbia.
In 2015, hundreds of thousands of Arabs would cross the border into Hungary, seeking entry into the EU and access to Western European social security systems. Hungary declared the EU “too slow to act”, started construction of the barrier in June, and it was completed the following September. Hungary then went on to construct barriers on minor sections of the Croatian border that are not separated by the Drava River.
According to Col. Bauko, migrants used ladders to scale the fences, but after authorities increased the height of these structures, they began digging tunnels underneath them. In 2022, border guards discovered 30 completed tunnels.
More recently, gangs began cutting holes in the wire, prompting authorities to reinforce the fences with steel. Guards told The People’s Channel that they are also able to use drones and can call on helicopters if needed.
Under Viktor Orban’s legal changes, the number of asylum claims from 122,000 in 2016 to just 25 in 2024 (Image: Getty)
In 2015, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán declared that “Hungarians should decide who they want to live with,” reinforcing Hungary’s rejection of EU migration policies. Under his legal changes, anyone seeking asylum in Hungary must do so from an Embassy in another country. This “embassy first” policy has reduced the number of asylum claims from 122,000 in 2016 to just 25 in 2024.
Hungary’s Interior Minister described its actions as the “strictest immigration law in the EU”.
However, the measures incurred the wrath of the EU, with Brussels slapping the Hungarian Government with a €200million (£174million) fine in addition to a daily penalty of €1 million (£868,000). Nevertheless, the Hungarian Government believes that this money is well spent to mitigate the negative economic and social consequences of mass migration that have affected the UK.
The revelation of Hungary’s border security impressed many GB News readers.
“Wish I could afford to go and live there and feel safe again as I used to in this country once!” one commented, while another said: “Watch and learn, Starmer“.
A third wrote: “A country that most Brits would think are behind us. But are obviously way far ahead of us on criminal immigration.”
Rachel Reeves is about to do the unthinkable… act now if you’re over 60
Reeves eyeing up your pension like a hungry wolf circling a lamb, as Labour MPs plot another raid on your savings.
Reeves eyeing up pensions in March statement (Image: PA)
Chancellor Rachel Reeves could walk into the treasury in March, and deliver what may be the most painful Spring Statement in recent memory. Analysis by pension experts shows that over 60’s especially could be hammered, again, as the so-called anti-austerity Chancellor comes to pillory your next egg.
With inflationary pressures, low growth, and higher taxes, Reeves is trapped in a fiscal straightjacket of her own making, and eyeing up your pension like a hungry wolf circling a lamb. Nothing seems to be sacred, with even her inner circle of treasury ministers questioning the tax-free status of Cash ISA’s to boot, with Emma Reynolds, one of Reeves own cadre of MPs, considering lifting the perk and punishing savers.
Tom Selby, director of public policy at AJ Bell, puts it bluntly: “Whatever label the chancellor puts on her set piece announcement on 26 March, the economic picture the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) paints is expected to be grim, with fears of stagnation looming and the spectre of rising defence costs as Donald Trump’s US government retreats from Europe further threatening to strain the public purse.”
With that backdrop, speculation is rife in Westminster that Reeves will be forced to pull every leaver she can to raise revenue. And that means taking a look at pensioners.
The state pension triple-lock means payments keep rising, but frozen tax thresholds mean the full state pension will soon be subject to income tax. As Selby notes: “The Treasury may be comfortable giving with one hand through state pension increases while taking with the other via income tax, but it also leaves the door open for the Conservatives to accuse the government of hitting pensioners with a ‘retirement tax’.”
Not content with just purloining parts of your state pension, the Treasury may also be considering slamming an inheritance tax on anything left over. Reeves announced in October that unspent pensions would be dragged into the IHT net from April 2027. AJ Bell and others are rightly begging the chancellor to rethink. Will she listen? Do not hold your breath.
Starmers government ave u-turned before. (Image: PA)
The government, when the time comes, will insist this is not a formal Budget. Technically that means no massive tax changes are likely. But, the experts warn there is “still room for Reeves to bring forward policy announcements ahead of the formal Budget later in 2025.”
Uproar over plans to drag pensions into inheritance tax may force another Labour u-turn (after all, they are getting quite good at those). AJ Bell is calling for a “Pensions Tax Lock”, a commitment from Reeves to rule out changes to tax-free cash or tax relief for the rest of this Parliament. That would give savers stability and would allow people to plan.
But stability is not what Rachel Reeves does. Raiding savers to plug her fiscal black hole? That is more her style.
Labour crashes to devastating new low as bombshell poll shows record unpopularity
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Government’s approval ratings collapse to even greater depths
Many of Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’s policies have been controversial (Image: Getty)
You might not have thought Labour could’ve been more unpopular – but Sir Keir Starmer’s party has plunged to a new low with its worst-ever approval rating. The popularity of the incumbents has steadily declined since the 2024 General Election, with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer forced into a series of humiliating U-turns on controversial policies.
The net rating now stands at -59, with 70% disapproving of the Government and just 11% approving, with 19% saying they don’t know. And it could sink even deeper, with YouGov’s latest poll taking place on January 5, before the latest pubs tax U-turn debacle. Pollster More in Common has also shared a devastating new graph showing that Labour is losing nearly half of its voters from the 2024 General Election.
Even more worryingly, it is losing backing to both parties on the Left and Right, with 11% of 2024 Labour voters saying they will vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform and 8% saying they now support the Liberal Democrats.
It has also lost 8% of voters to the Greens, but 11% who say they don’t know who they’ll support are believed to be more Left-leaning.
It comes after a tumultuous period for Labour, during which it has repeatedly changed course on key policies and is said by many to have broken manifesto commitments.
Its first major decision, to cut winter fuel payments to most pensioners, was reversed amid an enormous public backlash. The vast majority of pensioners now remain eligible.
Cuts to disability benefits in a bid to slash Britain’s swollen welfare bill were humiliatingly abandoned in the wake of furious opposition from Labour MPs.
The party also announced an end to the two-child benefit cap in November’s Budget, despite suspending seven party MPs who previously voted in favour of scrapping it.
The autumn financial statement itself was widely regarded as a farce, as
Her decision to freeze the thresholds at which taxpayers pay higher-rate levies – dragging more people into the top bands – is seen by many as
The final embarrassment of 2025 came with
The latest climbdown is on business rates, which many pubs said would have landed them with bills of thousands of pounds and forced some to close.
