MigrationWatchdog

What the public has petitioned for

The largest immigration and asylum petitions on Parliament's petitions site, with where in the UK their signatures came from, whether the government responded and whether Parliament debated them.

What a petition is, and is not
A petition's wording is written by its creator. The signature count measures how many people backed that wording — it is not evidence that the wording is accurate, and this site takes no position on any of it. Petitions here are selected purely by signature count, whichever direction they argue in; the list below runs from restricting migration to extending settlement rights. Government responses and debate records are linked so you can read what the state actually said back.
720,772
signatures on the largest petition
petition opened 2025-09-12 · source
6 of 6
received a government response
petitions open or closed as at 2026-08-18 · source
5 of 6
debated in Parliament
petitions open or closed as at 2026-08-18 · source

The largest petitions

  1. “Introduce offshore detention/mass deportation for illegal migrants”

    720,772

    Closed · opened 12 September 2025 · closed 12 March 2026 · Home Office · government responded · debated 13 July 2026

  2. “Stop financial and other support for asylum seekers”

    427,447

    Closed · opened 20 January 2025 · closed 20 July 2025 · Home Office · government responded · debated 20 October 2025

  3. “Shut the migrant hotels down now and deport illegal migrants housed there”

    257,442

    Closed · opened 1 April 2025 · closed 1 October 2025 · Home Office · government responded · debated 20 October 2025

  4. “Close the borders! Suspend ALL immigration for 5 years!”

    229,772

    Closed · opened 26 November 2024 · closed 26 May 2025 · Home Office · government responded · debated 10 March 2025

  5. “Keep 5-year ILR terms to Hong Kong British National (Overseas) visas”

    114,605

    Closed · opened 25 June 2025 · closed 25 December 2025 · Home Office · government responded · debated 8 September 2025

  6. “Reduce the ILR qualifying period from 5 years to 3 years for legal immigrants”

    47,087

    Closed · opened 23 January 2025 · closed 23 July 2025 · Home Office · government responded · not debated

petitions open or closed as at 2026-08-18 · source

Where the signatures came from

Signatures on the largest petition — “Introduce offshore detention/mass deportation for illegal migrants” — by region, as published. 706,980 of its 720,772 signatures came from UK regions; the remaining 13,792 were recorded outside them (overseas or unknown), so the bars below do not sum to the total. Regions differ in population — these are counts, not rates.

North EastNorth East: 41,95641,956North WestNorth West: 93,19293,192Yorkshire and The H…Yorkshire and The Humber: 65,81965,819East MidlandsEast Midlands: 55,25555,255West MidlandsWest Midlands: 62,25862,258East of EnglandEast of England: 79,77879,778LondonLondon: 39,92239,922South EastSouth East: 99,66599,665South WestSouth West: 62,82062,820WalesWales: 38,73238,732ScotlandScotland: 54,83554,835Northern IrelandNorthern Ireland: 12,74812,748
Signatures by UK region on the largest immigration or asylum petition. Petitions (UK Government and Parliament petitions site).

Each region's own page carries this alongside its asylum accommodation and enforcement figures — browse the regions →

The rest of the parliamentary record

Petitions are one channel. Written questions from members are on the questions page, and the bills and recorded votes are on the legislation page.

Data as of

Cite this page

What the public has petitioned for: immigration and asylum petitions. Migration Watchdog, data as of 2026-08-18.
https://migrationwatchdog.com/petitions
Underlying figures: UK official statistics, re-published under OGL v3.0 — every figure links to its source on the page.

Sources for this page