06060-25 Portes v The Times

Summary of Complaint

1. Jonathan Portes complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Times breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “Mahmood's a star but she must go further”, published on 24 November 2025.

2. The article was a column, which appeared in the newspaper’s comment section beneath a photograph of the column’s writer. The comment piece set out the writer’s views on a politician, and the “fiendish dilemma” facing the politician: “reducing the numbers of inward migration”. It then said:

“Bizarrely, we do not even try to estimate how many illegal immigrants there are. Others know — the Americans reckon they have 13.7 million. It matters greatly. The 40,000 or so returns claimed by the Home Office would be impressive if our number were 100,000. But since most experts would put it nearer to two million, its efforts seem limp.”

3. The article also said: “Right now, the chances of being found and returned if you have crossed the Channel in a small boat are less than one in 20.” Further to this, it said: “we need to enforce the policy with vigour that has reduced flows at American’s southern borders by 90 per cent and in Denmark by 95 per cent.”

4. The article also appeared online in substantively the same format.

5. The complainant said that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1, as it reported that “most experts would put” the number of illegal immigrants in the UK “nearer to two million”. He said that there was no credible estimate that there were nearly 2 million illegal immigrants in the UK. He provided estimates collated by Migration Observatory – an organisation which analysed UK migration data – which indicated that there were considerably less than one million illegal migrants in the UK.

6. The complainant also expressed concerns about the accuracy of the following line: “Right now, the chances of being found and returned if you have crossed the Channel in a small boat are less than one in 20.” He said that, since nearly all of those who cross the Channel in this manner immediately claim asylum, they are “found” by definition, and the reason for not returning them would be that their asylum claim is in progress.

7. He added that the articles claim about reduced flows in America and Denmark were unsourced and – in the case of Denmark – appeared to be inaccurate.

8. The publication did not accept a breach of the Code. It first noted that the article made clear that there were no recent, reliable, and publicly available estimates of the number of illegal migrants: “Bizarrely, we do not even try to estimate how many illegal immigrants there are.” It said this had been acknowledged by Migration Observatory, which had – when reviewing estimates up to 2017 – noted that “[a]ll figures are highly uncertain and have large margins of error – meaning that all estimates […] should be treated with caution.” It also noted that the estimates provided by the complainant were nearly a decade old, and it was acknowledged by Migration Observatory that ”the unauthorised population is likely to have changed in the intervening years”. It added that the complainant had not provided any recent figures in support of his position that the numbers were lower than the consensus referenced in the article.

9. The publication added that experts in the field of immigration were not necessarily confined to academics and research experts. It noted that the columnist was a former head of the Commission for Racial Equality, a former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and a member of the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Task Force on Immigration and Integration. Given this, it said he was entitled to rely on his own established contacts and real-world expertise, in the absence of reliable and up-to-date data on the number of illegal immigrants in the UK. It said it was on the basis of this expertise that that he expressed his opinion that most experts of his acquaintance, if asked, would put the figure closer to 2 million.

10. Turning to the article’s claim that “the chances of being found and returned if you have crossed the Channel in a small boat are less than one in twenty", the publication referred to figures published by the Home Office. These said that 6,313 people who had arrived in the UK on a small boat between 2018 and June 2025 had been returned, representing 4% of small boat arrivals over that same period. This demonstrated, said the publication, that the return rate was less than one-in-twenty.

11. The publication said it was not in dispute that the number of asylum seekers in Denmark had fallen dramatically following a change in government policy to address record high numbers – and that this number had remained low ever since the change in policy. Turning to the specific figure given in the article, that immigration had reduced by 95% in Denmark, it provided statistics which showed that between 2015 and 2020, the number of asylum seekers dropped by 93%. It said that rounding this figure to 95%, in the context of a passing reference in an opinion column, was legitimate.

12. The complainant said that, as no actual identified expert had endorsed the figure in the article, it was not the case that “most experts” would put the number of illegal immigrants in the UK “nearer to two million”. He also noted that the Denmark figure provided by the publication in its response related to 2020, rather than the more recent 2025 data, which showed a considerably smaller reduction.

Relevant Clause Provisions

Clause 1 (Accuracy)

i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.

ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.

iii) A fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for.

iv) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

Findings of the Committee

13. The column’s central premise was the challenges facing the Home Secretary. In this context, it was made clear that “we do not even try to estimate how many illegal immigrants there are.” It was therefore set out to readers that there were no reliable official estimates as to the current number of illegal immigrants there are in the UK, and – by extension – that any claim the column made about the number of immigrants would be a matter of conjecture.

14. Given this context, the Committee was satisfied that the first claim under dispute – that “most experts would put [the number of illegal immigrants] nearer to two million” – was clearly distinguished as the writer’s conjecture, and readers would not be misled into believing that it was based on publicly available immigration statistics or estimates. In presenting this claim as the writer’s conjecture, the publication had taken care not to publish inaccurate information and had distinguished comment from fact. There was no breach of Clause 1 (i) or Clause 1 (iv) on this point.

15. Turning to the question of whether this figure was significantly inaccurate, the Committee noted that the most recent immigration estimates provided to it were from 2017, and included the provisos that “[a]ll figures are highly uncertain and have large margins of error – meaning that all estimates […] should be treated with caution” and that “the unauthorised population is likely to have changed in the intervening years”. Given this, and where the speculative nature of the figure was made clear, the Committee did not consider that there were grounds to find that the article was significantly inaccurate on this point. There was, therefore, no breach of Clause 1 (ii).

16. The article had referred to the likelihood of small boat entrants to the UK being found and returned. The publication had provided statistics which showed that 4% - around 1 in 20 – of small boat arrivals to the UK had been returned. Regardless of the reasons why people who had arrived on small boat were not returned from the UK, it was not inaccurate for the article to report this statistic. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

17. While the complainant had expressed concern that the article’s claims regarding reduced migrant flows at the borders of the USA and Denmark were unsourced, the Editors’ Code does not require newspapers to provide sources or citations for claims made in their article – unless this is required to ensure due care is taken over the accuracy of the claim.

18. The newspaper had provided statistics which showed that, between 2015 and 2020, there had been a 93% reduction in asylum seeker entries in Denmark. The Committee did not consider that rounding this figure up to 95% rendered the article inaccurate or misleading. It also did not consider that the newspaper was required to use the most recent asylum seeker data for the article, where the point being made was that government policies had led to a reduction in flows to the border of 95%, and it was not claimed that these policies were recent. There was, therefore, no breach of Clause 1.

Conclusions

19. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

N/A

Date complaint received: 25/11/2025

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 28/04/2026