KEIR Starmer has left the door open to signing deportation deals with the Taliban after Nigel Farage set out Reform UK’s plans for mass deportations.
The Prime Minister’s spokesperson said that “we’re not going to take anything off the table” when asked about Farage’s programme to send asylum seekers to brutal regimes where they may be at risk of torture.
Farage’s plans have sparked outrage among human rights campaigners, however Downing Street refused to criticise the Reform UK leader’s rhetoric about asylum seekers, including his claim that Britain was experiencing an “invasion” by migrants.
Reform UK have unveiled plans to tear up international treaties – including those prohibiting torture – and pledged to sign returns deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran.
Asked how much a future Reform government would be willing to pay to the Taliban or Iran’s fundamentalist regime, Farage (above) failed to answer.
Labour have dismissed the substance of Reform’s plans, with Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook branding them “unworkable gimmicks”.
Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said that the Prime Minister was “angry” about the cost of putting asylum seekers in hotels, saying it was “unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain”.
He added: “That’s why we’re taking the action we are, to recognise the strength of feeling about this.
“The pressure that it puts on public services and that’s why we’re taking serious practical action to address this issue, not just returning back to the old gimmicks, the old solutions that failed to deal with this.”
Pete Wishart, the SNP's deputy Westminster leader, accused Starmer and Farage of "vying to outdo each other on asylum and immigration"., saying it showed "just how far beyond repair broken, Brexit Britain has become".
He added: "Scotland needs a fair immigration system that works for our country, not one steeped in toxic language that demonises those fleeing oppression and war. “The spectacle of a Westminster government that takes its direction from the architect of Brexit, Nigel Farage, tells people in Scotland all they need to know and shows why independence is the fresh start we need."
Greens MSP Maggie Chapman (above) added: "This is one of the most appalling and racist speeches given by a UK politician since Enoch Powell. Reform represents the same cynical politics of scapegoating and hatred. It is a clear and present danger to the human rights of each and every one of us.
"There is an onus on all parties to stand up to these politics in word and deed. That means taking them on and doing things differently, rather than sinking to their level and trying to be even more authoritarian as successive Labour and Tory governments have done."
The Tories accused Farage of “re-heating and recycling” their policies, with shadow home secretary Chris Philp saying: “Earlier this year we introduced and tabled votes on our Deportation Bill in Parliament, detailing how we would disapply the Human Rights Act from all immigration matters, and deport every illegal immigrant on arrival.”
LibDem deputy leader Daisy Cooper (above) accused Farage of seeking to “follow his idol Vladimir Putin in ripping up the human rights convention”, in reference to Reform’s plans to quit the European Convention on Human Rights.
She said: “Winston Churchill would be turning in his grave. Doing so would only make it harder for each of us as individuals to hold the government to account and stop it trampling on our freedoms.”
On a returns deal with Afghanistan, Cooper added: “Reform’s Taliban tribute plan would send British taxpayers’ cash to fund their oppressive regime, fuelling the persecution of Afghan women and children and betraying our brave Armed Forces who sacrificed so much fighting the Taliban.”
