NIGEL Farage has been blasted by human rights campaigners for his plans to deliver asylum seekers into the hands of violent regimes.
The Reform UK leader unveiled new plans for mass deportations of people who arrive in the UK by small boats – one of the few options for asylum seekers.
The party’s so-called “Operation Restoring Justice” programme would see up to five deportation flights a day, resulting in around 500,000 to 600,000 people being sent away over five years if the party were to gain power, according to former Reform chair Zia Yusuf.
Speaking at a press conference, Yusuf (below) pledged that Reform would disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture, as well as the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention, as plans to quit any treaty preventing deportations were unveiled.
Plans to scrap the Human Rights Act, frequently invoked in anti-deportation court cases, were also unveiled.
Yusuf said: “When Nigel’s prime minister there will not be a lawyer, nor a judge in the country that will be able to prevent a deportation flight from leaving.”
It was also announced that Reform planned to create a “data fusion centre” drawing information from branches of the state including the police, the NHS, and HMRC, as well as banks, to identify people who had entered the country illegally.
The plans to quit international treaties would mean that asylum seekers would be sent to countries where they face the prospect of torture.
Kolbassia Haoussou, director of survivor leadership and influencing at Freedom from Torture, said: “This is not who we are as a country. Here in the UK, public support for upholding the torture ban has grown significantly in recent years. People know that turning a blind eye is just not an option.
“Men, women and children are coming to the UK looking for safety. They are fleeing the unimaginable horrors of torture in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iran. And they desperately need our protection.”
Haoussou pointed out how the UK had been “leading voice against torture” and helped shaped the laws that Reform "proposes we destroy”.
He added: “These laws were created in the aftermath of the Second World War to protect us all. If Britain were to abandon this legacy it would hand repressive regimes around the world a gift and undermine one of humanity’s clearest moral lines. We must not stay silent.”
At Tuesday’s press conference, Farage appeared sanguine about the prospect of asylum seekers being tortured.
Asked about concerns over the policy, the Reform UK leader said: “The alternative, of course, is to do nothing. That’s the very clear alternative, is that we just do nothing. We just allow this problem to magnify and grow.
“We head to a point, where there, and I genuinely, I don’t want this to happen, I want our proposals to be accepted so we can prevent civil disorder from happening, but that is the direction this country is headed in. We cannot be responsible for all the sins that take place around the world.”
