Closing Summary
Unveiling Reform UK’s “Operation Restoring Justice” at a press conference this morning, Nigel Farage revealed a five-year plan to detain and deport all migrants who arrive in the UK illegally and suggested 600,000 people could be sent back over five years.
The Reform party leader confirmed that women and children would also be detained under the plans. He was thin on details and was unable to name a single RAF base to be converted into secure detention facilities, despite this forming a central part of his party’s deportation policy.
Farage warned of a “genuine threat to public order” without action to tackle illegal migration, which he has described as a “scourge” on the country.
Reform pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants to their countries.
Reform said it would repeal the Human Rights Act, leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), and disapply the 1951 refugee convention and UN convention against torture.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said Reform UK’s plan does not stand up to scrutiny and accused Farage of “ripping up” human rights laws with his proposals.
A Reform UK government would pay the Taliban to accept the return of migrants who entered Britain illegally, senior party figure Zia Yusuf said.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch accused Reform of “copying our homework” with its illegal immigration proposals. Badenoch said the only workable parts of Farage’s pledges had come from Conservative policy but that Reform was “not doing the thinking” required to deliver.
A screening tool used to assess the support needs of domestic violence victims has “obvious problems”, Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said earlier, adding she was reviewing systems to support victims.
Peers could be forced to resign if they do not contribute enough to the House of Lords, under reforms ministers hope to make.
Thanks for joining us. We are closing this blog now. You can find all our latest coverage of UK politics here.
Domestic violence screening tool should be replaced, Jess Phillips says
Caroline Davies is a writer for the Guardian
The main screening tool used to determine which domestic violence victims need support has “obvious problems” and should be replaced, the UK safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has said.
Phillips is reviewing systems, including the Dash (domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and “honour-based” violence) questionnaire, largely relied on by police, social services and healthcare workers across the UK since 2009 to assess risk.
Academics and others working in the sector have raised concerns about the 27-question tool, which assesses answers to decide which respondents are deemed high risk so they can be referred to specialist care.
Phillips told the BBC’s File on 4 that she was reviewing the entire system supporting victims but said it would not change overnight.
“My instinct is that the tool doesn’t work, but until I can replace it with something that does, we have to make the very best of the system that we have,” Phillips said.
Any risk assessment tool was “only as good as the person who is using it” and people had been killed even when deemed to be at high risk, she said.
You can read the full story here:
Peers who do not participate enough in House of Lords face sack
Jessica Elgot is the Guardian’s deputy political editor
Labour plans to remove peers who do not contribute enough to the House of Lords and to press ahead with plans for a retirement age of 80 from the upper house.
Writing for the Telegraph, the leader of the House of Lords, Angela Smith, said a select committee would consider the next stage of Lords reform after the abolition of hereditary peers.
Lady Smith said that removing the last hereditary peers was “by no means the limit of the government’s Lords reform ambitions” but said the new committee would consider carefully how the next phase would work.
The final stages of the bill, which will abolish the seats for the 86 remaining hereditary peers, will go through parliament this year.
“The introduction of a mandatory retirement age for peers and a participation requirement are both clear among our stage-two manifesto commitments,” Smith said in her article, but said there should be a “collaborative way forward”.
The committee will be made up of cross-party peers and consider ways to implement the retirement age and the measure of participation which will be required.
You can read the full story here:
As a reminder, Reform’s leadership said this morning that it would repeal the Human Rights Act, leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), and disapply the 1951 refugee convention and UN convention against torture.
The human rights lawyer Adam Wagner KC said Reform’s plans were not only “legally extreme” but fundamentally misleading.
“A lot of the rights contained in the European Convention come from British common law: the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and the right not to be tortured,” he said.
You can read more reaction from legal experts reacting to Reform’s deportation proposals here.
Updated
My colleague Diane Taylor has reported on the ill health many migrants arrive in the UK with after making the dangerous Channel crossing. The focus of her piece is Manston, a former military base outside Ramsgate in Kent used as a holding centre for migrants waiting for their claims to be processed. Staff have told the Guardian that the site is a wholly inadequate place to accommodate traumatised asylum seekers. Here is an extract from her story:
The staff members said some of their colleagues had little concern for the asylum seekers who find themselves there. One was suspended after waking someone up with their foot. Another was sacked after pulling a sleeping boy to his feet and making disparaging comments about him…
An investigation was launched earlier this year after a racist message – “fuck off you [N-word]s, go back to where you came from” – was reportedly “blasted out” on portable radios used by Home Office contractors. The ministry and its contractor, Mitie, condemned the language used…
Staff also said a common response from hostile colleagues to new arrivals’ requests for pain medication or permission to sleep was: “Well if you don’t like it here you shouldn’t have got on the boat.”
The Society of Labour Lawyers, a thinktank which provides legal advice to the Labour party and campaigns for policies to increase access to justice, has said that Reform’s mass deportation plans are not “rooted in reality”. George Peretz KC, chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers, said:
The Reform party’s policy is simply not rooted in reality. They want to institute a mass deportation programme with no real, or workable, idea of where people would be deported to.
Reform’s policy would require a returns policy to be negotiated with regimes such as the Taliban and Iran, and may, by their own admission, involve paying those regimes to do so.
Which is impractical and extremely concerning, as well as unlawful (as our own courts ruled in the Rwanda case).
Updated
Kemi Badenoch has also said that leaving the ECHR is not a plan in itself, in response to Reform UK’s immigration plans.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, we put out a deportation bill in May. The stuff that actually works in what he said has come from there,” she said.
She said that the Conservatives will announce their plans on whether to leave the European Convention on Human Rights at the upcoming party conference.
“We will announce at our conference exactly what we’re going to do and how.
“Saying you’re going to leave the ECHR is not a plan,” Badenoch said.
It will have an impact on things like the Good Friday Agreement and needs to be done in a way that does not destabilise the country or economy, she said.
Some 659 people arrived in the UK on Monday after crossing the English Channel, according to figures from the Home Office.
The cumulative number of arrivals in 2025 now stands at a provisional total of 28,947. This is 50% higher than at the same point last year, when the total stood at 19,294, and 47% higher than at this stage in 2023, when the total was 19,741.
There were nine boats that arrived on Monday, which suggests an average of around 73 people per boat.Some 52,189 people have arrived in the UK using this route since the 2024 general election.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch refused to confirm how she would set up a returns agreement with Taliban-run Afghanistan, if her party wins the next general election.
Speaking to the PA news agency during a visit to a farm in Essex, Mrs Badenoch said:
We need to make sure that anyone who comes to our country illegally is deported. We have experience in government of finding some of these deportations difficult.
That is why we had the third country deterrent, which was the Rwanda plan. Some countries will not cooperate. But from what Reform has announced today, they haven’t done the thinking, they’ve just copied our homework, but they don’t understand the reasons behind them.
She continued:
If people come to our country illegally, they need to be returned. We are not in a situation where we can take people from every country in the world, just because they arrive on our shores.
The prime minister disagrees with Nigel Farage that Britain is on the precipice of civil disorder over unhappiness about small boat migrants, Downing Street has said.
No 10 said the government was setting out “serious” solutions to the issue, not gimmicks.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said:
It makes him angry frankly, because it’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain.
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.
Keir Starmer’s spokesman was asked whether he agreed with Reform UK’s leader who told an event in Oxford that he believed the country was at risk of civil disorder.
He said:
No, and I think what the prime minister is focused on is dealing with the concerns that people have.
People have understandably have felt like their living standards have stagnated over the last 15 years, and that’s why growing the economy and raising living standards is the government’s number one priority.
The UK coastguard has confirmed its involvement in the rescue of “a number” of small boat crossings from the English Channel on Tuesday.
Farage's 'toxic bluster' designed to 'whip up anger, hatred and disorder', Green Party MP says
Green Party MP Ellie Chowns has said Nigel Farage’s “inflammatory” rhetoric is designed to whip up public anger and said the proposals he outlined today are “unworkable”.
Chowns said:
More inflammatory rhetoric from Farage at a sensitive time in many communities. This dangerous toxic bluster is clearly aimed at whipping up anger, hatred and even disorder. The way he talks about asylum seekers – our fellow global citizens – is reprehensible.
The policy proposals themselves are unworkable. They rely on ripping up swathes of international law and would likely face many legal obstacles in the UK courts that could use British common law to block such cruelty.
Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan and Syria feature in the top ten countries for asylum seekers in the UK – all places where people face oppression, conflict, extreme poverty or famine. Asylum claims from people arriving from these countries have high approval rates – almost 100% in the case of Sudan and Syria.
Yet former Reform UK Chair Zia Yusuf has suggested that a Reform government would pay brutal regimes like the Taliban to accept the return of migrants – including unaccompanied children. They must know what is likely to happen to these people when they are returned – they will likely be abused, tortured or executed.
This is not who we are as a nation. The vast majority of the British public are willing to show compassion towards those fleeing the terrible situations they leave behind.
Badenoch: Farage has copied our homework
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, has posted on X saying that Reform’s “immigration plan looks v familiar”.
She wrote: “We set out our Deportation Bill months ago. He’s copied our homework but missed the lesson. At Conference, we’ll show you not just the answers, but our working. That’s how we’ll build trust with the public and get real results.”
Badenoch faces a pivotal few months as she prepares to deliver her first party conference speech as Tory leader. She is trying to fend off a potential leadership challenge from her shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, who has shifted to the right of Badenoch on some issues, including calling to leave the ECHR. The Conservative party sits in third place in the polls on 17%. Reform is consistently leading the polls.
As extreme rhetoric around illegal immigration has become normalised, Badenoch suggested the setting up of “camps” earlier this month when speaking about possible alternatives to using hotels to house asylum seekers. Her comments were picked up on by the media but after a few days not much more was made of her suggestion.
Updated
Reform's mass deportation plans 'rip up' human rights, Lib Dems say
The Liberal Democrats have condemned Reform’s mass deportation plans for “ripping up” human rights and involving potential payments to autocratic regimes.
The party’s deputy leader Daisy Cooper said:
(Nigel) Farage’s plan crumbles under the most basic scrutiny. The idea that Reform UK is going to magic up some new places to detain people and deport them to, but don’t have a clue where those places would be, is taking the public for fools.
Of course Nigel Farage wants to follow his idol Vladimir Putin in ripping up the human rights convention. 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 potential payments to the Taliban to take back Afghan migrants, 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. Clearly British values mean nothing to Farage and his band of plastic patriots.
Updated
A record 28,076 migrants have crossed the Channel to Britain in small boats this year, a 46% rise on the same period in 2024, government data showed on Monday. Many of these people were likely fleeing war, famine or persecution, or seeking better economic opportunities/joining family members in the UK.
Key event
Kolbassia Haoussou, director of survivor leadership and influencing at the charity Freedom from Torture, has reacted to Reform saying it would disapply the 1951 Refugee Contention and the UN Convention Against Torture.
Haoussou 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.
At Freedom from Torture, we see every day the human cost of torture: how it destroys lives and tears at the fabric of societies.
The UN Convention Against Torture is a promise to defend our shared right to live a life free from torture. For centuries, the UK has been a leading voice against torture, helping to shape the very international laws that Reform proposes we destroy.
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.
Updated
Asked whether Reform would make an exception for Afghans who supported Britain, he said: “Absolutely. There were brave Afghans who supported the British forces and American forces during that 20 year war, who, of course, absolutely of course, deserve recompense for the enormous risks they took.”
He added:
This country has taken half a million refugees since the Brexit referendum. This country is not closed-minded to groups that genuinely face persecution, to groups that genuinely are refugees.
Farage can't name specific RAF bases Reform would use to hold migrants before deportations
Aubrey Allegretti, the Times’ chief political correspondent, asked Farage what specific disused or surplus RAF bases he would use to hold migrants or to operate deportation filghts from. Farage could not name any specific locations despite this being a major part of his deportation proposal. He said:
The last government – and this one – have been housing people in military bases. One or two campaigns have stopped them using certain, particular geographical locations but quite a few have been used around the country.
So you get put into a military base but you are free to walk the streets at night, you are free to possibly even go and drive a delivery bike for somebody.
The military bases that we will use people will be detained. They won’t be out walking the streets on the road to being deported.
So I would suggest to you that whichever geographical locations are chosen, local residents will be far less concerned by this plan than they would young men being free 24 hours a day to walk through their village or walk through their town.
Updated
Farage says women and children would be detained under mass deportation plans
Farage confirms that women and children would also be detained and deported under Reform’s plans.
Answering a question from Sky News’ political correspondent Serena Barker Singh, Farage said: “Women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained, and I’ve accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue.”
The Reform leader added:
But the people protesting outside the Bell Hotel and at 30 migrant hotels on Saturday around the country weren’t doing it because of the few children coming.
They were doing it because over three-quarters of those that come are young undocumented males who come from cultures that are entirely different from ours, who are very unlikely to assimilate into our community, who pose a risk to women and girls, and some of them, I’m afraid, pose a risk to national security.
About 600,000 asylum seekers could be deported in the first parliament of a Reform government, Farage has suggested.
Answering a media question on the parameters of the mass deportation plans, Farage said: “How far back you go with this is the difficulty, and I accept that.”
Pointing to queries about what would happen to children, he added: “I’m not standing here telling you all of this is easy, all of this is straightforward.
“And we had of course with the Windrush row, we had a situation there where people who’d come 50, 60, in fact nearly 70 years ago, had faulty paperwork. So there is an exercise of common sense that has to come in here.”
Turning to Zia Yusuf, Farage said: “But do we realistically think, Zia, we can deport five, 600,000 people in the lifetime of the first parliament?” Yusuf replied: “Totally.”
Updated
Farage is taking questions from the press now. The first is from the BBC’s Ben Wright who asks him if he minds the fact his plans risks asylum seekers being sent back to countries where they could face torture or even death.
Farage says it does bother him, before adding: “What really bothers me is what is happening on the streets of our country. What really bothers me is what is happening to British citizens.
“What really bothers me is… and you’ve seen this from the Bell Hotel onwards, the growing concern with justifiable evidence that women and girls are far less safe on the streets than they were before this began. So it’s all about whose side are you on?”
Reform will build capacity to 'detain up to 24,000 illegal migrants at a time', Yusuf says
Zia Yusuf, head of Reform’s government efficiency department, spoke briefly after Nigel Farage. Here is some of what he said:
If you come to the UK illegally, you will receive a lifetime ban from ever coming back to our country, re entering after deportation will become a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison.
Deliberately destroying your identity documents having come here illegally will also become a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in prison.
We will pair this legislative reset with a UK deportation command – that is a dedicated force to identifying, detaining and deporting illegal migrants at scale.
We’ll create a cutting edge data fusion centre that will automatically share data between the police, the home office, the NHS, the DVLA, HMRC and banks.
This will allow deportation command to relentlessly track down and detain all those who entered our country illegally.
We’ll build capacity to detain up to 24,000 illegal migrants at a time. That enables us to deport up to 288,000 illegal migrants a year. Detention will mean deportation, no chance of bail, no chance of absconding.
Updated
Farage unveils mass deportation plans for government
Laying out his proposals, Farage said Reform would:
Leave the European convention on human rights “no ifs, no buts”
Repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act
Disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention for five years and any other “barriers that can be used by lawyers in this country to prevent deportations”
Create a legal duty for the home secretary to remove people that come illegally
Detain all illegal migrants who come and we will do so “immediately”.
Farage claims that his party’s proposals could save hundreds of billions of pounds over the next decade. He says an “eye watering” amount of money is currently being spent dealing with illegal immigration (he talks about the operations in the English Channel and the amount of court and police time taken up).
Updated
Farage says Britain and France are 'colluding in support of criminal activity'
Farage accuses the British and French governments of “colluding in their support of criminal activity” in their response to small boats’ crossings, which he is framing as a crisis. The Reform party leader said:
And even as we speak, despite the £800m we have given the French, even as we speak, there are French naval vessels escorting these boats across to a 12-mile line where they will be picked up by Border Force or our volunteers for the RNLI if it’s a busy day and Border Force simply can’t cope.
And now what happens is the French give them all lifejackets, and when they’re picked up by Border Force, Border Force gives the lifejackets back to the French so they can reuse them on the next journey.
I mean we are literally witnessing two governments colluding in their support of criminal activity.
Farage says the growing anger over the last few weeks (seen through demonstrations outside hotels housing asylum seekers across the country) is a “cultural one”.
In the sense that many of these young men come from countries in which women aren’t even second-class citizens and frankly the public have now just had enough.
And what began as a protest of mothers and concerned citizens outside the Bell Hotel in Epping has now spread right across the country.
And all of it really poses one big, fundamental question: whose side are you on? Are you on the side of women and children being safe on our streets or are you on the side of outdated, international treaties backed up by a series of dubious courts.
Farage warns of a 'threat to public order' if small boats issue is not resolved
Farage said the mood around the country is a mix of “total despair” and “rising anger”. Without significant action from the government then he sad he fears the anger “will grow”.
Farage said:
In fact, I think there is now, as a result of this, a genuine threat to public order and that is the very last thing that we want.
And I have been saying of course for a long time that it is a growing threat to our national security.
And we have seen just recently some arrests of people who came by boat and they are suspected of being involved in some form of terrorism.
The news conference has started. Farage said 650 people arrived into Dover yesterday and said there are “many more boats” on the way today.
We are expecting to hear more from Nigel Farage shortly. He will lay out his plans to curb illegal immigration at Oxford airport this morning. We will have a live feed at the top of the blog you can follow along to.
Updated
Reform could pay Taliban to take back migrants, senior party figure suggests
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Zia Yusuf also suggested that a Reform government would pay the Taliban to accept the return of migrants who entered Britain illegally.
Asked how Reform would persuade countries to take back illegal migrants, Yusuf said simply: “We have a £2bn budget to offer countries”. Today presenter Anna Foster said this figure was a “drop in the ocean”, something Yusuf took issue with. He replied:
Not really. It’s not a drop in the ocean to Afghanistan. Certainly not a drop in the ocean for Eritrea, the two countries that are top of the list of boat crossings …
This country already gives £151m a year to Afghanistan in the form of foreign aid.
I think it is quite reasonable. Again, British people have had enough of their goodwill being taken advantage of.
The notion that Afghans top the list in terms of foreign nationals crossing the Channel illegally, the majority of them fighting aged males, into this country while this country gives £151m of aid to Afghanistan.
We don’t think that’s fair. And I put it to you I don’t think the majority of people listening to this programme think it’s fair.
Yusuf said Reform plans to send back all illegal immigrants to the countries from which they came by empowering the foreign office to use the £2bn the party allocated for the department to do “return deals”.
Updated
Zia Yusuf, head of Reform’s government efficiency department, has been on BBC Radio 4’s today programme where he was pressed about Reform’s controversial migrant return proposals.
He said his party’s plans would emulate what has happened in Germany, which sent back 81 Afghan nationals with criminal records earlier this year.
The BBC presenter Anna Foster said the 81 Afghans who were returned were those who committed crimes in Germany. She suggested that Reform’s example of emulating what the German government did was flawed as there are tens of thousands of “ordinary” Afghans in Britain.
“How many more flights do you need? You’re not talking about, we’re not about millions of Afghans here, right? We’re talking about … the low tens of thousands, right? That can absolutely be done,” Yusuf said.
“The notion that it cannot be done. That sort of no we can’t attitude is precisely why the country is in the state that it is in. What is the alternative? The alternative we just allow Afghan nationals – the vast majority fighting age males – to just continue to arrive on our beaches without invitation.”
How would a Reform UK government negotiate to be able to return migrants to countries like Iran and Afghanistan?
— BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) August 26, 2025
Zia Yusuf from Reform tells @annaefoster how the party would use a £2bn budget for those talks. #R4Today
Government to warn people in camps in northern France they risk being deported back across Channel
The Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, is reporting that ministers are planning to launch a mass communications campaign to people waiting in camps in northern France to warn them that they risk being deported back to France, though opposition parties have claimed the numbers will be roughly one in 17 of those crossing the Channel. Here is an extract from her story:
A government source said: “Detentions of those arriving from France have been taking place over the last 24 hours, so these three small boat migrants may end up finding themselves being bussed to a detention centre before the day is out.
“We are shortly launching a big communications campaign right along the northern French coast, warning those in camps that if they travel they will be returned to France and that the money they have paid to criminal smuggling gangs will have been wasted.”
The source denied that potential asylum seekers needed a fixed address to make the claim for a safe route and said all of those who applied received communication from the Home Office.
Many people making the dangerous journey across the Channel are trying to escape rapid climate change, famine, oppressive governments and war across Africa, Asia and the Middle East but the reasons motivating their migration are rarely featured in political commentary, much of which is demonising and dehumanising.
If you are looking for some more context, the Guardian’s home affairs editor, Rajeev Syal, has this explainer on what other factors are behind the rise in Channel crossings.
Updated
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook has confirmed that the first small boats arrivals have been detained to send back to France under the one in, one out migrant deal.
Here are some of the quotes he gave to Times Radio presenter Rosie Wright when asked how much more capacity there is in the system to detain more people who have crossed the Channel:
Well, there is capacity in the system. But as you know, the pressures that we have in the debate about hotel use and other forms of contingency accommodation.
But that contingency accommodation, including hotels, including large scale government owned sites … for example, Napier Barracks in Kent, are there.
The housing minister was then asked how confident the one in one out scheme is sufficient to deter migrants from crossing the Channel.
Well, it’s early days in terms of this pilot scheme getting up and running. We are confident that as part of a wider comprehensive plan, it will act as a deterrent. But don’t forget, the key elements of our strategy are not yet enforced.
Our borders bill, which will give law enforcement new counter terror style powers to tackle the gangs who are running this vile trade that’s still going through parliament. French authorities are still reviewing their laws so that border enforcement teams on their side of the Channel can intervene in shallow waters.
So taken as a whole, yes, the package, we are confident will work. It won’t be a quick, overnight fix, but we’re taking the unglamorous, hard headed, practical steps needed to clamp down on this crisis. In contrast, I have to say to parties trying to hoodwink the British public with unworkable gimmicks.
UK ready to deport 100 migrants back across the Channel - report
Under the growing pressure from Reform and internal pressure from some Labour MPs, Keir Starmer has made tackling illegal immigration and “restoring order” to the asylum system a key political priority.
The number of people who have crossed the Channel on small boats since Labour took office last summer has recently exceeded 50,000, a milestone that Starmer did not want to reach so quickly.
Under a new “one in, one out” pilot scheme set up between the British and French governments over the summer, France will accept the return of undocumented people arriving in Britain by small boats, in exchange for Britain agreeing to accept an equal number of legitimate asylum seekers with British family connections.
More than 100 asylum seekers have now been detained for deportation to France, the Times is reporting. The outlet says there are dozens of migrants in detention, including some arrested over the bank holiday weekend.
A government source told the Times:
Detentions of those arriving from France have been taking place over the last 24 hours, so these small boat migrants may end up finding themselves being bussed to a detention centre before the day is out.
Updated
Farage to unveil deportation plans as Reform suggests it is possible to remove all illegal immigrants from UK
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. Nigel Farage will outline Reform’s plans to tackle small boats crossings this morning, setting out his party’s stall for government if it wins the next general election, expected in 2029.
The Reform party leader has claimed that his plans will lead to the “mass deportation” of hundreds of thousands of migrants and will prevent anyone entering illegally from ever being able to claim asylum.
A central tenant of Farage’s platform is disapplying swathes of international law to make removals easier. How tenable these plans are remains to be seen as the party would likely face many legal obstacles.
Reform is promising to leave the European court of human rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply international treaties like the Refugee Convention.
Writing in the Telegraph, Farage said:
No longer will these malign influences be allowed to frustrate deportations. The planes will take off, and plenty of them at that.
The time has come to put this country first. This is all a question of priorities.
Is Keir Starmer on the side of the British people, national security and protecting women and girls – or is he on the side of outdated international treaties and human rights lawyers?
Reform only have four MPs but have had an outsized impact on Labour’s stance on illegal migration, pushing them to adopt ever more right-wing positions and intensify its rhetoric on the issue.
The government has set out its plan to close asylum hotels by the end of the parliament and the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a “one in, one out” returns deal with France last month.
But there is a rising political urgency around the issue as Reform continues to lead polls and asylum hotel demonstrations spread across the country.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast this morning, Zia Yusuf, head of Reform’s government efficiency department, insisted it is possible to remove all illegal immigrants from the UK despite Farage having previously called it a “political impossibility”.
“(Nigel Farage) said it was a political impossibility. His view on that clearly has decisively changed because of the facts on the ground and the fact that we’ve now done the work that this not only can be done, it must be done,” he said. “The social contract in this country is hanging by a thread.”
Yusuf said Reform UK would set up a new agency called the “deportation command” and that under the plans those who have entered the UK illegal would be detained and “not be allowed to roam around inside the community”.
He added:
And this is a temporary programme, so regardless where they are, regardless of the accommodation, they will be gone at the end of Nigel’s first term.
Updated
