Farage unveils small boats plan, pledging mass deportations and overhaul of human rights law
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage set out the plans at a press conference in Oxfordshire on Tuesday, as ITV News Political Correspondent Harry Horton reports
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has unveiled his party's plan to tackle the small boats crisis, promising mass deportations and an overhaul of human rights law, if his party wins the next election.
At a press conference in Oxfordshire on Tuesday, Farage announced his party would leave the European Convention on Human Rights and scrap the Human Rights Act to prevent legal challenges.
While Reform only has four MPs in Parliament, polls over the past few months have put the party around 30%.
Speaking alongside Reform's Head of Government Efficiency Zia Yusuf, Farage said: "If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never ever allowed to stay."
The Reform leader described the small boats crisis as a "growing threat to our national security" and a "genuine threat to public order".
Nigel Farage has warned of a "genuine threat to public order" without action to tackle illegal migration, as ITV News Political Correspondents Shehab Khan and Harry Horton report
What would the plans entail?
Dubbed 'Operation Restoring Justice', Farage says his plan is a "five-year emergency programme to track down, detain and deport all illegal migrants in the United Kingdom."
Reform says some 600,000 asylum seekers could be deported in the first parliament of a Reform UK government.
The party aims to replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights, which would only apply to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in the UK.
The plan would be executed through a new enforcement unit called the 'UK Deportation Command', with asylum seekers offered £2,500 to board deportation flights back to the countries they came from, or to third countries such as Rwanda or Albania.
The party say they would use aid as an incentive to countries to take back asylum seekers, with further threats of blocking visas or introducing sanctions if they do not comply.
The plan would see migrants housed in old military bases before they were deported - Reform says these sites would hold 24,000 people within 18 months at a cost of £2.5 billion.
Reform UK would also create a “data fusion centre” which would draw together data from the police, Home Office, NHS, DVLA, HMRC and banks to track down people staying in the UK illegally.
When pressed on the parameters of the mass deportation plans by ITV News Political Correspondent Harry Horton, Farage conceded: “How far back you go with this is the difficulty, and I accept that.”
Farage also confirmed that women and children would be detained as part of the plans - "I've accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue," he said.
How much would it cost?
Farage says the whole plan would cost £10 million, but save £7 billion currently spent on illegal migration during the first five years.
But the government has criticised the announcement as "back-of-the-fag-packet plans", and "unworkable gimmicks."
Asked why he was confident his sums add up, Farage replied: "Because Zia is really good at maths."
Could the plans see people sent back to 'despotic regimes'?
Farage's press conference was dominated by questions from journalists about the party's plan to pay countries like Afghanistan and Iran to take back migrants.
The nationalities making up the highest proportions of those claiming asylum in the UK are Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and Bangladesh. While the highest number of small boat migrants come from Afghanistan.
Asked if he was comfortable sending people back to countries where they could face torture or even death, Reform's Richard Tice told Harry Horton: "The role of the British government is to look after British people - British women, British girls.
"There are uncomfortable things that happen elsewhere in the world, that it not our job to govern the whole world," he said.
Tice claimed most of the people crossing the channel are not "genuine asylum seekers", because they've travelled through safe countries like France to get to the UK.
According to the independent Migration Observatory, between 2018 and 2024 the asylum grant rate for people arriving by small boat was 68% - higher than the average grant rate of 48% for initial asylum claims in the UK.
The charity the Refugee Council say that of the 27.1 million refugees who have been displaced around the world, only 1% are living in the UK. That's because the vast majority of people seek asylum in neighboring countries.
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What's the government's response?
Responding to Farage's speech, the prime minister's official spokesman said the PM "understands and shares the frustration people feel about levels of illegal migration."
Number 10 declined to condemn some of Farage's language, but ruled out leaving the ECHR and hit out at the Reform leader over his suggestion he would renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement, which is underpinned by the human rights legislation.
The PM's spokesman said "anyone proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious", and the government is focused on "serious practical steps".
Downing Street also didn't rule out striking returns deals with Afghanistan and Eritrea, saying "we're not going to take anything off the table."
Ellie Reeves MP, Chair of the Labour Party said: “Nigel Farage can’t say where his detention centres will be, can’t say what will happen to women and children, and can’t say how he’ll convince hostile regimes like Iran to take people back.
“Only this Labour government is committed to restoring order and fairness to the asylum system.
"We’ve already returned more than 35,000 people with no right to be here - a 28% increase in returns of failed asylum seekers in just one year - and will end the use of asylum hotels by the end of the Parliament.”
What are other parties saying?
The Conservatives accused Reform UK of recycling Tory plans to tackle immigration: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch 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,” Ms 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.
Liberal Democrat spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: “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.”
She also hit out at the plan to pay countries like Afghanistan to take back migrants: “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.”
Why have tensions been rising over asylum hotels?
Concern about the small boats crisis and community tensions triggered by the number of asylum seekers living in hotels has mounted in recent weeks.
Protests at an asylum hotel in Epping sparked a further wave of protests across the UK, which continued at the weekend.
The government is braced for further legal fights over the use of hotels, after Epping Forest Council won a High Court challenge against the use of the Bell Hotel for asylum seekers.
ITV News understands at least 30 other councils are considering the implications of the Epping Ruling, with many actively looking at legal action.
The government is reportedly ready to send more than 100 small boats arrivals back across the Channel as part of Sir Keir Starmer's one-in-one-out pilot deal with France, according to The Times.
The newspaper reported that a group of 100-plus migrants currently in detention, including some arrested over the weekend, could be among the first to be sent back to France under the scheme.
YouGov polling released over the weekend found that 71% of voters believe the Prime Minister is handling the asylum hotel issue badly, including 56% of Labour supporters.
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