Nigel Farage condemned over 'toxic' deportation plans - 'This is not who we are'

Nigel Farage today unveiled a hard-right blueprint for mass deportations including plans to lock up women and children, and to pay the Taliban to take back migrants.

Flanked by mocked up airport boards for deportation flights, the Reform UK leader claimed 600,000 people could be detained and forcibly removed from the UK over five years if his party came to power. Mr Farage declared “I am the only party leader who has been clear and consistent on this issue" - despite saying last year that it was "literally impossible" to deport all illegal immigrants.

Speaking at London Oxford Airport, Mr Farage said: "If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period." He said the issue of “how we deal with children is much more complicated,” but added: “Women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.”

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Mr Farage suggested he was relaxed about sending failed asylum seekers back to countries where they could face torture. And he said he was happy for immigration squads to raid British towns to search for asylum seekers - because it is “what normal countries do.”

Charities accused Reform of exploiting public concern about illegal migration for political gain, warning: "This is not who we are as a country". Keir Starmer's spokesman said Mr Farage was resorting to "old gimmicks" by serving up reheated Tory policies that had left the asylum system in chaos.

Reform's "Operation Restoring Justice" plan was quickly exposed as full of holes as Mr Farage dodged questions on how it would work in practice.

Under the plans, Reform would scale up capacity to detain up to 24,000 people within 18 months in converted RAF bases, and increase deportation flights to five per day. But Mr Farage refused to name a single base, or say where deportation flights could leave from.

The party claimed it would cost £10 billion to implement but save £7 billion from the current spend on illegal migration in the first five years, rising to £42billion over the first decade. Asked about the details, Mr Farage joked the costs were accurate because his colleague Zia Yusuf is "really good at maths".

Reform said it could strike returns agreements with authoritarian regimes like Iran, which is facing sanctions from the UK, and Afghanistan to take back migrants - but failed to say British overseas territories like the remote Ascension Island in the South Atlantic could be used as a "fallback", the party said.

But it triggered accusations that Reform was betraying Britain's armed forces and fuelling the persecution of Afghan women and children by planning to strike a deal with the Taliban.

The plan involves ripping up human rights laws to make it easier to deport people, including leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which was drawn up after the horrors of the Second World War. The move, which would leave the UK in the company of Russia and Belarus outside of the convention, could risk peace in Northern Ireland by threatening the Good Friday Agreement.

The party would also disapply the 1951 Refugee Contention and the UN Convention Against Torture, and the Council of Europe's anti-trafficking convention. Immigration tribunals, the Home Office and even higher courts would be stripped of the right to consider asylum claims.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said: "The approach we're hearing is simply a repeat of policies pursued in previous years that left the asylum system paralysed, that left no one being returned, but left 400 hotels being opened at the cost of £9million a day to the taxpayer. We won't allow a repeat of that."

The spokesman added: "The PM's spoken before about the fact that illegal migration is a driver of insecurity. He said it undermines our ability to control who comes here and that makes people angry. He said it makes him angry frankly as it's unfair."

No10 said Mr Starmer recognises the pressure from asylum hotels bills and the strain on public services. "That's why we're taking serious, practical action to address the issue, not just returning back to the old gimmicks," he said.

Downing Street ruled out leaving the ECHR, with the PM spokesman saying: "The ECHR underpins key international agreements, trade, security and migration and the Good Friday Agreement. Anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious."

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper said: “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."

She 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.”

Kolbassia Haoussou, of Freedom from Torture, who fled torture and abuse in his home country of Chad, 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."

Enver Solomon, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, said: “Toxic narratives are fuelling fear and division across our country and real public concerns are being exploited for political gain. This rhetoric doesn’t make our streets safer - it simply dehumanises people who have fled war and persecution, many of whom are themselves survivors of violence."

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme Director at Amnesty International UK, accused both Reform and the Government of pursuing a cruel and irresponsible asylum policy.

He said: “The facts remain that the UK does not receive a disproportionate number of people seeking asylum – but since our leaders keep trying to simply avoid our country’s refugee responsibilities, people are being seriously and needlessly harmed while the taxpayer pays through the nose and smuggling gangs flourish.”

“The Prime Minister should end this race to the bottom and instead establish a fair and efficient system for processing the asylum claims and taking this country’s share of responsibility in the world.”

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