Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has described illegal immigration as a “scourge” which is affecting the country on a “historic and unprecedented” scale.
Farage will outline his party’s plans to tackle small boats crossings later on Tuesday, pledging to detain and deport people coming into the UK illegally.
He will also propose significant legal changes and question whether Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is on the side of human rights lawyers or the British people.
To make removals easier, 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.
With four MPs, Reform UK is a small force in the Commons.
But polling suggests its popularity has grown significantly – so significantly that Farage talks in today’s Daily Telegraph about what he plans to do if his party wins power at the next general election.
Farage wants to introduce a legal obligation on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to remove people who arrive illegally – an approach which was tried by the last Conservative government.
Reform also wants to ban anyone entering illegally from ever being able to claim asylum.
“Under these new plans, if you come to the UK illegally you will be ineligible for asylum. No ifs, no buts,” Farage wrote in the Telegraph, as he called on politicians to put the UK first.
Labour said Reform’s plans had been written on the back of a fag packet – and there was no substance on delivery.
Government minister Matthew Pennycook said the plan relied on other countries agreeing to accept deported migrants.
He told BBC Breakfast: “What happens if Reform cannot in that scenario negotiate returns agreements with the Taliban in Afghanistan? What happens if they can’t get a returns agreement with Iran, a country currently being sanctioned by the UK?”
He said Reform could “stoke anger” on the issue, while Labour would take “unglamorous but practical” steps to “bear down on this problem”.
Meanwhile, the Tories said Reform was recycling their ideas in a “desperate attempt to chase headlines”.
“Reform UK has clearly not done the serious thinking about securing our borders,” said shadow home secretary Chris Philp.
Farage said the country faced “a national emergency in which uncontrolled illegal migration undermines public order”.
“The scourge of illegal migration that we have seen in this country over the last five years is historic and unprecedented,” he wrote.
Zia Yusuf, head of Reform’s government efficiency department, told the BBC that “phase one” of the deportation programme would involve lone adult migrants – while unaccompanied children would “probably” be included later.
Asked whether Reform was comfortable sending migrants back to places where they could face persecution, such as Afghanistan, Yusuf said: “We’re not going to embark on a plan with the intent of sending anyone to that fate, but we’ve got to prioritise the British people and we make no apologies for that.”
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said that while immigration was a concern among the British public, “prominent politicians are… giving it greater salience”.
Mr Solomon told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that when people feel “key issues” such as the economy and the NHS are not being addressed, “they easily see a traction in arguments that become about labelling migrants as the root of all problems”.
He said the UK should focus on how it can support those “genuinely fleeing torture and persecution and war”, and that those who arrive in the UK “need to have the right to have [their] case heard”.
Nearly 28,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel since the start of year.
Meanwhile, more than 50,000 migrants have come to the UK via this route in the 403 days since Labour came to power in July 2024.
The prime minister had made tackling illegal immigration and “restoring order” to the asylum system a priority for the government.
Under a new “one in, one out” pilot scheme set up between the British and French governments, some people who come into the UK in small boats will be detained and sent back to France.
Ministers are said to be ready to send more than 100 small boats arrivals back across the Channel, The Times reports.
The group are currently in detention, including some arrested over the weekend, the paper says.
Official Home Office figures show that more than 2,500 migrants crossed the Channel in the first 11 days the agreement took effect.
On Monday, Labour said it was planning an overhaul of the asylum appeals system as it tries to cut the number of migrants staying in hotels while they await a ruling.
The government has been under increasing pressure to reduce its reliance on asylum hotels, with demonstrations held across the UK over the weekend the latest in a wave of protests over the policy.
