Nigel Farage\u2019s plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, including women and children, and withdraw the UK from vital human rights protections have triggered fierce condemnation from campaigners, legal experts and political opponents, who said the proposals would dismantle Britain\u2019s postwar commitments and shred fundamental rights.<\/p>\n
Unveiling Reform UK\u2019s \u201cOperation Restoring Justice\u201d at a combative Oxford press conference, Farage claimed his party would detain and deport \u201cabsolutely anyone\u201d arriving by small boat and ensure they are \u201cnever, ever allowed to stay\u201d, insisting this would stop crossings \u201cwithin days\u201d and \u201csave tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pressed by reporters, Farage confirmed that women and children would also be detained under the plans, conceding that \u201chow we deal with children is a more complicated and difficult issue\u201d but insisting all arrivals would be subject to removal.<\/p>\n
But Farage repeatedly dodged questions about how the scheme would work in practice. He was unable to name a single RAF base to be converted into secure detention facilities, despite insisting they would be central to his plans.<\/p>\n
He offered no detail on how Reform would secure deportation agreements with countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan, many of which have no return treaties with the UK and are considered unsafe by British courts. Farage could not explain how Reform\u2019s scheme would be funded, beyond claiming costs would be a fraction of independent estimates.<\/p>\n
Reform\u2019s leadership 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, with senior party figure Zia Yusuf declaring that \u201cno lawyer and no judge\u201d would be able to prevent deportation flights from leaving.<\/p>\n
George Peretz KC, the chair of the Society of Labour Lawyers, said: \u201cThe Reform party\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cReform\u2019s 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).\u201d<\/p>\n
Kolbassia Haoussou, the director of survivor leadership at Freedom from Torture, called the plans \u201ca gift to repressive regimes\u201d and said Britain would be abandoning one of humanity\u2019s \u201cclearest moral lines\u201d. He said: \u201cThis is not who we are as a country.<\/p>\n
\u201cMen, 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. 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 the promise to defend our shared right to live a life free from torture.\u201d<\/p>\n
The human rights lawyer Adam Wagner KC said Reform\u2019s promises were not only \u201clegally extreme\u201d but fundamentally misleading.<\/p>\n
\u201cA 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,\u201d he said. \u201cFarage may believe repealing treaties clears the path for mass deportations, but UK courts are not bound to ignore centuries of legal tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n
Politicians swiftly challenged the scale and practicality of the plans.<\/p>\n
Downing Street accused Nigel Farage of not being \u201cserious\u201d about his plans to deport asylum seekers, saying that leaving thefECHR would undermine peace in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n
The prime minister\u2019s spokesperson criticised the Reform leader on Tuesday, saying that any plan that required leaving the ECHR was bound to fail.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ECHR underpins key international agreements on trade, security and migration \u2013 and the Good Friday agreement,\u201d Downing Street said. \u201cAnyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday agreement is not serious.\u201d<\/p>\n
No 10 refused, however, to criticise other elements of Farage\u2019s speech, including his references to irregular migration as an \u201cinvasion\u201d and a \u201cscourge\u201d, as well as his prediction that Britain is \u201cnot far away from major civil disorder\u201d.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Asked about those comments, the spokesperson said: \u201cWe have to recognise the strength of feeling about this and the pressure that it puts on public services. That\u2019s why we are taking the serious, practical action to address this issue, and not just returning back to the old gimmicks, the old slogans that failed to deal with this and left us with the crisis that we currently face.\u201d<\/p>\n Pushed on whether it would be a good idea to sign a returns deal with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, as Farage has suggested, Downing Street said: \u201cWe\u2019re not going to take anything off the table in terms of striking returns agreements with countries around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: \u201cFarage\u2019s plan crumbles under the most basic scrutiny.<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea that Reform is going to magic up places to detain hundreds of thousands of people and deport them to countries who haven\u2019t agreed to take them 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Farage claims the programme would deport up to 600,000 asylum seekers in a single parliament, yet the costings remain opaque.<\/p>\n