{"id":177769,"date":"2025-08-26T19:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/177769\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T19:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T19:09:10","slug":"uks-hard-right-reform-party-says-it-will-mass-deport-migrants-if-it-wins-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/177769\/","title":{"rendered":"UK’s hard-right Reform party says it will mass-deport migrants if it wins power"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (AP) \u2014 Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain\u2019s hard-right Reform UK party<\/a>, said Tuesday that if he wins the next election he will leave the European Convention on Human Rights and immediately detain and deport anyone who arrives in the country illegally, including children.<\/p>\n

Farage laid out his plans following a significant rise in migrants who arrive by boat across the English Channel, and weeks of protests<\/a> over the government\u2019s use of hotels to house asylum-seekers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you come to the U.K. illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period,\u201d Farage told a press conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mood in the country around this issue is a mix between total despair and rising anger,\u201d he added, claiming there is now \u201ca genuine threat to public order\u201d if no action is taken.<\/p>\n

He said the issue of \u201chow we deal with children is much more complicated,\u201d but added: \u201cWomen and children, everybody on arrival will be detained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite holding just four of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, Farage<\/a> \u2018s party has gained momentum by seizing on public frustration over successive governments\u2019 inability to bring down the number of migrants coming by boat. National polls have suggested that support for Reform equals or surpasses that of the ruling Labour Party and the Conservatives.<\/p>\n

The party hopes to displace the Conservatives as the country\u2019s main party on the right by the next national election, due by 2029.<\/p>\n

Farage, who has long sought to link problems such as public health care and housing to migrant arrivals, reiterated his stance that the U.K. is being \u201cinvaded\u201d by migrants. He said he would introduce policies to mass deport hundreds of thousands of people over the first five years of being in government.<\/p>\n

Reform will leave the ECHR and repeal or \u201cdisapply\u201d all other rights treaties to bar all asylum claims and ensure migrants who arrive without authorization are deported, he added. It will scale up the capacity of detention facilities and secure deals with countries including Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants, Farage said, without offering details.<\/p>\n

Asked about the prospect of asylum-seekers being tortured or killed if they were sent back to countries they fled, Farage said: \u201cThe alternative is to do nothing … We cannot be responsible for all the sins that take place around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost 29,000 people have crossed the English Channel by boat in 2025, up about 50% from the same period last year. On Monday, 659 migrants arrived in the U.K. by boat.<\/p>\n

A much larger number of people \u2014 over 111,000 \u2014 applied for asylum in the U.K. in the year up to June, official figures show.<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s deportation plans echo similar tough migration policies by Germany,<\/a> which deported dozens of Afghan men to their homeland last month.<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has ditched the previous Conservative administration\u2019s flagship plan<\/a> to send migrants who arrived by unauthorized means to Rwanda. Instead, he has pinned hopes on a deal agreed with France last month<\/a> to send some migrants who cross the English Channel on dinghies and inflatable boats back to France.<\/p>\n

U.K. officials have suggested the \u201cone in, one out\u201d plan is a major breakthrough, despite the initial program involving a limited number of people.<\/p>\n

The government is also looking to speed up the processing of asylum claims. Officials have housed tens of thousands of migrants awaiting their asylum outcome in hotels at public expense. Tensions over the policy have long simmered, but tipped into protests<\/a> in recent weeks after a hotel resident was charged with sexual assault after he allegedly approached a 14-year-old girl and tried to kiss her.<\/p>\n

The man, 38-year-old Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, attended a court hearing Tuesday. He has denied the charges.<\/p>\n

Anti-migrant demonstrations, as well as counterprotests, have flared after local authorities won a temporary injunction<\/a> last week to shut down the Bell Hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London.<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s plans were dismissed by other political parties as lacking in substance and condemned by rights groups.<\/p>\n

\u201cMen, women and children are coming to the U.K. looking for safety. They are fleeing the unimaginable horrors of torture in places like Afghanistan, Sudan and Iran, and they desperately need our protection,\u201d said Kolbassia Haoussou at the nonprofit Freedom from Torture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain\u2019s hard-right Reform UK party, said Tuesday that if he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":177770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18808,100744,57,409,17723,12489,50,25930,80,2068,376,4338,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-177769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asylum","9":"tag-english-channel","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-keir-starmer","13":"tag-migration","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nigel-farage","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-race-and-ethnicity","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-united-kingdom-government","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115096647443921454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}