Reform UK would pay countries for migrant return deals

If Britain wins control, it will send payments to countries like Afghanistan as part of a scheme to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants to migrate. At a news conference, Nigel Farage, the party's leader, announced a five-year strategy to arrest and deport all migrants arriving in the UK without authorization. Reform UK will prohibit anyone who travels to the UK on small boats from claiming asylum and re-instating those people if they return them. Reform Britain claims it would make £2 billion available to put into returns contracts if it wins, with aid as an incentive and sanctions potentially levied on countries that do not co-operate.

Farage's proposal referred to illicit migration as a scourge in the United Kingdom.

The only way we can stop the boats is to detain and deport absolutely everyone who comes via that route,

Farage said.

And if we do that, the boats will stop coming in days because there will be no reward,

he said. Farage, who had previously stated that mass deportations were a political impossibility, said his party now had a credible agenda so that we can deport hundreds of thousands of people in the five years of a Reform government. Farage asked senior Reform UK figures Zia Yusuf if it was feasible to deport 600,000 people within five years, and in response, he said,

totally yes. People will be arrested on arrival, detained at disused RAF bases, and, if arrangements were made, people would be arrested and detained in their countries of origin, including Afghanistan and Eritrea, where a significant number of people on small boats originates. According to the party, it will install removal centers in remote areas of the country under plans to detain up to 24,000 people in a matter of 18 months. If people awaiting deportation could not be sent elsewhere, the party will also look to countries such as Rwanda and Albania to house migrants, as well as Ascension Island as a

fallback. Reform UK said that it would like to increase deportation charter flights to five per day. According to the party, a reform UK government would allow migrants the opportunity to return voluntarily and charge them £2,500 for doing so as part of a carrot and stick strategy. Reform said that the schemes would cost about £10 billion over five years, but that they could save the government money spent on asylum hotels and other services over the long run. The introduction of the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill is a deciding factor in the scheme. The bill, according to the UK, would make it a legal obligation for the home secretary to delete illegal migrants from entering the country for life and forbid anyone who had been barred from returning to the country permanently. The bill would also disapply international treaties such as the Refugee Convention, a 1951 treaty that has forbidden signatory countries like the United Kingdom from returning refugees to countries where they face serious challenges to their lives or freedom. Reform has promised to abandon the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), another treaty that seeks to safeguard human rights and political freedoms in order to make removals as simple. The treaty is a key piece of the UK's human rights legislation and has been used to stop attempts to deport migrants who are deemed to be in the UK unlawfully. According to the party, the Human Rights Act will be replaced by a British Bill of Rights, which would only apply to UK citizens and those with the right to live in the United Kingdom. The plans could face legal challenges and political resistance, with Labour branding it unworkable and the Conservatives accusing Reform UK of recycling their thoughts. According to housing minister Matthew Pennycook, the reform UK's scheme was based on other countries' refusal to allow deported migrants.

What happens if reform isn't able to reach peace with the Taliban in Afghanistan?

He said. Reform canstoke fear

on the subject, according to Mr. Trump, although Labour will take

unglamorous but concreteaction tobear down

on this issue. Reform, the Conservatives, was described as

reheating

proposals that had already been revealed and pursued. According to shadow home secretary Chris Philp MP, the Conservatives had already submitted a deportation bill, which detailed

how we will disapply the Human Rights Act from all immigration policy and deport every unlawful immigrant on arrival.

Months later, reform hasn't done the important work required to get a grip on the refugee crisis and instead have produced a copy and paste of our plans,

Philip said. Reform UK's scheme crumbles under the most basic scrutiny, according to Liberal Democrat deputy Daisy Cooper. Cooper said,

the belief that Reform UK will magic up some new places to detain people and deport them to is misleading,

Cooper said.

Deal with France

The arrival of migrants on small boats has contributed to an increase in asylum claims in recent years and has put pressure on the UK government to prohibit the crossings. So far this year, a record 28,288 people have crossed the English Channel in small boats, 46% more than by the same time in 2024. In the year to June, a total of 111,000 asylum applications were submitted. Labour has promised to combat small boat crossings by smashing the people-smuggling groups that facilitate crossings after being elected in July last year. With France's announcement last month that the government is planning to return the first migrants under a one in, one out pilot program. Ministers haven't decided how many people will be sent to France under the agreement, under which the UK will accept an equal number of asylum seekers who have not attempted to cross and can pass security and citizenship checks.