Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has caught ‘uniparty’ on the hop, writes Jonathan Saxty (Image: Getty)
Reform has caught uniparty allies – Labour and the Tories – on the hop by promising the swiftest illegal immigrant crackdowns to date and reintroducing sanity back into Britain. Taking an axe to the whole asylum “scam”, Reform leader Nigel Farage and shadow home secretary Zia Yusuf said a Reform government would abolish our broken asylum system, void all current and new applications, while making applicants immediately liable for deportation.
Reform will also mandate the immediate deportation of all foreign offenders regardless of prison sentence length and undertake a full population audit to identify those residing in the UK illegally. Farage said a Reform government would apply maximum pressure to other countries to force them to accept the return of illegal immigrants, including with visa bans and tariffs on countries which refuse to comply.
Yusuf pledged to close all UK resettlement schemes, including the UK Resettlement Scheme which home secretary Shabana Mahmood reopened. Anyone who has arrived in the UK through these routes will have their right to remain revoked and be deported. This comes as figures show that under new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the average daily arrival rate for illegal immigrants has surged by 70%. During Sir Keir Starmer’s 200 days in office of 2026, just over 60 illegals arrived on average per day into the UK.
Yet in Burnham’s first 80 days as PM, an average of roughly 105 is arriving every 24 hours. Put another way, Burnham has overseen illegal immigrant arrivals equivalent to over two-thirds of Starmer’s total, despite having served for less than half as long.
Nigel Farage is now demanding a massive change. Under Reform’s Operation Fortress, the Royal Navy and Royal Marines would also intercept small boats and return them to safe country France. The policy would see asylum hotels closed and Britain leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to remove all barriers to deportation.
How is this even controversial? Australia stopped its small boat crisis years ago and no government ever restarted the madness. Across Asia, island states like Japan, Singapore and Taiwan have no illegal immigrant crisis since their governments protect their borders and people.
Reform’s pledge also goes way beyond Tory plans. While the Conservatives say they will leave the ECHR and stop the boats, Kemi Badenoch and the vast majority of her team served in the very Conservative government which oversaw the immigration explosion and had 14 years to leave the ECHR yet never did.
As for Labour, let’s not go there. Illegal immigration continues apace, with ‘Open Borders’ Andy Burnham egging on an invasion of fighting aged men and housing them at taxpayers’ expense. It seems only Reform has a plan fit for the scale of the crisis we face.
Open door immigration under both the Conservatives and Labour is making Britain – like the rest of the Western world – both more dangerous and poorer. This is surely no time for half measures. Britain needs a correction.
Nigel Farage Has Caught Labour and the Tories on the Hop With This Bold Plan
Nigel Farage has put immigration back at the centre of Britain’s political debate with a far-reaching proposal that challenges both Labour and the Conservatives to explain how they would tackle unauthorised migration. The Reform UK leader’s plan goes beyond promises to strengthen border controls, setting out proposals to overhaul the asylum system, increase deportations and use diplomatic and economic pressure on countries that refuse to accept their citizens back.
The announcement has sharpened an already intense argument about national borders, human rights and the responsibilities of government. Supporters see the proposals as a decisive response to years of frustration over small-boat crossings and asylum accommodation. Critics warn that implementing them could create serious legal, humanitarian and practical difficulties.
The political significance is that Farage is attempting to distinguish Reform UK from the established parties by presenting immigration as a problem requiring fundamental change rather than further adjustments to the existing system.
A Plan That Goes Beyond Stopping the Boats
On October 12, 2026, Farage announced that a Reform UK government would suspend the granting of asylum for up to five years as part of a wider immigration crackdown. The proposals included voiding around 90,000 pending asylum applications, automatically rejecting new claims under the proposed system and seeking to deport people who had no right to remain in the country. Reuters reported the announcement as a central element of Reform’s immigration strategy. <Cite refs={[“turn866348news7”]}/>
The party has also proposed reviewing the status of some people previously granted asylum, abolishing most legal resettlement routes while retaining an exception for Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s full-scale invasion, and expanding enforcement against people it considers to be in the UK unlawfully.
These are proposals, not measures already in force. They would require legislation, administrative capacity and arrangements for removing people from the country. Their compatibility with domestic and international legal obligations would also be central to any attempt to implement them.
Nevertheless, the breadth of the announcement has ensured that the debate is no longer confined to the question of how to intercept small boats in the English Channel. It now concerns the entire process through which people seek asylum, receive decisions and, where legally justified, are removed from the UK.
Why Labour Is Under Pressure
For Labour, immigration is a difficult political issue because the government must demonstrate that it can manage the border while respecting the law and protecting people who genuinely qualify for international protection.
The small-boats issue has become a visible measure of public confidence in the government’s ability to control migration. Images of inflatable boats crossing the Channel, alongside continuing disputes about asylum accommodation, have kept the subject in the headlines.
Farage argues that previous governments have failed to deliver sufficient change. His approach is designed to challenge Labour to show whether its existing policies can reduce crossings and improve the speed and effectiveness of decisions.
Labour has rejected Reform’s proposals. Following the announcement, party chairwoman Bridget Phillipson described the plans as an abandonment of protections for people fleeing war and persecution, arguing that they raised serious questions about the values underpinning Britain’s asylum system. <Cite refs={[“turn866348search5”]}/>
The disagreement reflects two different approaches. Reform argues that deterrence and rapid removal are essential if the system is to regain public confidence. Labour maintains that border enforcement must operate alongside legal obligations and protections for vulnerable people.
The practical test for the government is whether it can demonstrate measurable progress on crossings, processing times, returns and the cost of accommodation. Simply criticising Reform’s proposals may not be enough to answer voters who want to know whether the current system is working.
At the same time, adopting a more restrictive policy does not automatically guarantee results. Any approach must account for the availability of detention facilities, the cooperation of other countries, legal challenges and the circumstances of individual asylum claims.