UK’s Farage outlines tough immigration plan with mass deportations of asylum seekers

Former Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage has pledged to carry out “mass deportations” of migrants arriving in Britain on small boats, should his Reform UK party form the next government.

In an interview with The Times, Farage said he would pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights and negotiate repatriation agreements with Afghanistan, Eritrea and other key countries of origin for migrants.

“We can be nice to people, we can be nice to other countries, or we can be very tough … I mean (U.S. President Donald) Trump has proved this point quite comprehensively,” he said.

Asked about the risk of asylum seekers facing torture or death if returned to countries with poor human rights records, Farage replied that he was more concerned about the safety of Britons. “I can’t be responsible for despotic regimes all over the world. But I can be responsible for the safety of women and girls on our streets,” he said.

The UK has seen protests outside hotels housing asylum seekers in recent weeks, fuelled by public safety concerns after some migrants were charged with sexual assault. Immigration and asylum have overtaken the economy as the public’s biggest concern, with Reform UK — which secured five seats in last year’s general election, topping recent opinion polls.

According to official figures analysed by the University of Oxford, 37,000 people — mostly from Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Vietnam and Eritrea, crossed the English Channel from France last year.

The number was up 25% from 2023 and accounted for 9% of net migration. About two-thirds of small boat arrivals who seek asylum are granted it, while only 3% have been deported.

Farage told The Times he would abolish the right to claim asylum for those arriving by small boats and bar them from challenging deportation. He proposed replacing existing human rights laws, withdrawing from international refugee treaties, and creating holding facilities for 24,000 migrants on air bases at a cost of £2.5 billion ($3.4 billion). His plan also includes running five deportation flights daily to remove “hundreds of thousands.”

As a fallback, he suggested asylum seekers could be detained on Ascension Island, a remote British territory in the South Atlantic, as a “symbolic message.”

With inputs from agencies