"We've got to prioritise the British people"
Reform UK has announced plans to suspend the UK’s asylum system for five years if it enters government, rejecting new applications and voiding existing claims.
The party said all asylum claimants would be marked for deportation, with no further grants of refugee status or humanitarian protection during the period. It would also end legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes.
Under the proposals, Reform would scrap the asylum tribunal system and deport 90,000 people with ongoing appeal cases.
The party said its existing plans to make migrants who entered the UK illegally, overstayed a visa or came from a safe country ineligible for asylum would effectively prevent any current claimant “from ever having their case heard”.
It said it would therefore “suspend the asylum system entirely for a full parliamentary term”.
Reform leader Nigel Farage and the party’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf will formally announce the proposals in a speech on October 12.
Farage said the UK is “facing a national security emergency” and “we cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose”.
Yusuf defended the proposals by arguing that the government should prioritise domestic issues, including pressure on emergency healthcare and housing affordability.
“We’ve got to prioritise the British people,” Yusuf said, pointing to Britons “dying totally avoidably waiting for emergency care” and young people “being forced to stay at home with their parents well into their 30s and 40s because they can’t afford to rent homes”.
He added: “We will not be returning people into harm, but we have to be honest about the fact that fraud is rampant.”
Yusuf also cited deportations under former US President Barack Obama as evidence that the proposals could be implemented, claiming they showed there was “precedent” for the party’s plans.
Reform said it would withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention. It said these changes would prevent legal challenges to its plans.
The party also proposed banning British visas for countries including Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan if they refused to allow deportation flights to land.
For countries without a significant legal foreign national presence in the UK, Reform said it would consider tariffs on goods and services in response to non-compliance.
Home Office staff currently responsible for processing asylum claims would be “reprioritised to reviewing and overturning previous refugee grants”, the party added.
Reform also said it would establish a specialist agency focused on detaining and deporting people in the UK illegally. It estimated that between 24,000 and 28,000 detention spaces would be needed.
The announcement builds on previous proposals to increase deportations if Reform wins the next general election.
In April, the party pledged an immediate review of asylum claims made over the previous five years, which it said could make around 400,000 people liable for deportation.
It had also proposed barring anyone arriving in the UK by small boat, suggesting this could lead to 600,000 deportations over five years.
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson criticised the proposals, calling them a “clear sign of desperation and weakness”.
Phillipson said Farage was “casting around for more and more extreme policies” as he faced questions about finances and competition from rival party Restore Britain.
She argued that Labour was demonstrating “we can control immigration and get numbers down with serious action, not by abandoning the asylum system altogether”.
Phillipson added that the “right approach” was “not giving up or caving to the most extreme voices, but ensuring that the rules we have are properly enforced”.
Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said Reform’s proposals “largely copy” his party’s policies.
He added: “Only the Conservatives have a serious and credible plan to fix our borders.”
The Conservatives previously pledged to task officials with removing 750,000 illegal immigrants within five years under deportation plans modelled on those pursued by US President Donald Trump.
