Nigel Farage has threatened Pakistan with economic sanctions and visa restrictions as Reform UK unveiled plans to suspend Britain’s asylum system for five years, void outstanding applications and deport migrants awaiting decisions.
The proposals, announced at a conference in Hythe, Kent, would represent a sweeping overhaul of the UK’s refugee framework if Reform formed a government. The party says it would halt asylum processing for an entire parliamentary term, abolish existing legal refugee routes and asylum tribunals, and terminate resettlement schemes.
Countries that refuse to accept deported nationals could face tariffs, visa bans, and flight restrictions, with Pakistan among those facing potential pressure under the proposals.
Reform also intends to remove people whose asylum or humanitarian protection appeals remain unresolved rather than allowing their cases to proceed. Around 90,000 appeals are awaiting consideration, according to Home Office figures cited in the proposals.
The plan would extend beyond new arrivals. The party says it would review cases of refugees granted asylum over the previous five years, and those already admitted through resettlement programmes could also face deportation.
The proposals would put Reform on a collision course with existing refugee arrangements, including programmes Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently said would reopen. Around a quarter of expected arrivals through those schemes were reportedly due to be Palestinians, alongside Afghan women and girls.
Reform argues there is “no mandate” for the programmes.
Mr Farage also rejected the Government’s description of Channel crossings as a small-boats crisis, pointing to a replica of a vessel that he said had recently carried 230 people across the Channel.
“Can we please stop calling this a small boats crisis? It is not a small boats crisis,” he told the conference.
“And it doesn’t matter how much money we give to France.”
The party’s proposed sanctions would seek to force foreign governments to cooperate with deportations, using trade and travel restrictions as leverage. The announcement did not establish how such measures would be implemented or what diplomatic and economic consequences they might trigger.
Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, argued that successive governments had spent £32bn on the asylum system since 2010, money he said could have gone to defence or public services.
“Perhaps we’d feel safer if that money had been spent on our military,” he said, listing aircraft carriers, frigates, submarines, fighter jets and tanks as examples of what the sum could buy.
He also argued that the money could have funded 40 hospitals.
Mr Yusuf accused successive governments of leaving British citizens waiting for emergency treatment and housing while foreign nationals were prioritised.
Britain could not be a “refuge for the world” while “its own people die waiting for an ambulance”, he said.
“For too long, the British people have been told to wait forever, wait for the ambulance, wait for the operation, wait for a home, wait in their own country, while foreign nationals jump the queue.”
“The waiting ends with us.”
The proposals place immigration enforcement at the centre of Reform’s political offer. Their implementation, however, would raise substantial legal, diplomatic and operational questions, particularly over the removal of people with unresolved protection claims and the proposed abolition of asylum tribunals.
The party has yet to demonstrate how its proposed five-year suspension would operate in practice while meeting Britain’s legal obligations.
Leave a Comment