Nigel Farage has unveiled Reform UK’s most hardline immigration policy to date, promising mass deportations and a complete withdrawal from the international human rights codes that have long hindered Britain’s ability to control its borders. Under the “Operation Restoring Justice” plan, Farage vowed to “detain and deport” illegal migrants, stating that the era of open-door asylum policies is over.
The blueprint would abolish the Human Rights Act, introduced under Tony Blair, and pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights and its court in Strasbourg. Though not part of the European Union, the ECHR has continued to restrict Britain’s deportation efforts post-Brexit. Critics argue these legal constraints have allowed dangerous foreign criminals to remain in the country, undermining public safety.
Reform UK’s proposal places a legal obligation on the Home Secretary to remove illegal entrants. Farage said the plan would result in hundreds of thousands of deportations, carried out by five chartered flights daily. Illegal migrants would be held in prefabricated detention centers on former Royal Air Force bases, without access to bail or asylum claims.
The proposed Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill would criminalize undocumented entry and re-entry after deportation. The party also plans to negotiate returns agreements with countries like Eritrea, Afghanistan, Rwanda, and Albania, and even consider offshore processing on Ascension Island.
Voluntary self-deportation would be incentivized with a tracking app and £2,500 cash payments. Reform estimates the cost at £10 billion over five years—roughly the same as the U.S. spends on similar efforts—arguing it’s cheaper than maintaining the current asylum system.
With Reform dominating the polls and public frustration over migration reaching a boiling point, Farage declared: “There is only one way to stop people coming into Britain, and that is to detain them and deport them.”
