Farage sets out his mass deportation plan

In an Oxfordshire aircraft hanger this morning, Nigel Farage finally unveiled his party’s long-awaited deportations strategy. For six weeks, asylum and small boats has dominated the airwaves. Now, after a successful summer offensive, Farage laid out his plan to deal with the problems he has exploited so successfully. To stop the small boats, he is launching ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ – an initiative to enact mass deportations if Reform wins power. 

A five-page document was handed out to 200 attendees. It explains how Reform will leave the ECHR and disapply the Refugee Convention for five-years if elected in 2029. A new British Bill of Rights will be introduced, with all government departments required to make the migration crisis their number one ministerial priority. Some £2 billion will be put aside to achieve this goal. Aid and sanctions will be used as ‘carrot and stick’ to ensure cooperation from other countries.

Farage’s ambition is grand and so was his setting. He stood beneath a giant Union Jack, in front of a No. 10 style lectern, to give him his status as Prime Minister in waiting. Around him were departure gate boards, all listing flights to various foreign countries. The razzmatazz and spectacle was a marked contrast with recent Tory press conferences, held in various cramped rooms across Westminster and Whitehall. Farage was joined by Zia Yusuf, the former chairman who has spent six months labouring over this document. Both men gave 15-minute speeches, followed by an extensive round of questioning from the press. 

Unsurprisingly, many dwelt on the issue of illegal migrants returned to hostile regimes. Farage, echoing the line he articulated in the Times on Saturday was regretful but unapologetic about the need to deport those who come here illegally. Yusuf says that the ambition is for 600,000 people to be deported by the end of Reform’s first parliament. The Windrush scandal was, Farage accepted, a warning about the need for proper paperwork but an application of ‘common sense’ ought to ensure such cases are rare.

Today’s bold statement of intent will be followed by a barrage of questions. Some fear that a British Bill of Rights will merely empower the same ‘activist judges’ that Farage and his party decry. Others ask if there is a sufficient number of Border Force staff to ensure adult men can be detained. Nevertheless, Reform will be pleased with how today’s announcement has landed. Minor kinks, party figures acknowledge, will need to be ironed out in future. Yet the receptiveness of the public and the commentariat to Farage’s message suggests, as he so often says, that ‘something is happening out there.’

The party is determined to demonstrate that it has both the ambition and the will to achieve mass deportations. On today’s showing, they certainly have done that.