Reform UK has said it would offer payments to countries like Afghanistan to enable “mass deportations” of migrants who arrive in the UK on small boats.
The party’s leader Nigel Farage set out a five-year plan to detain and deport all migrants who arrive in the UK without permission at a news conference in Oxford.
Under the plan, named Operation Restoring Justice, Reform UK would bar anyone who comes to the UK on small boats from claiming asylum, and strike deals with countries to return those people.
Reform UK says it would make £2bn available to put towards returns deals if it won power, with aid offered as an incentive and sanctions potentially imposed on countries that do not co-operate.
Launching his plan, Farage described illegal migration as a “scourge” on the UK.
“The only way we’ll stop the boats is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone who comes via that route,” Farage said.
“And if we do that, the boats will stop coming in days because there will be no incentive,” he added.
Under the plan, people would be arrested on arrival, detained at disused RAF bases and, if agreements were reached, returned to their countries of origin, including Afghanistan and Eritrea, where a significant number of people on small boats come from.
The party says it would build removal centres in remote areas of the country under plans to detain up to 24,000 people within 18 months.
The party would also look to countries such as Rwanda and Albania to house migrants, and seek to use British overseas territories such as Ascension Island as a “fallback” if people awaiting deportation could not be sent elsewhere.
Reform UK said it would aim to scale up deportation charter flights to five per day.
Key to the plan is the passage of a new law called the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.
Reform UK said the bill would create a legal duty for the home secretary to remove illegal migrants, and ban anyone who had been deported from re-entering the UK for life.
To make removals easier, Reform is promising to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act and “disapply” international treaties like the Refugee Convention for five years.
A Reform UK government would give migrants the option to return voluntarily and offer them £2,500 for doing so and pay for the cost of their flight, the party says.
Reform said the plans would cost about £10bn over five years, but would save the government money it spends on asylum hotels and other costs over the long term.
The proposals could face legal challenges and political opposition, with Labour branding it unworkable and the Conservatives accusing Reform UK of recycling their ideas.
The arrival of migrants on small boats has contributed to an increase in asylum claims in recent years and put pressure on the UK government to stop the crossings.
Nearly 28,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel on small boats since the start of the year, and a record 111,000 asylum applications were made in the year to June.
The latest Home Office figures show of those who claimed asylum in the UK in the year to June, about 40% arrived via small boat.
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