Nigel Farage threatens sanctions on Pakistan over migrant 'invasion' amid vow to shut down asylum system
Nigel Farage has threatened deploying sanctions on Pakistan over what he described as a migrant "invasion", amid plans to suspend Britain's asylum system for five years, including scrapping existing applications and deporting migrants awaiting decisions.
The Reform UK leader announced the proposals at a conference in Hythe, Kent, today, pledging to halt the asylum system for an entire parliamentary term if the party form a government.
With much of the influx coming from Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Reform leader threatened sanctions against countries who failed to agree to take back deportees, such as tariffs, visa bans and flight bans.
Under the plans, all active applications would be declared void, while legal refugee routes, asylum tribunals and existing resettlement schemes would be abolished.
The party said it would remove people with pending asylum and humanitarian protection appeals rather than process their cases.
Around 90,000 appeals are currently awaiting consideration, according to Home Office figures cited in the proposals.
Mr Farage would also immediately close resettlement programmes which Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently said would reopen.
Around a quarter of arrivals under the schemes were expected to be Palestinians, as well as Afghan women and girls.
The party argues there is “no mandate” for the programmes, and says those who have already arrived through them would also face deportation.
In addition, refugees granted asylum within the previous five years would have their cases reviewed by the Home Office.
Speaking at the conference, Mr Farage said: “Can we please stop calling this a small boats crisis? It is not a small boats crisis. Have a look at this behind me. This is a replica size of the boat carrying 230 people that recently crossed the English Channel.
“It is not a small boats crisis, and it doesn’t matter how much money we give to France.”
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Mr Farage insisted his 2020 description of small boat crossings as an “invasion” was justified, arguing the number of people arriving across the Channel has vindicated his warning.
He said: “It was on that day when on YouTube I said that this was going to be the beginning of an invasion, but you might as well put a sign on the White Cliffs of Dover saying ‘everybody welcome’.
“I remember the howls of indignation with which my comments were met - that somehow I’d lost touch with reality. I was desperately seeking a new political life now that Brexit was done, and of course much, much abuse.
“Well, now that over 200,000 have come, I can stand here and say I was right. I was well ahead of the rest of the pack.”
Explaining the party’s current position, Mr Farage said: “What Zia (Yusuf) and I are saying today is that we just want this to be a normal country. That’s all.
“Nothing radical or crazy. We want to get back to being a normal country, a country that puts national security at the top of the agenda, a country that does everything it can to protect its own citizens, and a country that detains and deports people that come illegally, as virtually every other country in the world does, and indeed, as we used to do.”
The Reform UK leader confirmed he has not sought advice from Donald Trump on how to implement mass deportations.
Asked by GB News at the Kent conference whether he had approached the US president for guidance, Mr Farage replied: “No is the answer to that.”
However, he praised the Trump administration’s approach to immigration control, saying: “We can disagree with many things the US president has said in recent times, but one thing he has done is control immigration.”
He claimed that six million undocumented migrants crossed the US southern border under Joe Biden, adding that crossings had now fallen to virtually zero each month.
Mr Farage also defended the administration’s handling of mass deportations, acknowledging there had been “one or two examples” highlighted by the press, but arguing that, overall, the approach had been “rather clever”.
Further clarifying the justification for the move, party home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf argued that Britain could not be a “refuge for the world” while “its own people die waiting for an ambulance”.
“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,” he said, "the waiting ends with us".
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