Reform UK has announced plans to effectively close down the UK's asylum system for a full parliamentary term if elected. The party said all new asylum applications would be rejected and existing applications voided, with all claimants marked for deportation. It said no grants of humanitarian protection or refugee status would be made, while legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes would end.
Reform said it would also scrap the asylum tribunal system and deport 90,000 people currently with appeal cases, with home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf saying "Britain is full". Labour called the proposals a "clear sign of desperation and weakness" and the Refugee Council branded them "unworkable". Reform said its existing plans to make migrants who have entered the UK illegally, overstayed a visa or originated from a safe country ineligible for asylum would effectively prevent any current asylum claimant "from ever having their case heard".
The party said it would therefore "suspend the asylum system entirely for a full parliamentary term". A parliamentary term usually lasts five years unless an early UK general election is called. Under further proposals, Reform said it would pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention to prevent legal challenges to its plans.
The party said it would ban British visas for countries such as Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan if they refuse to allow deportation flights to land in their country. For countries without a significant legal foreign national presence in the UK, the party said it would consider asset freezes and potential tariffs on goods and services for non-compliance. Announcing the plans in a speech in Hythe, Kent on Monday, party leader Nigel Farage said the UK is "now living in a national security emergency".
"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 citizens." He claimed the plans were "going to save us a fortune" but declined to say how many civil servants would be required to process the deportations, other than that Home Office staff currently overseeing asylum claims would be reprioritised. In a speech, Yusuf said he would "have to embark on the biggest mass deportation programme this country has ever seen" if made home secretary but "we will not be returning people to harm". "We've got to prioritise the British people," Yusuf said, pointing to Britons facing long waits for emergency care and people in their 30s and 40s having to live at home because of rent prices.
He claimed the millions of unauthorised immigrants deported under former US President Barack Obama's administration showed there was "precedent" for the party's plans. Reform also said it would create a specialised agency focusing on the detention and deportation of those in the UK illegally, with 24,000 to 28,000 detention spaces needed - but is unclear how this would provide enough capacity. Between 1 January and 5 October 2026, a total of 20,478 people crossed the English Channel by small boat from France.
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