Recent UK immigration politics has focused largely on ‘getting numbers down’ by reducing the number of so-called ‘illegal’ entries, which usually involve people crossing the channel on small boats or on the backs of lorries. The government often refuses to acknowledge that the high number of ‘illegal’ entries is intrinsically linked to the lack of official routes provided for coming to the UK to claim asylum. And whilst those travelling by unofficial means may not abide by UK immigration law and documentation processes, international law states that asylum seekers cannot be punished or criminalised for the way they enter.
The 1951 Refugee Convention states that asylum seekers should not be discriminated against for their mode of entry into another country. People fleeing persecution have the right to travel to any country via any route possible in order to claim asylum, provided they inform the authorities of their presence upon arrival and have a good reason for seeking asylum.
Despite this, arrival in the UK by small boat crossings or other ‘clandestine’ routes across the Channel are frequently referred to as ‘illegal’ because the person entering does not have a valid visa in place. This is where the UK asylum system is deeply contradictory: it is not possible to claim asylum from outside the UK, and it is also not possible to obtain a visa before travelling to the UK to claim asylum.
dizzy: I suggest that people referring to small boat migrants as being illegal reflects more on their intolerance and prejudices that anything else.
Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.Keir Starmer refuses to be outcnuted by Nigel Farage’s chasing the racist bigot vote.
So begins another chapter in the liberation struggle. Released from bondage to the EU, Britain finds itself subjugated to a more insidious foe. The border that should have been sealed is wide open. The foreign hordes are still coming, but their passage is no longer directed by bureaucrats from Brussels. This time, national emancipation depends on breaking the tyranny of human rights lawyers.
That is the plot to Nigel Farage’s Brexit sequel, previewed on Tuesday in an airport hangar in Oxfordshire. The Reform UK leader laid out plans for “mass deportation” of migrants – all who arrive without permission, plus those who are here already and came by illicit channels.
Tens of thousands will be targeted. There would be cash incentives for anyone volunteering to leave. Refusers would be rounded up, detained in camps and flown to their countries of origin or, if those places won’t have them, some other place. A remote island, maybe. The exchequer would remunerate receptive governments.
If deportees face the likely prospect of torture or death on arrival, well, that would be unfortunate but not sufficient grounds to stop the flights.
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Are we really going to spend the next four years watching Farage leaf casually through the familiar playbook, running the same campaign to the fawning applause of the same courtier commentariat? Is it too much to expect a Labour government to raise, by way of rebuttal, the Reform leader’s proven failure as an arbiter of the national interest? We tried listening to him. His probity and judgment were sold as the product called Brexit. It turned out to be a piece of shit. Enough people already know this is the truth, but it would be liberating to hear it from the prime minister.
Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Ellie Chowns, Green Party MP for North Herefordshire. CC image Wikipedia.
Responding to plans announced by Nigel Farage to rip up swathes of international law and deport thousands of migrants if Reform UK ever gained power, Green Party MP Ellie Chowns said:
“More inflammatory rhetoric from Farage at a sensitive time in many communities. This dangerous toxic bluster is clearly aimed at whipping up anger, hatred and even disorder. The way he talks about asylum seekers – our fellow global citizens – is reprehensible.
“The policy proposals themselves are unworkable. They rely on ripping up swathes of international law and would likely face many legal obstacles in the UK courts that could use British common law to block such cruelty.
“Iran, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan and Syria feature in the top ten countries for asylum seekers in the UK – all places where people face oppression, conflict, extreme poverty or famine. Asylum claims from people arriving from these countries have high approval rates – almost 100% in the case of Sudan and Syria [1].
“Yet former Reform UK Chair Zia Yusuf has suggested that a Reform government would pay brutal regimes like the Taliban to accept the return of migrants – including unaccompanied children. They must know what could happen to these people when they are returned – they will likely be abused, tortured or executed.
“This is not who we are as a nation. The vast majority of the British public are willing to show compassion towards those fleeing the terrible situations they leave behind.”
Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.
Nigel Farage at the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Credit: Belga News Agency / Alamy
The Reform leader will be skipping Parliament again in favour of a conference in Washington DC.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will speak next week alongside the authors of Donald Trump’s plans to “dismantle the administrative state” and scrap climate policies.
Farage is a featured speaker at the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in Washington DC – at least his tenth visit to the U.S. since being elected as an MP.
As reported in The Mirror, Farage’s trip – during which he will also reportedly speak to Congress about free speech in the UK – means he will miss Parliament’s return from summer recess.
A version of this article was published by The Mirror
DeSmog’s analysis reveals that more than a fifth of the speakers at the NatCon event have roles at groups which contributed to Project 2025, the radical blueprint for Trump’s second term convened by the Heritage Foundation.
They include Russell Vought, Trump’s budget chief. Before entering office, Vought was a key author of Project 2025 and the vice president of Heritage Action, the campaign arm of the Heritage Foundation, whose president Kevin Roberts will be speaking at NatCon.
The listed speakers also include senior members of the Trump administration, including his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who launched her book For Love of Country at a Heritage Foundation event with Roberts last year; and Tom Homan, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who is a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a contributor to Project 2025.
NatCon is organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington DC. Its UK chairman James Orr runs the pro-Reform think tank the Centre for a Better Britain, is a close friend of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and recently told BBC Radio 4 that he admires the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. Farage spoke at a NatCon event in Brussels last year.
The lengthy Project 2025 policy document, titled ‘The Mandate for Leadership’, proposed reversing climate policies, unleashing fossil fuel extraction, scrapping investment in clean energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – policies imposed by the Trump administration.
As DeSmog has reported, 70 percent of Trump’s cabinet has ties to Project 2025, which also seeks to “dismantle the administrative state”, further restrict abortion, and access to contraception.
A Liberal Democrat source told DeSmog: “Nigel Farage is far more interested in pleasing Trump and jostling for his affections than he is in turning up to Parliament on time or standing up for British values.”
Farage in DC
Farage will speak on a panel alongside Larry Arnn, who sits on the Heritage Foundation’s board of directors.
It will be the second time Farage has shared a stage with Arnn following a fundraiser in September 2024 for the Heartland Institute, which also contributed to Project 2025 and has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting scepticism about man-made climate change”.
At the fundraiser, Farage claimed that the UK’s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions don’t “make any bloody difference at all” – and reiterated Trump’s call to “drill baby drill” for fossil fuels.
Farage and Trump have both denied basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while Trump has called climate change a “giant hoax”.
Next week’s event in Washington lists at least 22 speakers with current or recent roles at the Heritage Foundation and other Project 2025 member groups.
Other UK speakers at the event include Rupert Darwall, who has claimed there is “strong evidence for the non-existence of a climate crisis,” and former GB News presenter Calvin Robinson.
Senior members of the Conservative Party including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick and shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel have met with Heritage Foundation leaders or spoken at their events in recent years.
Reform UK did not reply to DeSmog’s request for comment.
Kevin Roberts – president of the Heritage Foundation
Russell Vought – director of the Office for Budget Management, and former vice president of Heritage Action
Tom Homan – director of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), and a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation
Christopher DeMuth – Heritage Foundation Fellow
John Backiel – visiting fellow for the Capital Markets Initiative at the Heritage Foundation
Robert Greenway – director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation
Rob Bluey – executive editor of the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal
Victoria Coates – vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy
Tom Klingenstein – chairman of the board of directors at the Claremont Institute
Spencer Klavan – associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books
Ryan Williams – president of the Claremont Institute and publisher of the Claremont Review of Books
John Eastman – senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and a contributor to the Heritage Guide to the Constitution
Will Thibeau – director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, and previously a policy analyst in the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center
Kristen Waggoner – CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom
Gene Hamilton – president and co-founder of America First Legal
Curt Mills — executive director of the American Conservative
Mark DiPlacido — policy advisor at American Compass, and a former Heritage Action staffer
Rachel Bovard — vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute
Rupert Darwall — strategy consultant and policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Mark Krikorian — executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies
Alex Petkas — a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America
Clare Morell — fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
UNIONS and charities condemned Reform’s “divisive and reckless” plans today to detain and mass-deport women and children.
Party leader Nigel Farage vowed to strip asylum-seekers of their human rights and spend £2 billion securing returns deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran should he become prime minister — leading to accusations he would be paying the likes of the Taliban to take in refugees.
His speech in London sparked outrage as he confirmed that “women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained” as he pledged to deport up to 600,000 asylum-seekers in the party’s first parliament if elected to government.
Yet PM Sir Keir Starmer refused to criticise Reform UK’s proposals to broker returns deals with countries with dire human rights records.
“We’re not going to take anything off the table in terms of striking returns agreements with countries around the world,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters.
But a spokeswoman for Momentum told the Star: “Farage’s Trump-like plan for ‘mass deportation’ is divisive and reckless.
“This is the far right’s playbook: scapegoat migrants and sow division in our communities.
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Launching his party’s plans alongside senior figure Zia Yusuf, Mr Farage said that everyone who arrives on a small boat would be detained, including women and unaccompanied children.
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The party would leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights which would apply only to British citizens and those who have a legal right to live in Britain.
They would also bring forward legislation to make everyone who arrives illegally ineligible for asylum and allow asylum-seekers to be detained until deportation.
Reform would also revoke the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture, and the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention, said Mr Yusuf.
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Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Keir Starmer refuses to be outcnuted by Nigel Farage’s chasing the racist bigot vote.
Nigel Farage unveils his mass deportations scheme