Reform UK’s shadow home secretary, Zia Yusuf, said on Monday that the damage done by open borders policies pursued by the “cowardly” establishment parties is “profound.” But, crucially, “they are not irreversible.”
He announced a range of new measures aimed at ending “the invasion,” perhaps the most noteworthy of which is a pledge to deport “over 600,000” illegal migrants during the party’s first term in office. That would amount to 120,000 removals every year for five years.
As part of this target, Yusuf also said countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants will be slapped with visa bans. And he repeated Reform’s pledge to remove Britain from the Strasbourg-based European Convention of Human Rights, which is behind many of the country’s most stupid migration failures.
Decades of Tory and Labour betrayal have broken Britain. There is a national security emergency at our borders, an epidemic of knife crime on our streets, public services collapsing under the weight of mass immigration and Islamist extremism being allowed to spread.
These measures would, if enacted, sharply distinguish Reform from both Labour and the Conservatives, who have spent years promising tougher border controls while delivering little in practice. That contrast could prove politically potent for Farage’s team, with local elections fast approaching.
But Reform splinter groups said today that even more will need to be done for Britain’s border to be brought completely under control.
Ben Habib, who was previously deputy leader of Reform and now leads the Advance UK party, on Monday shared part of a speech delivered earlier this month in which he said officials must declare a “national emergency” to allow them to “pass the laws that we need to pass to save the country being completely taken over by foreigners.”
Restore Britain, the new party of former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, also said that “the time for half-measures has gone,” adding: “Millions [of migrants] must go.”
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
