Reform UK to end asylum
Nigel Farage has pledged to impose a five-year ban on migrants being granted asylum and to deport 90,000 applicants immediately.
In his most stringent border policy to date, the Reform UK leader will declare a “national security emergency” and announce a suspension of all asylum tribunals, legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes.
The policy, which Mr Farage will announce on Monday, would mean tens of thousands of applicants would be immediately deported and any refugees granted asylum in the last five years would have their cases reviewed by the Home Office.
It would stop any new refugees settling in Britain and end grants of humanitarian protection – a legal status given to asylum seekers who do not qualify as refugees but cannot return to their home countries for safety reasons.
Legal resettlement routes, including the Homes for Ukraine scheme, will be abolished, although Ukrainians who have arrived in the UK since it launched in 2022 will be allowed to stay.
Mr Farage told The Telegraph: “The country is currently facing a national security emergency and the first duty of government is to protect its citizens.
“We cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose.
“A Reform government will always put British people first and protect our borders.
Under Reform’s plan, named “Restoring Justice”, all officials currently working on asylum cases would be tasked with “reviewing and overturning previous refugee grants”.
The party would also reverse the decision to reopen the UK resettlement scheme, which was announced by Shabana Mahmood last month to increase the number of legal Afghan and Palestinian refugees arriving in the UK.
The party has promised to deport up to one million people in its first parliamentary term by identifying undocumented residents and small-boat arrivals.
Under the new policy, the applications of 90,000 people currently on asylum waiting lists – many of whom are housed by councils – would immediately be voided and the claimants returned to their home country or a safe neighbouring country.
Reform says it would apply “maximum diplomatic pressure” to other countries to force them to accept asylum seekers returning, including by imposing visa bans on states that refuse to comply.
The party has singled out Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan as likely targets for visa bans because they each have large numbers of citizens in the UK.
Other countries with few nationals in the UK will be hit with tariffs to force them to accept returning asylum seekers, under Reform’s plans.
Official figures show that 93,525 people claimed asylum in the UK in the year ending in March 2026 – a 12 per cent decrease on the previous year.
Around 40 per cent of asylum applications are made by people who have arrived in the UK on small boats, and claims take an average of 72 weeks to clear the first tier of Britain’s asylum tribunal system.
In a speech on Monday, Mr Farage will also announce a review of the Afghan resettlement scheme, which Reform says has brought around 10 times the number of applicants to the UK than was intended by the previous Conservative government.
Afghans who worked with British forces in Afghanistan would be protected from deportation where their records have been verified by the Ministry of Defence, which Reform officials estimate will account for fewer than 1,000 people.
Where it is not safe for Afghans to be deported to their home country, they will be sent to a safe third country.
Mr Farage’s announcement comes after both Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch set out their priorities for government in party conference speeches.
Both party leaders largely avoided the issue of illegal migration and small boat crossings, which is usually an issue on which Reform polls better than other parties.
Mr Farage and Mrs Badenoch have both said they suspect Mr Burnham will call an election earlier than 2029, the end of the current Parliament, and hope to build momentum for their own parties before a vote is called.
At the Labour conference, Ms Mahmood said the new legal refugee route would be partly targeted at Afghan women and girls and Palestinians.
Reform says Ms Mahmood has “no mandate” to increase the number of legal refugees in the UK and argues that the scheme has been reopened “without any democratic consent whatsoever”.
Credit: The Telegraph
