Key facts
- Reform UK plans to suspend the UK's asylum system for a full parliamentary term.
- All new asylum applications would be rejected and existing ones voided.
- Claimants would be marked for deportation.
- The party would scrap the asylum tribunal system.
- Reform UK would withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
- The party would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Reform UK has announced plans to close down the UK's asylum system for a full parliamentary term if it were to enter government. The party stated that all new asylum applications would be rejected, existing ones voided, and all claimants marked for deportation, which Reform said would effectively suspend the asylum system.
Reform would scrap the asylum tribunal system, which hears asylum appeal cases, and claimants in more than 90,000 outstanding appeals would be deported. The party said no grants of humanitarian protection or refugee status would be made.
Party leader Nigel Farage said the UK is "facing a national security emergency" and "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." Home Office staff who currently oversee asylum claims would be "reprioritized to reviewing and overturning previous refugee grants", Reform added.
The party said it would attempt to pressure other countries into accepting those marked for deportation from the UK by using visa bans and tariffs on goods and services. Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan could be hit with visa bans under these measures. In "extreme cases" where no country is willing to take custody of a deportee or it is inappropriate to return someone to their home country, Reform said it would negotiate deals with third countries.
In April, Reform pledged an immediate review of all asylum claims from the last five years should the party win the next general election. Around 400,000 people would be liable for deportation under the plans, which would target anybody granted asylum, overstaying a visa, or from a country deemed safe by a Reform-led government. The party previously announced it would bar anyone arriving on a small boat, and suggested this could mean 600,000 deportations over five years.
Labour chairperson Bridget Phillipson called the proposals a "clear sign of desperation and weakness." Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the proposals "largely copy" his party's policies, arguing: "Only the Conservatives have a serious and credible plan to fix our borders." Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said: "Reform and the Conservatives were the architects of the failed asylum system and now they will exploit it at every opportunity - including Farage's latest announcement."
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in March that any asylum seeker given refugee status will now only be offered temporary protection, reviewed every 30 months. In September, she also reopened a scheme to resettle refugees in the UK, saying she hoped that offering "safe and legal" routes would deter small boat crossings.