Far-right politician Farage has plans for ‘mass deportations’ if he becomes UK premier

The Reform UK leader set out a five-year strategy that would include withdrawing from human rights laws, detaining new arrivals at large removal centers, and sending people to countries where they could face imprisonment, torture, or death.

Women and children would be among those detained on arrival under the policy, with five charter flights per day scheduled for deportations.

Farage described the small boats crisis as an “invasion” and said young men were “illegally breaking into our country.”

“What other word could possibly describe what has been going on? It is an invasion,” he told supporters.

The party estimates 600,000 people could be removed from the UK in five years.

The plan -- Operation Restoring Justice -- would bar anyone arriving by small boat from claiming asylum and seek return agreements with countries of origin.

Farage, who previously called mass deportations a “political impossibility,” said his party now has “a credible plan, so that we can deport hundreds of thousands of people over the five years of a Reform government.”

Asked whether the scale was realistic, senior Reform official Zia Yusuf replied: “Totally, yeah.”

The proposals would mark a dramatic increase in removals. Home Office data shows there were 10,652 asylum-related returns in 2025 to June.

Under the plan, immigrants would be arrested on arrival, held at disused RAF bases and, if agreements were reached, returned to countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea.

The party suggested looking to Rwanda and Albania to house migrants, and using British overseas territories such as the Ascension Island as a fallback.

Reform UK said it wants to build removal centers capable of detaining up to 24,000 people within 18 months.

The party pledged to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been used to stop deportations, and replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights applying only to Brits and those with a legal right to live in the country.

The plans drew criticism, with the Labour Party branding the policy unworkable, while the Conservatives accused Reform UK of recycling the ideas of the Conservatives.