LONDON (Reuters) -The leader of Britain’s anti-migration Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, announced a plan on Tuesday to repeal human rights laws to allow for mass deportations of asylum seekers and reverse what he called an “invasion” that threatened national security.
Farage said his party, which is leading in national opinion polls, would remove Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply other international treaties that have been used to block the forced deportation of asylum seekers.
“The mood in the country around this issue is a mix between total despair and rising anger,” Farage said at a press conference. “It is an invasion, as these young men illegally break into our country.”
The announcement comes against the backdrop of sustained, small-scale protests in recent weeks outside hotels housing asylum seekers, in response to concerns about public safety after some individuals were charged with sexual assault.
Opinion polls show that immigration has overtaken the economy as British voters’ biggest concern. Reform UK – which has just four members of parliament but is ahead in every survey of voting intentions – is putting Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer under growing pressure to tackle the issue.
In 2024, Britain received a record 108,100 asylum applicants, almost 20% more than a year earlier. Individuals from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Bangladesh made up the largest number of applicants for asylum last year.
Much of the focus has been on those who arrive on small boats across the Channel, with record numbers arriving this year.
Starmer’s government and its predecessors have been wrestling for years with how to deal with undocumented migrants entering the country.
The plans by Reform are the most radical yet and would involve signing deals with Afghanistan, Eritrea and other countries to repatriate their nationals who arrived in Britain illegally.
Without action, Farage said “anger will grow, in fact I think there is now, as a result of this, a genuine threat to public order, and that is the very last thing we want”.
Starmer’s government has a plan to “smash” the gangs which smuggle people to Britain by reforming the asylum appeals process and hiring more enforcement officials.
The previous Conservative government planned to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, but the policy was ruled unlawful by Britain’s top court.
(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill, Sachin Ravikumar, and Sarah Young)
