Reform would create ICE-style agency and end leave to remain, Zia Yusuf to say | Reform UK
The party says Reform UK would create an ICE-style agency to deport hundreds of thousands of people as well as terminate the status of those with indefinite leave to remain (ILR).
The law will also ban the conversion of churches into mosques and fund a radical expansion of stop and search, the party’s new home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, will say in his speech on Monday. The remit of Prevent, the counter-radicalisation programme, will also be realigned to focus on Islamist extremism.
Labor said the plans were divisive and showed Reform was planning to deport “people who follow the rules, work hard and make their lives here – our friends, neighbors and colleagues”.
Labor leader Anna Turley said the policies were “a direct attack on established families and fundamentally un-British”. He added: “Britain is a proud, tolerant and diverse nation that stands against the divisive policies fueled by the Reformation.”
In his speech, Yusuf will say that Reform will depart from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and impose a legal duty on the interior minister to remove illegal immigrants.
It will promise to create a new agency – UK Deportation Command – capable of detaining 24,000 migrants at once and deporting up to 288,000 migrants a year on five flights a day. Experts have previously said the cost of such an expansion would be significant; As of April 2024, there were approximately 2,500 detention sites.
“For decades, as the fabric of our society was under attack, the Conservatives and Labor turned the other way,” Yusuf will say. “The social contract has not only been broken, it has been shattered. Under a reform government, Her Majesty’s parliament will once again rule.
“We will secure our borders, we will leave the ECHR and we will unlawfully deport those here. My message to the British people is simple: I will secure our borders and make you feel safe.”
In his speech, Youssef will openly blame former prime minister Boris Johnson for the rise in net migration, saying the Conservative leader “opened our borders” and granting ILR would mean “living off British taxpayers for life” because of the new access to benefits.
ILR holders only 2.7% of all universal credit claimantsAt least one third is working.
Yusuf will say that under the Reform ILR will be scrapped and replaced with a renewable five-year work visa with a high salary threshold, meaning tens of thousands of people currently with settled status could lose the right to be in the UK.
Labor also proposed replacing the ILR with new conditions. Home Affairs Minister Shabana Mahmood said the party plans to increase the eligibility period from five to 10 years.
Youssef will also propose a new approach to knife crime and policing, saying he would end any diversity initiatives in the force and expand stop and search powers.
“I will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to Islamist extremism,” Yusuf will say, promising to ban the Muslim Brotherhood and overhaul Prevent.
“We will preserve British culture, because a nation without culture is no nation. It is merely an economic zone. We will preserve Britain’s Christian heritage and end the provocative practice of converting churches into mosques or any other place of worship.”
