How Nigel Farage’s plan to scrap indefinite leave to remain could put thousands at risk of deportation
Reform The UK has announced a range of policies to curb immigration, including mass deportations and increased surveillance to complement a radical overhaul of the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) system.
The plans could see hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants being deported from the UK and a serious tightening of rules for those wishing to immigrate to the country.
The party’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, spoke on Monday about plans to set up a new ‘Trump-inspired’ deportation agency with the capacity to detain 24,000 immigrants at a time. This will include automatic searches of people’s homes, called Counter Terrorism, and a ban on converting churches into mosques.
The party shared controversial figures that the ILR policy alone would save more than £200bn by 2025. This is the main route through which immigrants can settle in the UK and is open to people who have worked and lived legally in the UK for five years.
Reform leader Nigel Farage claimed the plans would roll back the “Boris wave” launched by the former Conservative prime minister. This means around 800,000 migrants who arrived in the UK under “flexible” post-Brexit immigration rules introduced by Boris Johnson’s government and will soon start becoming permanent residents. He added that this group “will be a great burden on the state.”
Mr Farage also claimed the policy would save £234 billion, a figure taken from a Center for Policy Studies report that was withdrawn due to disagreement over the figures. The think tank said the cost estimate “should no longer be used”.
The plans have been widely criticized by politicians, campaigners and experts, who say the proposals are “morally wrong” and will “tear families apart”.
What you need to know about the policy:
How does indefinite leave to remain work now?
Indefinite leave to remain is the way most immigrants settle in the UK, regardless of where they come from. This gives them the right to live, work and study in the country permanently, as well as access social benefits if they are eligible.
It also allows their families to emigrate to the UK under certain conditions.
In most cases, ILR can be applied for after five years of living and working in the UK. Depending on the visa type, the applicant may also be required to meet certain salary or financial requirements.
For most workers this will be at least £41,700 a year, or the ‘standard going rate’ for the type of work you will be doing, and may be higher. Once you have secured ILR, a person can usually apply for British citizenship after 12 months.
Last May Labor promised to impose tough new restrictions on ILR; This means most applicants will need to stay in the UK for 10 years before they can apply, and the list of suitable jobs will be shortened.
What will change in the plans?
Under Reformation’s plans, this settled status will be revoked even for those currently resident in the UK.
Instead, a new visa with much stricter requirements will need to be successfully applied for and renewed every five years.
The policy will also reportedly increase the applicable salary threshold to around £60,000, almost double the average salary in the UK (£31,602).
The plans will throw the lives of an estimated 430,000 people who hold ILR into uncertainty, despite many having lived in the UK for decades. They will have to re-apply and face deportation if they do not comply with the new rules.
They will also find that their rights and freedoms will be restricted as access to NHS services or benefits will be cancelled. The new visas will require advanced English and will impose strict new restrictions on whether spouses and family members can participate.
The reform is expected to confirm that the policy will be implemented by the newly created ‘UK Deportation Command’, modeled on America’s controversial ICE agency. Mr. Yusuf told Times This will be like “Trump Mark Two” last year.
The party has also previously vowed to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and replace the Human Rights Act with the British Bill of Rights. This would allow his government to carry out its promised mass deportations of refugees; These plans have also called into question their claimed economic benefits.
Do the plans and numbers match?
The claimed savings of £234bn would be “over the lifetime of the average migrant”. There are no further details, but life expectancy in the UK is currently around 80 years. The proposed savings would then average less than £3 billion (£2.9 billion) per year; this is a much more modest figure than Reformation suggests.
Even over a 50-year lifespan in the UK, claimed savings could average £4.7 billion per year, and this is without taking into account the economic benefits of immigrant labour.
It is unclear where these savings will come from and how they will be calculated. Foreign nationals claim almost £9bn a year of universal credit, the reform said. But getting rid of ILR will not prevent most foreign universal credit claimants from being eligible; because the majority come from the EU Settlement Scheme agreed under Brexit and are still eligible for benefits.
As of July 2025, 213,666 people claiming universal credit had permission to remain indefinitely. This accounts for only 2.8 percent of all applicants. This small percentage means the government has spent around £1.7bn on universal credit for people with indefinite leave to remain this year; This is a long way from saving £234bn even if extended over a 50 or 80 year period.
And even if 800,000 more people were provided with ILR from the “Boris wave” as Reform claims, there is nothing to suggest that these people would continue to claim universal credit. There are also no clear figures on how many foreign nationals have indefinite leave to remain in the UK. So, as it stands, the evidence behind the Reformation’s £234bn savings is vague at best.
Asked about Reformation’s claim last year that they could save £234bn over several decades, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: “The figures that Reformation came up with overnight are already starting to fall apart.”
He added: “It’s a tough challenge, I think everyone can see that, but simple gimmicks that have no basis in reality and the numbers fall apart, as Reform suggests – that’s not the way to solve a very serious problem, and that’s what this Labor government is doing.”
