Farage Pledges Mass Deportations in Sweeping “Detain and Deport” Plan
As election day nears, Farage’s deportation pledge could either propel him into Downing Street or provoke the fiercest political backlash of his career.
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Nigel Farage stood before reporters this week with a promise that could redefine Britain’s approach to immigration. The Reform UK leader, who polls suggest may soon be Britain’s next prime minister, announced what he calls Operation Restoring Justice, a mass deportation program unlike anything the country has seen.
The plan rests on a simple but blunt principle: “detain and deport.” Farage vowed that under a Reform government, hundreds of thousands of migrants would be removed from Britain, with charter flights departing five times a day, every day of the year.
To achieve this, Farage said his government would scrap the Human Rights Act, a piece of legislation introduced by Tony Blair, and withdraw Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights. Though the UK left the European Union in 2020, it remains bound by the Strasbourg-based Court, something Farage insisted would end under his leadership. For years, he argued, the Act and the Convention have prevented deportations and tied the government’s hands.
Under the proposals, migrants who enter illegally would be housed not in hotels but in spartan prefabricated detention centers built on unused Royal Air Force bases. They would be barred from leaving, denied bail, and unable to claim asylum. Re-entry after deportation would become a criminal offense.
Farage defended the plan with characteristic bluntness. “We have a massive crisis in Britain,” he declared. “It is not only posing a national security threat but it’s leading to public anger that frankly is not very far away from disorder. There is only one way to stop people coming into Britain and that is to detain them and deport them.”
He dismissed criticism that the program, expected to cost £10 billion over five years, would be unworkable or inhumane. “Who is our priority?” he asked. “Is it the safety and security of this country and its people? Or are we worrying about everybody else and foreign courts? That’s what it comes down to. Whose side are you on?”
The plan echoes proposals put forward in the United States under President Donald Trump, with spending roughly proportional to his mass deportation scheme. For Farage, it is a defining pledge, one that could cement his rise to power. With Reform UK enjoying a commanding lead in the polls, Britain may soon find itself confronting Farage’s boldest promise yet.