Nigel Farage to scrap entire asylum system for five years if Reform UK wins power

Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in Nigel Farage is set to outline proposals prohibiting anyone from being granted asylum in the UK for five years if Reform UK wins power. On Monday, the Reform leader will announce plans to halt the asylum system for a full parliamentary term, declaring all active applications void. All legal refugee routes, asylum tribunals and existing resettlement schemes would be scrapped. Rather than hearing roughly 90,000 pending asylum and humanitarian protection appeals, a Reform government would deport the claimants. The party would also immediately close resettlement programmes that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently said would reopen, where around a quarter of arrivals were expected to be Palestinians and women and girls from Afghanistan. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage ( Gary Oakley/PA ) Reform says there is “no mandate” for such schemes and that anyone who has arrived under them would be deported. Any refugees granted asylum in the last five years would have their cases reviewed by the Home Office under the plans. Mr Farage told The Telegraph: “The country is currently facing a national security emergency and the first duty of government is to protect its citizens. “We cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose. “A Reform government will always put British people first and protect our borders.” The party will also pledge to use tariffs to force countries to take back migrants. It comes after plans unveiled earlier this year to impose “visa freezes” on those wanting to visit the UK legally from countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria if they do not accept deportees. These would halt any new visas for nationals of those countries – as well as Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia – which the party would target due to having significant levels of visas issued to the UK. When it comes to other countries that would not be greatly affected by such a measure but have trade with the UK, the party is now saying it would go further with sanctions such as tariffs and airline bans to apply more pressure. Chris Philp MP, Shadow Home Secretary, said: “These proposals largely copy Conservative policy from a year ago. “Banning asylum claims by illegal immigrants, abolishing the immigration tribunal and ending Labour’s resettlement routes are all existing Conservative policy. “Our detailed BORDERS plan also sees us coming out of the ECHR and ensures all illegal immigrants are removed within a week of arrival - and closes the modern slavery claim and judicial review loopholes, both of which Reform seems to have missed. “Only the Conservatives have a serious and credible plan to fix our borders.”