Nigel Farage has promised the mass deportation of irregular migrants in Britain, as he vowed to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The Reform UK leader said his party would also disapply the 1951 UN Refugee Convention for a five-year period, along with “any other barriers” that would prevent the deportation of irregular migrants to their home country or a safe third country.
Speaking at an airport in Oxfordshire, Mr Farage on Tuesday said urgent action was needed to tackle public concerns about irregular migration, which has risen up the political agenda in recent weeks amid protests over the use of hotels to house asylum seekers.
“We are not very far away from major civil disorder,” he told a press conference.
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“We have to leave the ECHR, no ifs, no buts ... We have to repeal the Human Rights Act.”
The European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, which requires UK courts to take rulings by the European Court of Human Rights into account, have both been used to block the deportation of asylum seekers.
The Refugee Convention, meanwhile, asserts the principle of non-refoulement, so that asylum seekers are not forcibly returned to their home countries when they are likely to face persecution.
Ministers have pledged to overhaul the UK asylum appeals process and “smash the gangs” smuggling people across the English Channel, but Mr Farage said he was the only party leader prepared to take the action needed to tackle the issue of irregular migration. “It’s about whose side are you on?” he said.
Tuesday’s policy launch was a sign of Mr Farage’s attempt to be taken seriously as a prospective prime minister, as his right-wing populist party continues to top opinion polls ahead of Labour and the Conservatives.
As well as detaining and deporting people arriving by small boat, the plans include the potential rounding up of hundreds of thousands of migrants who are in the UK illegally – in a programme that would mirror the operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the US under president Donald Trump.
Mr Farage said he believed between 500,000 and 600,000 people could be deported in five years if his party won power; the next general election must be held by summer 2029.
Under Reform’s proposals, irregular migrants would have a six-month window in which to voluntarily return to their home country – including a £2,500 (€2,893) payment from the UK government – before being forcibly detained and removed.
Reform has vowed to round up people in surplus army bases, as well as build new detention centres that could hold tens of thousands of people ahead of removal. The plan would cost £10 billion (€11.5 billion) over five years, the party said.
Downing Street on Tuesday ruled out the idea of the UK suspending the application of the European Convention on Human Rights, describing Mr Farage’s plan as “not serious”.
A spokesperson for prime minister Keir Starmer said the ECHR was a key element of a number of international agreements, including the 1998 Belfast Agreement that drew a line under the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Anyone proposing to renegotiate the 1998 agreement is “not serious”, the spokesperson added.
[ Asylum seekers to be removed from UK hotel after council wins injunctionOpens in new window ]
Number 10 said it was legislating later in the year to “tighten the application” of Article 8 of the ECHR, which protects the right to family life. The government was also talking to other European capitals about possible reforms to the ECHR.
But Number 10 refrained from full-throated criticism of Mr Farage’s speech, including refusing to denounce the Reform UK leader for talking about an “invasion”.
Mr Starmer’s spokesperson acknowledged that irregular migration did “make people angry”, adding that the prime minister “completely understands the level of frustration that people feel”. The spokesperson denied Mr Farage’s claim that the country was on the brink of major civil disorder.
In 2024, the UK received about 108,100 asylum applicants, a record for Britain and the fifth-highest number in Europe.
When adjusted for population size, the UK received the 17th-highest number of applications compared with the EU 27 member states, plus Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – 16 per 10,000 residents – according to the Migration Observatory at Oxford University. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
