Farage Plans Mass Deportations of UK Small-Boat Asylum Seekers

Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party have proposed a radical plan to address the UK's immigration crisis by implementing mass deportations of asylum seekers arriving via small boats. The plan, dubbed Operation Restoring Justice, includes detaining migrants in large detention centers at RAF bases, barring them from claiming asylum, and deporting them to countries like Afghanistan and Eritrea, or to British overseas territories such as Ascension Island if deemed unsafe to return them home. Farage envisions five deportation flights daily and a criminal offense for re-entry attempts, with an estimated cost of £10 billion over five years. The plan also involves leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and scrapping the Human Rights Act to facilitate these measures. While Reform UK argues this approach is necessary for national security and public order, critics including Labour have dismissed it as unrealistic, and the Conservatives have committed to delivering a more credible immigration strategy. The government is currently under pressure due to record asylum applications and rising small boat crossings, with asylum spending paradoxically decreasing despite these increases.