Nigel Farage has pledged to shut down Britain’s asylum system for five years if he is elected prime minister.
The Reform leader said he wanted the UK to get “back to being a normal country” as he announced that all new asylum applications would be rejected and those already filed would be voided if his party won the general election.
At a press conference in Kent on Monday Mr Farage, alongside Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf, also pledged to pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention to prevent legal challenges to its plans.
Visa bans would be enforced for countries that refuse to allow deportation flights to land, under the proposals.
Labour branded the plans “a clear sign of desperation and weakness”.
Key points from Mr Farage’s immigration strategy:
Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf pose next to a replica dinghy used by migrants to cross the English Channel
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Asylum System Shutdown
Britain’s asylum system would be shutdown for a full parliamentary term, which is usually five years.
It would mean that all new applications for asylum, as well as those already going through the system, would be rejected and voided.
All claimants would be marked for deportation, Mr Farage said.
“We literally have no idea who is here, and we frankly can't afford to take the risk,” Mr Farage said.
“It's not as if we've been ungenerous over the course of the last decade, indeed, since the Brexit vote, half a million people have been given asylum here.
“That is higher than virtually any other country in the world. But we have to end this asylum scam, and we have to end this racket.”
The UK would pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention to prevent legal challenges to Reform’s plans, the party said.
Refugee Schemes Scrapped
During the shutdown, the UK would not grant humanitarian protection or refugee status to anyone, while legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes would end.
However, Mr Farage suggested that Ukrainians in Britain under sponsorship programmes would not be affected.
The asylum tribunal system would be scrapped, meaning the roughly 90,000 people currently with appeal cases would be deported.
Visa Bans
Reform earlier this year said it would ban British visas for countries such as Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan if they refused to allow deportation flights to land.
Nations without a significant number of legal nationals in Britain could face tariffs on goods and services for non-compliance.
Mr Farage said the country "cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose."
Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage (R), and the party’s spokesperson for home affairs, Zia Yusuf, at the press conference
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Women and Children
There will be no special treatment for women and children fleeing war-torn nations, Mr Farage confirmed.
A resettlement scheme that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently said would reopen, with around a quarter of those admitted to the UK expected to be Palestinians and women and girls from Afghanistan, would be scrapped.
Mr Farage said the programmes “may well sound compassionate” but they “open the door to family reunions, to husbands coming, to partners coming, to elderly parents coming, and before you know it, you've got lots of young men coming as well”.
He added: “And I don't think anybody could be in any doubt that whilst there are people suffering in both countries, and we completely understand the history of the UK, we completely understand whether we're talking about people coming from Uganda or Austria or Germany or even going back a bit further, France, and we completely understand, great contributions that have been made by those communities.
“But I'm afraid, if we open the door to Palestine and to Afghanistan, we are placing our country under further considerable risk, not just risk to women and girls, not just risk in terms of criminality, but a national security risk.”
Making it ‘impossible’ to live in UK illegally
Reform insists it plan would make it “impossible” to live in Britain illegally, with a huge increase in the number of immigration checks.
The party argues that current immigration enforcement capacity “is extremely weak” and it would increase it 40-fold.
It suggests that food hygiene, fire and health and safety visits to businesses could also include right to work checks.
Its policy document states: “A Reform UK government will direct every organ of the British state, both local and national, to make it impossible to live in Britain illegally.
“This will involve several large policy shifts, and many smaller changes. Overall, we expect it to produce a major increase in voluntary departures.
“Currently, immigration enforcement capacity is extremely weak. Just 12,791 illegal-working visits were conducted in 2025.
“By contrast, there were 350,000 food hygiene visits, 51,020 non-domestic fire safety audits, and 13,200 HSE workplace inspections.
“There were tens of thousands more across trading standards, environmental health, housing and licensing inspections. Currently, these visits do not include an immigration check.
“But this could be easily incorporated. Immigration checks do not require highly technical qualifications, and the officials that conduct these visits should be trained to also conduct a basic migration check. This would increase immigration enforcement capacity by a factor of at least 10, and up to 40.”
Political Response
Labour called Reform’s plans “a clear sign of desperation and weakness”, while shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the proposals “largely copy” Conservative ideas.
Bridget Phillipson, Labour Party chairwoman, said: “Nigel Farage is casting around for more and more extreme policies as he tries to deal with scandals, police investigations and a growing challenge from Restore — this is a carbon copy of their policy.
“Running away from basic decency by entirely abandoning those escaping war and persecution might look to Reform like a way of winning a bidding war with other parties on the right, but the vast majority of British people will reject it as an assault on our common values.”
Mr Philp said: “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.”