As Nigel Farage stood in front of a giant union flag in an aircraft hangar at London Oxford Airport, the Reform UK leader laid out his solution to one of British voters’ biggest concerns – illegal migration and the growing number of asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats.
But for those who have been listening to Mr Farage for many years in his now long political career, there was something very familiar about today’s announcement. In fact, it was a well trodden formula for the man who hopes to be Britain’s next prime minister.
What Mr Farage offered was in fact a repackaging of what could be termed as the “Brexit formula”. In other words, isolate the UK internationally by withdrawing from foundational global agreements, and then expect the rest of the world to simply do what Britain wants.
This sort of solution worked when Lord Palmerston was simply able to send a gunboat to sit outside a foreign port in the 19th century, but is quite a lot more complicated now.
The grand plan
Essentially, Farage argues that if he is prime minister he can force countries like Pakistan, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan to take back thousands of irregular migrants.
Those arriving in the UK illegally will be arrested, detained and then deported, the Reform leader said as he admitted that he cares more about the frustrated British people than the fate of those who will be persecuted.
He will achieve his goal by withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), making the UK an outlier along with Russia and Belarus. He will also suspend other international agreements like the Refugee Convention for five years.
Zia Yusuf, the party’s former chairman, added that Reform will bring in a watertight law which would mean no judge will be able to block a single enforced departure.
Giving the people what they want
There is no doubt though that the polished sales pitch today did offer many voters what they want.
The two traditional main parties – the Conservatives and Labour – have left a gaping hole in the political world by failing to tackle the small boats issue, and the blueprint outlined by Mr Farage on Tuesday leaves Starmer and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch playing catch-up.
While both Labour and the Tories may be criticising Farage’s approach, but they are beginning to copy his policies.
Already the Tories are planning to formally have a policy of abandoning the ECHR – a document originally drawn up by Conservatives – and over the weekend Labour announced plans to water down the “over interpretation” of human rights by judges.
They are looking at the polling and listening to the focus groups and know the hardline rhetoric of the Reform UK leader is working.
We saw over the weekend a Yougov poll saying 71 per cent believe Starmer has handled the issue badly, and it remains a key concern among voters, along with the economy.
Mr Farage’s most cogent response to his many critics was: “What is being done isn’t working.”
It is very hard to argue with. But will the plan actually work?
Brexit revisited
But for those of us still scarred by the political battles which followed the 2016 EU referendum, the naive proposals being outlined by Farage in Oxford had a familiar ring.
Back in 2016 British voters were told that if they voted to leave then there would be no problem getting a departure deal from the EU and countries would be “lining up” to do trade deals, headed by the United States.
The reality was somewhat different. The departure took four years, two prime ministers and two elections to negotiate and left the UK in a much weaker position economically. Just to underline the point Keir Starmer has just effectively negotiated the second reset of that original deal in 2020 after Rishi Sunak had an effort at a first one in 2023.
Then as far as trade deals are concerned, it has taken years to get anything with the US and the deal with Trump is effectively one to lessen the impact of the US president’s tariffs. It took years to get the much vaunted deal with India and there are serious questions over the impact of the hastily arranged ones with Australia and New Zealand.
All these are warning notes for any UK government’s negotiating powers in the future on returns. After all, why has it been so hard to get a deal of returns of migrants to France? Because the UK does not have the muscle to force the EU to accept.
Other problems
Former attorney general Dominic Grieve made it clear that judges could use the British common law vaunted by Farage and his supporters to block deportations.
While Yusuf was confident that no judge could block a deportation, he is no legal expert.
Added to that there will be the inevitable political upheaval of protests against the draconian measures at a time when Farage himself warned that the UK is on the brink of civil unrest.
Then there will be questions over the fate of those sent back with even children being packed on to planes.
But the biggest fear will be international isolation. The UK will look like a pariah state withdrawing from human rights and international law. In the short term it will cancel the agreements with the EU on trade, data sharing and security.
So while Farage was able to trot out the same glib lines that won him the Brexit referendum, there is a danger that the consequences of him actually doing it could be extremely damaging for the country with the added possibility that he will not even succeed.
