Overview

• At Oxford Airport, Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf set out a five-year plan to remove up to 600,000 small-boat arrivals, expand detention capacity to 24,000 and overhaul rights laws by leaving the ECHR, repealing the Human Rights Act and temporarily disapplying the Refugee Convention.
• Reform UK says it would seek returns agreements with countries including Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran, with Farage arguing that detaining and deporting all small-boat arrivals would stop crossings within days.
• Protesters and local councillors in Oxfordshire condemned the event and proposals as dangerous and divisive, while a Reform councillor in the county described the measures as long overdue.
• Labour minister Nick Thomas-Symonds dismissed the plan as empty and unrealistic, Conservatives accused Reform of recycling Tory ideas, Liberal Democrats criticised talk of paying the Taliban, and Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake said a Taliban returns deal was "potentially" possible but costly with serious human-rights implications.
• The row comes as official figures show 111,084 asylum claims in the year to June 2025 and more than 52,000 Channel arrivals since the 2024 election, underscoring the scale of the issue cited by Reform UK.