Overview

• Reform UK set out a blueprint to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, scrap the Human Rights Act and disapply other treaties to bar asylum claims from people arriving without authorization.
• The plan includes detaining all unlawful arrivals, expanding detention capacity to about 24,000 places, creating a cross‑agency “data fusion” unit to track people, operating up to five deportation flights a day and offering £2,500 for voluntary returns.
• Nigel Farage and senior figure Zia Yusuf said up to roughly 600,000 people could be removed in a first parliament, with return deals pursued with Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran and leverage applied through aid and visas.
• Keir Starmer’s government dismissed the proposals as gimmicks and is pressing on with faster asylum appeals and a limited one‑in/one‑out returns pilot with France, with officials preparing the first send‑backs.
• Legal figures warn mass removals would likely be blocked under UK law and face major logistical hurdles, as small‑boat arrivals top more than 28,000 this year and protests plus a High Court hotel injunction intensify pressure.