Small boat crossings must be stopped 'within the first few months' of a Reform government 'otherwise the public will lose all trust in us', Nigel Farage has vowed. The Reform UK leader said taking Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) would draw a halt to the Channel crisis 'very quickly'.
He indicated that leaving the human rights treaty would take place much more rapidly than previously thought. 'There are billions of pounds being spent every year on housing young men that come across the English Channel, and that, of course, would come to a stop very quickly by leaving the ECHR,' Mr Farage told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
Asked if it would take several years to achieve, he replied: 'We have to do it more quickly. We would have to do it much, much more quickly. It will have to be done within the first few months, otherwise the public will lose all trust in us as they've lost trust in everybody else.' A few weeks before the last general election, Mr Farage promised that he would begin moves to 'stop the boats' within 100 days of taking power.
Asked if he would emulate US President Donald Trump's deportation policies – which have drawn criticism over the actions of the Federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency – Mr Farage said: 'When it comes to deportations of those in the country illegally, there is an American president that we're going to follow, you're absolutely right. But it's not Donald Trump. It's Obama. Obama deported more illegal immigrants than Donald Trump so far has managed to do … without screaming and shouting.'
Mr Farage said he would offer people living in the UK illegally a chance to leave 'the nice way'. 'You say, look, you're here illegally, we can do this the nice way, or the less nice way,' he said. 'The nice way is that you leave, you're given a plane ticket, you're given a little bit of cash to resettle somewhere else, and the vast majority of people say, hands up, that's what we'll do.'
Asked about the cost of implementing such Reform's pledges to deport more than a million people from the UK, he said: 'If there's a short-term cost to that, there's a short-term cost to that - but it has to be done. The public demand it. They've been let down on this, in election promise after election promise.'
The Conservatives have also pledged to take Britain out of the ECHR if they win the next election. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights barrister, and his Attorney General Lord Hermer are staunch defenders of the treaty, however.
