Reform UK has unveiled a controversial immigration plan that includes creating a UK Deportation Command modelled on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, prompting condemnation from rights groups. The party’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, described migration as an “invasion” and pledged to carry out mass deportations, vowing not to be deterred by “progressive outrage”.
The proposed UK Deportation Command would have capacity to detain 24,000 people at any one time and deport up to 288,000 annually, operating five flights a day. Currently, the UK has around 2,500 detention spaces. The party also wants to scrap indefinite leave to remain, replacing it with a renewable five-year work visa and a dedicated spouse visa, and impose automatic home searches for those referred to the Prevent programme by three corroborating authorities.
Yusuf argued that US-style standoffs were unlikely in the UK because officers would not be armed, noting the lower prevalence of firearms. However, he reiterated his claim that Britain was being “invaded” and said a Reform government would seek to deport more than 600,000 people in its first parliament, including those with indefinite leave to remain if they fail to qualify for new time-limited visas.
The party also plans to impose “visa freezes” on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria if they refuse to accept returns of migrants with no legal right to remain. Another proposal, dubbed the “Polanski law”, would criminalise assisting or encouraging illegal entry, punishable by up to two years in prison. Green party leader Zack Polanski dismissed the measure as “desperate posturing”.
Migrants’ rights organisations reacted with anger. Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, called the plan a “sadistic vision of UK families and communities being ripped apart”. Natasha Tsangarides, associate director at Freedom from Torture, described Yusuf’s speech as a “grotesque display of ethno-nationalism”.
