Reform UK's new home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, is set to announce plans for a US-style deportation agency capable of removing up to 288,000 people annually, alongside a pledge to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In a speech on Monday, Yusuf will outline proposals to create a 'UK Deportation Command' with capacity to detain 24,000 migrants at a time and operate five deportation flights daily.
The party also intends to scrap indefinite leave to remain (ILR), replacing it with a renewable five-year work visa subject to a high salary threshold. This could affect tens of thousands of current ILR holders, whom Yusuf accuses of 'living off the British taxpayer'. Labour has criticised the plans as divisive and 'fundamentally un-British', noting that ILR holders account for only 2.7% of universal credit claimants.
Yusuf will also call for an end to diversity initiatives in policing, a radical expansion of stop and search powers, and a refocusing of the Prevent programme on Islamist extremism. He will propose banning the conversion of churches into mosques, stating: 'We will preserve Britain's Christian heritage.' The party further plans to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood organisation.
Labour chair Anna Turley described the policies as 'a direct attack on settled families', while Labour's home secretary Shabana Mahmood has proposed extending the ILR eligibility period from five to ten years. Reform's plans also include a legal duty on the home secretary to remove illegal migrants and a withdrawal from the ECHR.
