US President Donald Trump has said his administration's mass deportation policy was "too tough," but the Daily Express understands neither of Westminster's two main parties on the Right of British politics will change course over their own plans to deport illegal migrants.
Speaking after a ballot box drubbing in the US Midterms, Trump said he believes he "got an A+ for closing up the border," and got "very high marks for getting the bad ones out."
"But I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally," he said.
UK parties hold firm
Both Conservative and Reform sources insist that deporting illegal migrants and foreign criminals is popular with the British public.
A poll of polls by Election Maps UK puts support for Reform at 21.9% and the Conservatives at 22%. This means parties offering mass deportation programmes are polling, combined, at around 44%, which would almost certainly return a sizeable majority.
So, it is safe to conclude both parties will continue on their current course.
Policy backdrop
Rewind 14 months, and Donald Trump's policies on mass deportations were being held up as a template to restore order and control of the borders. The Tories announced a Removals Force modelled on America's ICE agency to deport 150,000 people a year, and the party has vowed to use live facial recognition cameras to detect, detain and deport every illegal migrant living in the UK.
Nigel Farage's Reform UK has vowed to shut the asylum system for five years and deport "north of one million people" if he wins the next General Election. Mr Farage's party will also deploy the Royal Navy in the Channel to intercept every small boat crossing.
A new 'UK Deportation Command' will use data from banks, the Home Office, HMRC, police, DVLA and NHS to identify every illegal migrant. They will then be offered £2,500 each to leave the UK during a six-month grace period. Once the voluntary returns programme comes to an end, immigration enforcement teams will be ordered to carry out raids and detain them.
Fairness at heart
Trump's comments sparked fears amongst some that the positions could come back to bite Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage, or even prompt a change. But it is the first time they've deliberately distanced themselves from President Trump on the issue of migration.
For many in Britain, the rampant abuse of the borders, illustrated by the Channel small boats crisis, strikes at the very heart of fairness, both to taxpayers and to legal migrants.
The key plank of the plan to show that Britain is in control again is to show that illegal arrivals cannot stay. The British public expects and demands it.
