Nigel Farage pushes for mass deportation in new migration bill

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has announced that his party will call for the mass deportation of asylum seekers in the new Illegal Migration Bill, expected to be introduced on August 26.

In an interview with The Times on Saturday, Farage argued that migrants arriving in the United Kingdom by small boats should be detained immediately upon arrival, held at Royal Air Force bases, denied asylum rights, and deported within 30 days.

“The purpose of this bill is mass deportation,” Farage declared, claiming that irregular migration not only poses a national security threat but also fuels public anger, which he described as “not far from disorder” in the face of what he called a “major crisis” in Britain.

The proposed legislation would also include agreements with countries such as Afghanistan and Eritrea, two of the top five nations of origin for small-boat arrivals, according to Home Office data.

Although the UK Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that the government’s Rwanda deportation plan was unlawful, Reform UK remains open to reconsidering the policy. The party has also suggested Albania as another possible destination for deported asylum seekers.

Farage, a longstanding critic of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), insists that the bill would take the UK out of the ECHR altogether—a move that some Conservative leaders also support. However, withdrawal from the ECHR would threaten the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, which requires adherence to the convention as a safeguard.

Farage further stated that the UK should abolish its Human Rights Act and seek exemptions from a range of other international treaties that protect fundamental rights, including the UN Convention Against Torture and the Refugee Convention.

According to Home Office statistics, a total of 111,000 asylum applications were filed in the year ending June 2025, with around half arriving through “irregular routes.” This figure is lower than the numbers reported in Germany, Spain, Italy, and France. During the same period, the asylum acceptance rate stood at 48%.

The data also shows that approximately 43,000 people arrived in the UK on small boats during this period.