On the 26th August 2025, Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf presented “Operation Restoring Justice” in Oxford. Here is the full transcript of the presentation, including the media Q&A section. There is a Youtube video of the presentation at the foot of the page.
[Nigel Farage] Good morning everybody. Today we launch Operation Restoring Justice. And as far as the people of this country is concerned, frankly, these measures can’t come soon enough. As you know, we’ve been running over the course of the last 6 weeks our very successful crime campaign. It’s seen us rise further in the polls. It’s seen great new recruits, Vanessa Frank and Colin Sutton, joining our party. And today is the last installment of that campaign ahead of our party conference in Birmingham on the 5th and 6th of September.
Today we’re going to talk about illegal immigration, in particular the boat crossings, but there’s more, of course, to the story than that. And perhaps it’s appropriate that we’re here this morning after yesterday, the scenes in Dover that took place as 650 people arrived. 650 people yesterday arrived into Dover. And last I heard this morning, there are many more boats on the way today. That will take us up to about 52,000 people since this prime minister and this government came into power.
The mood in the country around this issue is a mix between total despair and rising anger. And I would say this that without action, without somehow the contract within the government and the people being renewed, without some trust coming back, then I fear deeply that that anger will grow. In fact, I think there is now as a result of this a genuine threat to public order. And that is the very last thing that we want. And I’ve been saying, of course, for a long time that it’s a growing threat to our national security. And we’ve seen just recently some arrests made of people that came by boat and they are suspected of being involved in some form of terrorism. Huge numbers of undocumented young males who throw their passports and iPhone into the English Channel when they get to the 12 mile line. something that I’ve been out and filmed. These huge numbers of people do constitute a threat. And I suppose the growing anger in the country over the course of the last few weeks is a cultural one in the sense that many of these young men come from countries in which women aren’t even second-class citizens. And frankly, the public have now just had enough.
And what began as a protest of mothers and concerned citizens outside the Bell Hotel in Epping has now spread right across the country. And all of it really poses one big fundamental question. Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of women and children being safe on our streets? Or are you on the side of outdated international treaties backed up by a series of dubious courts? The channel crisis began with a trickle of dingies in 2018. The numbers in 2018 and 19 were very small indeed. But I began to realize in early 2020 that virtually nobody that came via this route was being deported. They would have been even in Tony Blair’s government time. If you’d done that, you would have been deported. No question about it. And so in early 2020, I repeatedly went out into the English Channel filming what was going on, saying, “You may as well put a sign on the white cliffs of Dover saying everyone welcome.” And unless we start deporting people, I predicted this would turn into, and yes, I use the word invasion. But 180,000 people later, what other word could possibly describe what has been going on? It is an invasion as these young men illegally break into our country.
Well, I did my best in 2020. I warned everybody. I said unless we deport, the crisis will worsen considerably. But I’m afraid that the Conservative government for the first few years did literally nothing. Literally nothing. And then belatedly they put in place a Rwanda plan. They put in place legislation. But none of it could work because they hadn’t got the courage to face up to the legal obstacles that made sure despite spending huge amounts of money on these plans that nothing uh was actually going to happen. Rishi’s Stop the Boats was a total failure and frankly anything that party or people who were ministers at the time in that government have to say uh we’ve got to take with a very very large pinch of salt.
And then of course we had Kier Starmer, the lawyer, the man whose second speech as prime minister in the House of Commons was where he outlined his love for the European Court of Human Rights, a party many of whom have done very well out of the human rights industry. Smash the Gangs was never ever going to work. And even as we speak, despite the 800 million pounds we’ve given the French, even as we speak, there are French naval vessels escorting these boats across to a 12mi line where they’ll be picked up by border force or our volunteers for the RNLI if it’s a busy day and border force simply can’t cope. And now what happens is the French give them all life jackets. And when they’re picked up by Border Force, Border Force give the life jackets back to the French so they can reuse them on the next journey. I mean, we’re literally witnessing two governments colluding in their support of criminal activity.
Well, this issue has become a scourge of modern Britain. Just think about the hotels. Think about the houses of multiple occupancy. And not just the cost of it, but think how unfair that is. Unfair to the 1.3 million British people currently on the social housing list. unfair to those who have legally made their way into the United Kingdom. It’s unfair and the cost frankly is eye-watering. Official figures show the whole thing costs about 7 billion pounds a year. But that doesn’t account for the massive scale of operations in the English Channel every day. It doesn’t account for the amount of police time and court time, court time that is taken up with crimes that are committed by those who frankly shouldn’t be here and have come illegally. Our proposals will save over the course of the next decades tens and possibly even hundreds of billions of pounds.
By the end of a first parliament, we will have saved a huge amount of money. I understand the public have had enough of this. But here’s what we have to do to make Operation Restoring Justice actually work. We have to leave the ECHR. No ifs, no buts. It may have been a good idea 80 years ago. Frankly, it isn’t today. We have the repeal, the Human Rights Act of 1998, brought in by a Blair government, many of whose families seem to do rather well off the back of it. We will for a 5-year period disapply the 1951 refugee convention and any other barriers that can be used by lawyers in this country to prevent deportations, to prevent the right thing uh from happening. We’ll create a legal duty for the home secretary to remove those that come illegally. And crucially, we will detain all illegal migrants who come and we will do so immediately.
The only way we will stop the boats is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone that comes via that route. And if we do that, the boats will stop coming within days because there will be no incentive to pay a trafficker to get into this country. If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never ever allowed to stay. Period. That is our big message from today. And we’re the first party to put out plans that could actually make that work.
We will stop the boats from coming. There’ll be no more incentive to pay traffickers. Public trust will be restored. And we genuinely are the only party that can be trusted on this. I am the only party leader that has been clear and consistent on this issue over the course of the last five years. And I have a feeling I have a feeling that what we’re doing today with Operation Restoring Justice is going to be very popular in the wider country indeed. Now, to go through some of the operational phases we’re going to need to go through and the structures we’re going to need to set up. I’m going to invite Zia Yusuf onto the stage. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[ZIA Yusuf] Thank you, Nigel, and thank you all for coming. Look, for decades now, successive Tory and Labour governments promised to get tough on illegal immigration. And yet, year after year, tens of thousands of fighting-age males, as Nigel said, have arrived on our beaches. In fact, the total number of illegal immigrants in the country now stands at at least a million. The true number could be considerably higher than that.
There’s little doubt that the United Kingdom is being invaded. In fact, more people have arrived on our beaches illegally over the last 8 years than stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. And they’re rewarded for this by a political class that puts them up in hotels at the British taxpayers’ expense. given free meals, free health care, free TV licenses, and as our Doge team has revealed, even free trips to the safari park and to the cinema. Even those that commit heinous crimes are routinely defended by so-called human rights lawyers who succeed in preventing even convicted rapist illegal migrants from being deported. All thanks to a legal system that prioritizes the rights of foreign citizens over our own.
While the patience of the British people is now exhausted, we’re unwilling to accept that Britain’s border should be open and undefended. Unwilling to accept that Britain must cede its sovereignty to foreign courts and unwilling to accept that our own veterans who served our nation with valour and distinction be evicted from their homes to house fighting-age males from Iraq and Afghanistan who turned up on our beaches uninvited. This is a national emergency. It’s a national security emergency, and it’s time to put British people first. So, upon winning the next election, a reformed government will launch Operation Restoring Justice, a 5-year emergency program to track down, detain, and deport all illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom. It will also immediately stop the votes from coming by sending a very clear message that being in our country illegally now has an ironclad consequence, immediate removal.
Deportation is the ultimate deterrent. Our plan combines an uncompromising legal reset with national scale relentless enforcement through a new UK deportation command and a powerful foreign policy campaign. As Prime Minister, Nigel Farage will direct every instrument of state to ensure illegal immigrants are detained and deported. Reform will pass the illegal migration mass deportation act to ensure that no activist judge can stop deportations. We will leave the ECR, but that is nowhere near enough, nowhere near enough to get this job done. We must also repeal, not disapport everyone illegally in the country. And we’ll disapply all international treaties that are used to keep illegal migrants in this country. And yes, that means disapplying the 1951 Refugee Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture and the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention.
That is a non-exhaustive list. These treaties will otherwise be used by activist judges to frustrate deportations even after the repeals of the human rights act and even after the UK leaving the ECR. We will create sweeping new detention powers for the home secretary without Hardy Singh constraints. That means illegal migrants can be detained until they are deported. This is essential because activist lawyers routinely use Hardy Singh to secure their client’s bail after which the client disappears. And we’ll pass a law that makes clear that if you came to this country illegally, you will never be granted asylum. End of story. This will mean all asylum claims will become inadmissible if made by a person within this act scope. So if you came to the country illegally, you’ll never be allowed to stay. It strips the Home Office, the immigration tribunals, and the higher courts of jurisdiction to even consider asylum claims because a claim that cannot be considered, cannot suspend removal, and therefore cannot delay a flight. Nothing less than what we’ve just described will do.
And when Nigel’s prime minister, there will not be a lawyer nor a judge in the country that will be able to prevent a deportation flight from leaving. If you come to the UK illegally, you will receive a lifetime ban from ever coming back to our country. Re-entering after deportation will become a criminal offence, punishable by up to 5 years in prison. Deliberately destroying your identity documents, having come here illegally, will also become a criminal offence, punishable by up to five years in prison. We will pair this legislative reset with a UK deportation command. That is a dedicated force to identifying, detaining, and deporting illegal migrants at scale.
We’ll create a cutting-edge data fusion center that will automatically share data between the police, the Home Office, the NHS, the DVLA, HMRC, and banks. This will allow Deportation Command to relentlessly track down and detain all those who entered our country illegally. will build capacity to detain up to 24,000 illegal migrants at a time. That enables us to deport up to 288,000 illegal migrants a year. Detention will mean deportation, no chance of bail, no chance of absconding. We will expand charter flights to five departures every day. And to guarantee success, His Majesty’s Royal Air Force will keep a Voyager aircraft on standby as a hot spare. So even if a plane has mechanical issues, flights will not be stopped. Deportations will not be delayed. And beyond our shores, our foreign office will act with the urgency of a nation that is determined. Return agreements will be secured. Countries of origin will take back their illegals. Where persuasion and financial incentives fail, we will use leverage. If a country refuses to take back their illegal migrants, we will stop issuing visas to people from that country. And if necessary, we will sanction them. Let there be no doubt those who arrive illegally will be detained, deported, and banned for life from re-entering the United Kingdom.
And this is not just a national security emergency. It’s a fiscal emergency, too. Right now, Britain is spending more than 7 billion pounds every year on the costs of illegal immigration. And that excludes the huge cost items like the burden on the NHS. Billions are spent on hotels, community housing, and welfare for those who have no respect for our laws. Those who obey the rules are forced to pay for those who break them. The cost of deporting those here illegally will be 10 billion pounds over 5 years. But in that same period, our plan will save the taxpayer over 17 billion pounds. So the next so the net savings to the British taxpayer will be very, very significant over 5 years and over a decade, the savings will exceed 42 billion pounds. That is money that is returned to hardworking families to our schools to our NHS and to rebuilding Britain’s prosperity. This is a transformative plan that will mean those who are here illegally will be deported at unprecedented speed and scale. And I want to be clear that with Nigel as prime minister, a reformed government will show unflinching resolve to ensure that Britain regains control of its borders. The hopes and the dreams of British people and their children rest on their government’s willingness to do what it takes to defend and secure our country’s borders and keep them safe. A Reform government will ensure that the United Kingdom will once again be a proud sovereign nation with full control of its borders. And it is in that sovereignty that lies the foundation of our country’s next chapter. One in which our country is secure, one in which our people are prosperous, and one in which Britain is powerful again.
Media Q&A
[Nigel Farage] Thank you very much. And we’re going to move to questions.
Thank you very much indeed. Right, we have a pretty extensive list of questions from the press and the first up is Ben Wright from the BBC.
[Ben Wright] Uh thank you very much Mr. Farage. uh your plans could mean sending thousands of asylum seekers back to countries where they might face imprisonment, torture, even death.
Certain countries though we think this country has considerably more muscle, diplomatic muscle uh than perhaps those in Westminster currently recognize. Uh then we will have to find other locations. And you know, we’re going to be talking to Albania. We’ll talk to Rwanda. We will find solutions. Katherine Foster from GB News.
[Katherine Foster] Thank you, Katherine Foster, GB News. Nigel Farage, last September you told GB News that it was a political impossibility to deport hundreds of thousands of people and that you simply couldn’t do it. What has changed your mind that you now believe that you can?
[Nigel Farage] The political impossibility was deporting millions and millions of people and that’s where the argument had gone. We had we had a situation a political difficulty within reform UK. This does happen to parties. They do have difficulties and problems. at we had a problem that one of our MPs who was no longer an MP was talking about deporting entire communities including people who’d been born here and and and frankly uh we found that unacceptable and so I just did not want I think I think you can quote me for another interview to get dragged down the route of mass deportations at that stage. We have sorted out that political internal difficulty that we had and since that time the work has been done on a credible plan uh so that we can deport hundreds of thousands of people over the five years of a Reform government. Thank you. Harry Horton ITV.
[Harry Horton] Thank you very much Harry Horton ITV News. Um, Nigel, you’ve said that you can’t be held responsible for everything that happens in the world. But if someone says that if you deport me, I’ll be tortured. I’ll face abuse, surely there is some responsibility on you to stop that from happening. And secondly, if I may, um, how far back does this go? Where do you draw the line? You say you’re going to deport everyone who’s arrived here illegally. What are the parameters for that?
[Nigel Farage] Yeah, I mean look, you know, how far back you go with this is the difficulty and I accept that, you know, and the next question that Zia and I will get asked is what about those that are here illegally and have got children? So, you know, I’m not standing here telling you all of this is easy. All of this is straightforward. You know, and we had, of course, with the Windrush row, we had a situation there where people who’d come 50, 60, in fact, nearly 70 years ago had faulty paperwork. So, there is an exercise of common sense that has to come in here. But do we realistically think, Zia, we can deport 5 or 600,000 people in the lifetime of the first parliament? Totally. Totally. Yeah. I mean, so look, uh, one of the key points to make here is if you look at the population who are illegally, and by the way, this is difficult because you’re trying to count the uncountable almost by definition. You’re talking north of 650,000 adults without children who are in this country illegally. And by the way, those are the ones the British people are most concerned about. They’re the ones who in some cases are terrorizing local communities, hanging around bus shelters. Let’s start with deporting them. Let’s get that done promptly and efficiently. Yeah. And of course once we start this people will not in future be coming to Britain illegally. The precedent for this is Australia in 2012 where within two weeks of Tony Abbott taking the right actions the boats stopped coming from Indonesia. The solution to this is not difficult. It’s been the lack of political will to put in measure the right places. uh is why we’re now in this position where as I said earlier uh the public are between a mixture of utter despair but increasing and growing anger.
[Serena Bankan Singh] Um Serena Bankan Singh from Sky um you’ve said that you’re going to detain anyone who arrives via small boats. Will that apply to women and girls? And what about unaccompanied children? Will they remain in Britain while their parents are turfed out? And then you said you would leave the UN torture convention. Australia and the US haven’t done this. Are you comfortable of the risk of people being killed or tortured if they’re sent back to their country of origin? Um, and will pulling out of these international treaties lose UK credibility on the international stage?
[Nigel Farage] Well, we’re talking about disapplying for up to 5 years a variety of conventions that that do need broader debate and certainly at a UN level uh need reform and change. uh as far as the ECR is concerned, we’re very much of the view that it is it’s a body that they say is separate from the European Union, but you know, I could walk from my office in Strasburg straight into the European Court of Human Rights. Uh they’re joined at the hip. I don’t see any prospect, frankly, in the short term of the ECR being reformed. Now you might argue you might argue that Germany who now of course have have a whole series of deportation flights set up. You might argue that Denmark which now has a zero asylum policy. You might argue uh that well if those countries can do it why can’t we do it? But of course the problem has been our own judiciary. We have to remove the tools from our own judiciary for them to be a barrier to this process. And yes, women and children, everybody on arrival will be detained. And I’ve accepted already that how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue. But you know what? The people protesting outside the Bell Hotel and at 30 migrant hotels on Saturday around the country weren’t doing it because of a few children coming. They were doing it because over threearters of those that come are young undocumented males who come from cultures that are entirely different from ours who are very unlikely to assimilate into our community who pose a risk to women and girls and some of them I’m afraid pose a risk to national security. So that’s pretty clear I think what our priorities are. Paul McNamara Channel 4.
[Paul McNamara] Hi Mr. Farage. There is a realistic possibility that if you go forward with this, there might be a case where someone arrives in the UK by a small boat, you send them back to the country from which they came and they will be tortured or killed because of a decision that you’ve made. How does that sit with you?
[Nigel Farage] Well, the alternative of course is to do nothing. I mean, that’s the very clear alternative is we just do nothing. we just allow this problem to magnify and grow. We head to a point where there’ll be whether and I genuinely I’m not you know I don’t want this to happen. I want our proposals to be accepted so that we can prevent uh civil disorder from happening. But that is the direction this country is headed in. And we cannot be responsible for all the sins that take place around the world. It’s just literally impossible. that we can recognize that the primary duty of a British government is to protect the integrity, the safety and security of its own people. Um, and you know, that’s why we have to do this. I mean, I mean, Zia said in his speech that nothing short of these measures will work and I think we all genuinely believe that if we allow any loopholes to remain open with this, it isn’t going to happen. You know, is this a perfect world? Are all are these things all that we’d want to do? Well, we shouldn’t have been put in this position. We’ve been put in this position by Conservative and Labor governments. We have to do something tough. We have to do something radical. And this is a plan that will work. Andy Bell, Channel 5 News.
[Andy Bell] Thank you. Uh Andy Bell 5 News. Um, so if you’re able to implement your policy, do you accept that that means Border Force agents going into towns looking for people who are here illegally, maybe who already have families, maybe who already have children, and you mentioned Windrush earlier and say, well, this is slightly complicated. There are going to be any number of people who, as far as they’re concerned, have been living in this country legally for years, who will then be very, very worried about what your party has in store for them. Are you not concerned about the sort of message you’re sending out with all of that?
[Nigel Farage] No, they won’t have been living here legally, will they? They would have been living here illegally. So, for instance, the people caught up in the Windrush episode, the whole point was that their situation was not clear. So, would they be covered? Windrush was a mess over paperwork. Yeah. And I understand that. It’s why I made mention of it earlier. Um, will Border Force be seeking out people who are here illegally, possibly many of them working in the criminal economy? Yes. It’s what normal countries do all over the world. It’s what normal countries do. I mean, what what sane country what sane country would allow undocumented young males to break into its country to put them up in hotels? They even get dental care. How about that? Most people can’t get an NHS dentist. This is not what normal countries do. We are talking about normality. And actually, the funny thing is, I’ll say it once again, in the first Blair government, if you came here illegally, your feet didn’t touch the sides. But it is this gradual drift. Ever since really, I think the Human Rights Act was incorporated into UK law. It’s this gradual drift to just accepting that anything goes. Well, we’re not accepting it. And I tell you what, there’s a big silent majority out there who were not accepting it either. And they are crying out. They are desperate to have some leadership that’s got some courage. They’re desperate for a political party that can put forward people who genuinely will put the needs of the British people first. That is what government is supposed to do. Thank you, Christopher McKeon from the Press Association.
[Chris McKeon] Uh, thanks Chris McKeon PA. Um, one of the countries you suggested sending people back to uh is Iran, a country which poses a national security risk to the UK and has attempted to kidnap and murder people in this country. Um, what financial incentives are you suggesting you offer them to take deportes back?
[Nigel Farage] Can I be clear that nobody that nobody no young man from Iran who arrives by boat should be walking the streets of our country under no circumstances absolutely no way never that shouldn’t be done but actually it’s quite interesting that Germany now has this mass of deportation flights going including Iran I think well what we’re seeing one thing I’ll comment I just want to very quickly make about when we’re talking about returning people to Afghanistan or returning people potentially uh to Iran or I was asked earlier today would you send uh young women would you send women back to uh Afghanistan well what about the fact that men from Afghanistan because it’s predominantly men predominantly men from Afghanistan and Iran are streaming across the channel illegally on almost a daily basis in fact sometimes they say would you send them back to quote women hating Afghanistan. Well, why are British women being subjected? Because it’s not the women who are coming. In fact, most estimates, most estimates put the total population of women and young girls from Afghanistan in this country legally at less than 2,000. Less than 210 of 1% of the total illegal migration population. So, these are totally bogus questions, frankly, and we should be talking about the much bigger issue about the safety of British women and girls. Yep. Okay. Um, I think one of the most interesting things about this press conference and about the media the last few days is the questions that are being asked about the practicalities of individual pieces of implementation. What I notice there’s very little push back from the media against the idea that we really are in very very big trouble in this country. And I think every one of you know I thought Andrew Neil’s piece in the Mail on Saturday was was was very reflective. I think everyone understands we have a massive problem here. We are not very far away from major civil disorder. And I think the acceptance as a whole of the big picture that we’re putting forward uh shows you that once again it’s reform that are leading national debates. Noah Hoffman from the Sun.
[Noah Hoffman] Thank you Mr. Farage. Noah from the Sun. Um, you were just mentioning there about this growing anger, you know, this seething anger at Kier Starmer for what some people think putting the human rights of foreign rapists above British families. But there’s still around 4 years until another general election and a lot of people will be feeling very helpless and like they want something to happen quicker than that time. So, how would you recommend members of the public should put pressure on a Labour government to do more than just cite human rights laws and actually tackle this issue?
[Nigel Farage] I think that one of the things I’ve learned over quite a long time in this game is that if you lead with arguments, if you get the public to follow you, the other politicians start to change their tune. And let’s face it, this is a Labor government famed for its number of U-turns already. So, I would urge everybody out there that’s got a Labour MP to go to that MP and say to him or her, unless you get a grip on this, we will absolutely not be voting for you next time round and you will lose your seat. And if that happens on a big enough scale, I think it could be a remarkable effect of concentrating the mind. Um, four years to the next election. Do you really think so? I think I think I think the 30-year bond market is giving us a somewhat different indication. Um particularly as we have a chancellor of the exchequer dubbed famously by my colleague Lee Anderson as Rachel from Accounts who is clearly desperately out of her depth. And actually I’m not sure there’s anybody in the cabinet that really has a clue how to turn around uh the economic downward spiral and possible possibly even fiscal doom loop that we’re beginning to enter into. So they may not last quite as long as you think. Martin Beckford from the Mail.
[Martin Beckford] Thank you very much. Martin Beckford from the Daily Mail. Um we know that Afghans make up the largest proportion of small boat crossings, about 6,000 in the past year. We know that lots of people who work with British and American forces have are still trying to flee the Taliban. Would you make any exceptions for them and allow them to stay?
[Nigel Farage] Yes, you would. Yes, absolutely. There were brave Afghans who supported the British forces and American forces during that 20-year war who of course absolutely of course deserve recompense for the enormous risks they took. And and and and by the way Martin you know just bear this in mind that this country has taken half a million refugees since the Brexit referendum. This country is not close-minded to groups that genuinely face persecution, to groups that genuinely are refugees. We just don’t believe by any traditional definitions of a refugee. We just don’t believe those people crossing the English Channel or at least very few of them tick that box. Carry on. Will you have a a scheme continue some of the resettlement schemes? Yes, but of course, once again, the whole thing’s been messed up beyond all belief. uh the list of a couple of thousand interpreters becomes a list of 100 thousand people. The whole thing gets leaked. It’s a complete and utter shambles. But you know where it’s right and proper. You know, Operation Restoring Justice would apply to those Afghan interpreters as well. Absolutely. Thank you for your question. Zia do come in whenever you want.
[Zia Yusuf] Can I just very quickly uh mention to the degree someone wants to make the case uh for legitimate asylum claims as no doubt some uh may exist those can only ever be taken seriously when you have a secure border and you actually have control about who’s coming. This is one of the biggest problems. I put it to you that an infinitesimal number of the Afghans who are crossing the channel illegally served with our military bravely. It will be an infinitesimal number. We know this. So again this is a big part of what Reform is going to do. If you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country. If you don’t have a border, you don’t have an immigration policy. You can .. we can talk about it all we want.
[Nigel Farage] Quite. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh Michael Knowles from the Daily Express.
[Michael Knowles] Thank you very much. Your operational plan speaks about a six-month voluntary return window. Can you spell out why you’re going to do that and why it precedes the large-scale raids?
[Nigel Farage] Well, because there’s a nice way of doing this and there’s a very tough way of doing this. And if people think crikey, you know, they’re breathing down my neck, they’re actually going to catch up with me and deport me. I might as well take the offer of 2 and a half thousand quid and a free comfortable flight back to my home country. Difficult to assess. Difficult to assess just how successful that will or will not be. But if you know if you think you know this time next week they’re going to be knocking on my door, I suggest quite a few people might take that up. Uh and I think that is you know that is part of our sort of carrot and stick approach to individuals illegally in Britain but equally to other countries as well. You know we will try to make it easy and after all the countries we’re talking about we’re giving nearly all of them foreign aid anyway. So there are ways that we can offer them constructive deals to take back their people or we can get tougher by applying diplomatic or economic pressure.
[Zia Yusuf] Can I just add as well that it’s also much cheaper frankly and I might stick in the throat a little bit paying people who are coming illegally. But if you look at the Department of Homeland Security, you’ve looked a lot of what the Trump Administration uh has done that the DHS have said, you know, their voluntary programs about a, $1000 to $1500 bucks uh relative to $17,000 for an enforced uh deportation. And as Nigel said, one of the things that will happen immediately once we pass this legislation is UK Deportation Command will start issuing letters informing them, we know we’re on to you and if you don’t take this voluntary program, you’re gone forcibly in 6 months time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,
[James Hill] James Hill, Spectator. The risk of a British Bill of Rights is that it simply empowers those same activist judges that you’ve decried here today. Uh would it not be preferable instead to simply repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act, leave the ECR, and go back to the old system of legal governance?
[Nigel Farage] Yeah, I mean, common law really is what you’re talking about, and that’s how we used to do it. And you know, our tradition has always been that we’re freeborn people, that everything is allowed unless there is a law that specifically prohibits us from doing something as opposed to the more European system of state given human rights, which incidentally they can withdraw pretty much at a moment’s notice. Um, look, we’ve used the Bill of Rights as a term because it is an historic term in British history. Uh, but it won’t be full of European style human rights. It will be a reassertion of what the basic liberties are of people in this country. And let me assure you of one thing. It will include the right to free speech, which I’m afraid to say. And yes, we all want to protect children, but I’m afraid to say that the recent legislation, the Online Safety Act that has come in, is already genuinely curtailing free speech in this country in a way that I think is deeply, deeply alarming. Aubrey Alegretti from the Times.
[Aubrey Alegretti] Uh, hello Mr. Farage. Aubrey Alegretti from the Times. There are very few number of disused or surplus RAF bases. So to prove that this plan is viable, can you name any that you would use either to hold migrants or to operate deportation flights from? And would they, for example, include RAF Scampton? And if I may, why do you want these powers to sunset after 5 years? Is it because you’re concerned they could be used by a future government in a way you don’t foresee?
[Nigel Farage] No, because look, you know, we do think we do think there is hope that the 1951 refugee convention at the UN can be revisited and redefined for the modern world. So, we’ve done it for a period of 5 years and we’ll see where we go after that. Uh, can I just make one thing very very clear that the last government and this one have been housing people in military bases. One or two campaigns have stopped them using certain particular geographical locations, but quite a few have been used around the country. So, you get put into a military base, but you’re free to walk the streets at night. You’re free to possibly even go and drive a delivery bike for somebody. The military bases that we will use, people will be detained. They won’t be out walking the streets on the road to being deported. So I would suggest to you that whichever geographical locations are chosen, local residents will be far less concerned by this plan than they would young men being free 24 hours a day to walk through their village or walk through their town. On the practicalities of building accommodation, some very interesting thoughts that have come from America over the last few months. Yeah, look, um, there’s 100,000 square miles of land mass in this country. We’re going to need about a third of one square mile for the entire detention estate of the incremental 21,000 that we’re talking about here. And Trump, whatever you think of President Trump, he has cut illegal border crossings by 97%. They said that it couldn’t be done. He has done it. How? Because ICE has gone out and made 150,000 arrests and embarked on these deportations. If you look at the detention capacity he created in Florida, he created 3,000 beds in 8 days. If we were to be able to do it that rate, we’d have the whole 24,000 up and running in 2 months. That’s not in our numbers. But there is modern technology, these steel modular structures, these are all things that we can use. This notion that Britain can’t do anything, Britain can’t build anything is for the birds. It’s just about the political will. Yeah. And we managed it, didn’t we, at the start of COVID with the Nightingale hospitals which sprung up in no time at all. So yeah, creating creating the first few thousand places can happen very quickly. Of that there is no doubt at all. Charles Hymas from The Telegraph.
[Charles Hymas] There currently about 100,000 more than 100,000 people who’ve got asylum applications half of whom are going to be rejected. You also got more than 50,000 who’ve got appeals that are currently going through and probably will a significant number will be rejected. So when you come, if you were to win the next election, you’re going to have a tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands potentially of failed asylum seekers. Are you going to deport them and are they in your figures? One final question is what are the sanctions that you would use against a country that refused to take back its migrants?
[Nigel Farage] Fine. Well, the answer is yes. The worry of course is that to ease government’s difficulty, it just waves through an increasing number of people. It just says look you know all right we’ll give you refugee status even though as I said two decades ago in more normal times that would never have been contemplated that is this government’s get out to the backlog problem. I’d also mention Charles while we’re here. If you look at those that have claimed asylum in the last year, the biggest single category comes from Pakistan and they haven’t come by boat. They’ve come with the excuse they’re coming to visit relatives then they overstay. And that racket, absolute racket that’s been going on for years has to end. The same applies to students who come here and then deliberately and willfully overstay. And and one of the most remarkable things about those stats is under half of all people making these claims have come by boat. Overstaying is a massive problem and neither of the last two governments frankly have done very much at all to deal with it. There are there are people there are overstayers now being deported on a relatively small scale but nobody is actually gripping this issue. Um oh we’ll give the Telegraph two questions shall we? Did you have a question Camila?
[Camila Tominey] Very generous. This is for the Daily T podcast. Um you mentioned earlier that there are three million people on social housing waiting list. Would it be your uh policy to have a British first approach to appointing housing when it comes to local areas? Some local areas do look at localism, but others don’t. Would that be a blanket policy? And while we’re speaking about housing, what’s your reaction to the revelation that the deputy prime minister Angela Rainer has got an £800,000 second home in Hove? Do you think it’s hypocritical? Should MPs have second homes?
[Nigel Farage] So I would say this to you. I would say this to you. Uh isn’t it funny that the residence that Angela Rainer is living in in London is now coming under criticism from James Cleverly. He wasn’t complaining when Michael Gove lived there. So it’s just party politics. And if Angela Rainer has been tremendously successful in business and managed to acquire a property portfolio and done it properly, well, jolly good luck to her. Uh and and and this sort of whole this whole sort of hair shirt approach. I mean, I think probably most of the press want politicians in sackcloth and ashes, um would like us all to go vegan and give up drinking. Well, it’s not happening here. Um that I can assure you. Do you want to answer the other bit or not? We are opposed to two tier justice within our country. We are opposed to two-tier policing within our country. Uh we are opposed to two-tier sentencing. We’ve just seen Lucy Connley coming out of prison as Ricky Jones walks free. And yes, I know the circumstances were different. Uh but we are pro a two-tier approach from government when it’s deciding who are the priorities for housing, for benefits, for any of these things. Is it Britishborn people or is it people swaning in from all over the world? And we are pro British in this country having more rights than those that have recently come. Yes. Yes. Yes. And in time in time, you know, if you go to Australia, you can’t access the health system. Doesn’t happen. You got to pay your insurance for four or five years. You commit a crime, you’ll be deported. We’ve just been so weak on all of this. We welcome those that will come will benefit our society, integrate, contribute, and in time become British citizens and have the full rights of everybody else. But I’m afraid that’s just not what is actually going on. It hasn’t been it hasn’t been frankly for many, many years. Natasha Clark from LBC, we are getting towards the end, folks. I promise you.
[Natasha Clark] Natasha Clarke from LBC. Um, you talk about a self-epport app in your document today. Can you tell us about how that would work? And second, you talk about the risk of unrest on our streets. You obviously know this plan is going to face legal challenges, operational issues, political pressure. Your opponents are going to absolutely throw the book at you to try and stop this. What is your message firstly to them and secondly to voters whose trust is absolutely on the floor over this issue.
[Nigel Farage] Prime Ministers have repeatedly failed to do enough about this and fix this very tricky problem. We’ve got years of promises. Why should the public trust you? Well, you’re right. I mean, you know, every prime minister since David Cameron has said clearly, if you come to Britain illegally, you will be removed and they all do it and none deliver. Although I think they say it because they think the public wants to hear it rather than they actually mean it. The fundamental point of your question is correct. That the social contract that exists in this country between those that work and pay their taxes and those that govern them is is at a very very fragile moment. That trust in politics and trust in politicians uh frankly it’s certainly never been lower in my lifetime. And I think you might have to go back a long way in history to find a parallel period. So the restoring of that trust is absolutely vital. A lot of people around the country who say they’re going to vote reform believe that we’re pretty much the last shot. Pretty much the last shot. that if we don’t win that election and start putting in place some of the very necessary changes that are needed, then goodness only knows what this country will look like in 10 years time. Goodness only knows how many more talented people will have left, not just the ultra rich but the young, ambitious, hardworking. So it is vital that we do this. All I can say to you is there’s nobody on these issues of sovereignty, on these issues of national self-interest, on these issues of predicting what would happen in the future and it coming true. There is nobody more determined to do this than me. Okay, Eleanor Langford from the I Paper.
[Eleanor Langford] Hello, Mr. Farage. Um, just to confirm, are you willing to negotiate with the Taliban and potentially pay them tens of millions of pounds to allow increased returns from the UK? And one more if I may, are you concerned that leaving the ECR could jeopardize the Good Friday Agreement?
[Nigel Farage] Yeah. I mean, look, you know, Blair, of course, wrote the ECR into everything. He wrote it into everything to try and embed it deeply in British law. Uh, can we renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement to get the ECR out of it? Yes. Is that something that can happen very, very quickly? No. It’ll take longer. It’ll take longer. So unfortunately and for a variety of reasons, previous governments have placed Northern Ireland, I’m afraid, in a different position to the rest of the United Kingdom, something that we vigorously opposed. It will take a little bit longer with Northern Ireland. Zia?.
[Zia Yusuf] Um yeah, so look, we are I just want to very quickly go back to the question about the app as well. Um because again, we want to emphasize that the goal is to get as many people to leave voluntarily. And what deportation command do will do will make very clear they will issue dates once they’ve tracked people down. This is the date that you will be arrested uh and you will be uh deported. Uh going back to the earlier point as well about what you know why should people believe Nigel when so many political leaders have stood in front of the British people and said we would do it. Well one of the signs that it this is going to work is how number one the human rights lawyers the so-called human rights lawyers are furious. That’s a really good positive indicator that this plan will work because these people, there’s an industrial complex, I’ve seen this in corums, an industrial complex of so-called human rights lawyers um who defend the human rights of foreign citizens at the expense uh of uh British ones. And you know, to James Hill’s question earlier about the British Bill of Rights, I will tell you this, the draftsmen who put this legislation together have been under a very, very clear and strict instruction. But Nigel’s the prime minister. There will not be a judge in the country that will be able to prevent a single plane from departing. And that is why and that is why that is why we are clearing the decks um from a uh legislative standpoint.
[Nigel Farage] Yeah. Anna Gross, Financial Times.
[Anna Gross] Thank you. Um, you said that we’re facing a massive and unprecedented crisis of people coming over to the country uh to claim asylum. The numbers have gone up. Uh, it was 108,000 in 2024. But this was only the 17th highest number in Europe per capita of the population. Are you willing to acknowledge that this is an international phenomenon? that Britain is much less affected than many other countries and that there are millions of people in the UK that want to provide refuge to those who may be killed in their home countries. In 2015, the boat started crossing the Mediterranean. Jean-Claude Junkers, who at the time was the president of the European Commission, announced that the EU would put in place a common refugee and asylum policy for the European Union. And I was there through all of it. And I spoke repeatedly in parliamentary debates and I said, “If you allow anyone that sets foot across the Mediterranean to stay in the European Union, millions will come. Do not make this fundamental mistake.” Of course they did. And one of the reasons for voting Brexit was to prevent that catastrophic mistake that was made by the European Union compounded by Angela Merkel in the most astonishing and stupid way. One of the reasons for Brexit was to get ourselves away from that, you know, necessary obligation in that a few years in a European country, they become European citizens, they could come to Britain. Um, so I’ve been right about this from the very start. Singularly alone right about this from the very start. If you make it easy for people to come, they will come. It’s just as simple as that. And it is, you know, to the deep regret of everybody, especially 17.4 million Brexit voters and many many more uh that despite the fact we’ve got back control of our lives uh we’ve actually not bothered to use it properly. We should not be paying for the mistakes of the European Union. Um Esme Kenney from the Oxford Mail.
[Esme Kenney] Thank you. Esme Kenney Oxford Mail. Yes. Um so we’re not far away from Campsfield House which is a detention center which closed in 2018. Um the current government have said that they want to reopen and expand the site. Um what would a reform government do about Campsfield House and how would it respond to the backlash that reopening the site has faced from uh local residents and the district council?
[Nigel Farage] Yeah, I mean look, nobody wants no nobody wants a hotel near them. Nobody wants an HMO near them. No one wants a detention center around them. Well, at the moment they’ve got lots of them all over the country. And I’m not going to be drawn. I’m not going to be drawn. I’m aware of the problem. Of course, I’m not going to be drawn on the on the specifics of any individual geographical location because if we were to do that and presented as a plan, what the government would probably do is sell off the site and turn it into a solar farm. So, we’re going to keep It’s true. It’s actually true. Well, why not? I suppose you know. Um, so no, we’re not going to go into individual specific geographies. Certainly not at this stage. Um, okie dokie. Aletha from the Guardian.
Thank you. Aletha Adu from the Guardian. Your plan promises mass deportations at a cost of 10 billion pounds over 5 years. Yet the Center for Migration Control, which is led by your former colleague, Rupert Lowe, proposed a near identical plan at a cost of around 47.5 billion pounds. So why do you believe you can deliver the same scale of deportations for less than fifth of that price?
[Nigel Farage] Cuz Zia is really good at maths. Okay. Right now, the last question. The last question of this conference goes to David Burke of the Daily Mirror. This is the last one. David, where are you?
[David Burke] Thank you very much, Mr. Farage. Um, last year you said that Judeo-Christian values were at the root of everything in this country. You’ve previously called for a muscular defence of Christianity. Uh, we saw under the Tories the Church of England bishops were probably among the most uh vocal critics of the Rwanda plan when it came to the Lords. Uh it seems frankly ludicrous that they’d fall behind sending people to the Taliban, to Eritrea, uh to Iran and so forth. If you found yourself in a position where senior Christian leaders oppose the plans on moral grounds, are you prepared to say I don’t care and do it anyway? And if so, isn’t there a hypocrisy built into that?
[Nigel Farage] Well, look, I mean, you know, whoever the Christian leaders are at any given point in time, um I think over the last decades, quite a few of them have been rather out of touch. perhaps with their own flock. Um, given the types of people appointed to be the Archbishop of Canterbury, that’s probably the biggest understatement of the day. Um, we believe that what we’re offering is right and proper and we believe for a political party that was founded around the slogan of family, community, country that we are doing right by all of those things with these plans we put forward today. Somebody else asked me a moment ago about the the pressures from the establishment that we’ll face. Yes, of course there’ll be pressures from the establishment. Of course, there’ll be condemnation from all sorts of parts of society. But no big fundamental change that advances people’s lives ever comes without a battle against the establishment. a battle against the existing interests as Zia mentioned a moment ago, the human rights industry etc. Some of this will be hard, but that’s why we have to get a proper mandate for it at an election. And it’s why I believe that as a result of what we’re doing today center of gravity of this debate will move considerably between now and the next general election. Uh and I think a lot of people who maybe now are criticized. I’ve noticed actually one or two commentators, you know, who would have been even a handful of years ago would have said really quite vicious things in their commentaries about these proposals are now saying, well, you know what, actually, you know, I can’t walk down the King’s Road and wear jewellery anymore. You know, something fundamentally is going wrong. This feeling that we’re living in broken Britain. And this is, of course, but one part of broken Britain, but it’s the most visible part. And it’s the part that is leading to the greatest anger in the country. Right. Can I say thank you very much indeed everybody?
Watch the presentation
Closing thoughts
At the time this was one of Reform’s most heralded policy announcements and one supporters would have been most interested in. Farage appearing with Zia Yusuf showed that the latter’s very brief departure from the party was well behind them and Yusuf was now clearly leading the policy agenda alongside Farage. Repeatedly, during the presentation, references were made to Trump and ICE, and the title “Operation Restoring Justice” may well have been taken from an FBI-led investigation in the United States called “Operation Restore Justice”. There were also some parallels to be drawn with Trump in terms of handling the media. The two main anti-Farage papers, The Guardian and the Daily Mirror were tucked away at the end with the Guardian’s perfectly reasonable question about the costing of the operation being given a disdainful five-word answer. Expect more Trump-inspired policies and tactics in the coming years! Nevertheless, this was yet again a highly professional Reform UK media event as we have come to expect. Other parties will have to up their game in response.
