Nigel Farage U-Turns On Reform UK Plan To Deport Women And Children

Nigel Farage has rowed back on Reform UK’s plans to deport women and unaccompanied children who enter the UK illegally.

The party leader insisted the controversial move “is not part of our plan for the next five years”.

But just 24 hours previously, former Reform chairman Zia Yusuf had stood alongside Farage to insist it would happen.

Labour said Reform’s plans were “completely falling apart” after just 24 hours.

Farage on Tuesday unveiled plans to deport up to 600,000 illegal immigrants within five years of winning the next election.

Under “operation restoring justice”, he said he would withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights and other treaties to stop “activist judges” blocking his plans.

Reform would also revive the Tories’ failed Rwanda plan, and house asylum seekers in disused RAF sites before being deported – although Farage refused to say where they would be.

Asked whether women and children would be among them, Farage said: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival, will be detained.”

He said he accepted that “how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue”.

Zia Yusuf said “phase one” of the Reform plan would focus on adults and unaccompanied children would be sent back “towards the latter half of that five years”.

But at a press conference in Scotland on Wednesday, Farage performed a U-turn.

He said Reform were focused on “illegal males” and “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.

Asked whether this meant women and children would be “exempt”, he said: “I didn’t say exempt forever, but at this stage it’s not part of our plan for the next five years.”

Labour MP Gareth Snell said: “Surprise, surprise: Reform’s supposed ‘plan’ on illegal migration is completely falling apart just 24 hours after being announced. 

“It’s not good enough to just shout from the sidelines. Farage needs to set out where the intended detention centres will be, what will happen to women and children, and say how he’ll convince regimes like Iran to take people back. 

“The British people deserve better than this shoddy plan which fails every conceivable practical, legal and ethical test.”

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson said: “It appears Nigel Farage has taken as much time reading his own plan as he does his constituents’ emails. Reform’s plans do not even stand up to the scrutiny of their own leader. 

“His band of plastic patriots are taking the country for fools.”