Reform pledges to suspend asylum system for up to five years and deport claimants

Reform UK has announced plans to close down the UK's asylum system for a full parliamentary term - which is five years - if it were elected.

The party said all new asylum applications would be rejected and existing applications voided, with all claimants marked for deportation. It said no grants of humanitarian protection or refugee status would be made, while legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes would end.

Reform said it would also scrap the asylum tribunal system and would deport 90,000 people currently with appeal cases.

Labour chair Bridget Phillipson called the proposals a "clear sign of desperation and weakness".

Reform said its existing plans to make migrants who have entered the UK illegally, overstayed a visa or originated from a safe country ineligible for asylum would effectively prevent any current asylum claimant "from ever having their case heard".

The party said it would therefore "suspend the asylum system entirely for a full parliamentary term".

A parliamentary term usually lasts five years unless an early UK general election is called.

Under further proposals, Reform said it would pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and disapply the 1951 Refugee Convention to prevent legal challenges to its plans.

And the party said it would ban British visas for countries such as Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan if they refuse to allow deportation flights to land in their country.

For countries without a significant legal foreign national presence in the UK, the party said it would look at tariffs on goods and services for non-compliance.

Party leader Nigel Farage said the UK is "facing a national security emergency" and "we cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose."

He and Reform's home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf will formally announce the plans in a speech on Monday.

"We've got to prioritise the British people," Yusuf said, pointing to Britons "dying totally avoidably waiting for emergency care" and young people "being forced to stay at home with their parents well into their 30s and 40s because they can't afford to rent homes".

He added: "We will not be returning people into harm, but we have to be honest about the fact that fraud is rampant."

He claimed the millions of unauthorised immigrants deported under former US President Barack Obama's administration showed there was "precedent" for the party's plans.

Home Office staff who currently oversee asylum claims would be "reprioritised to reviewing and overturning previous refugee grants", Reform added.

It also said it would create a specialised agency focusing on the detention and deportation of those in the UK illegally, with 24,000 to 28,000 detention spaces needed to be stood up.

Under Reform's previous pledge in April for an immediate review of all asylum claims from the last five years should the party win the next general election, about 400,000 people would be liable for deportation.

The party previously announced it would bar anyone arriving on a small boat, and suggested this could mean 600,000 deportations over five years.

In response to the party's latest announcement, Phillipson said Farage is "casting around for more and more extreme policies" as he deals with questions about finances and rival party Restore Britain.

The Labour chair said her party is showing "we can control immigration and get numbers down with serious action, not by abandoning the asylum system altogether", adding the "right approach" is "not giving up or caving to the most extreme voices, but ensuring that the rules we have are properly enforced".

In March, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said any asylum seeker given refugee status will now only be offered temporary protection, reviewed every 30 months.

In September, she also reopened a scheme to resettle refugees in the UK, saying she hoped that offering "safe and legal" routes would deter small boat crossings.

Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said the proposals "largely copy" his party's policies, arguing: "Only the Conservatives have a serious and credible plan to fix our borders."

The Tories previously said they would task officials with removing 750,000 illegal immigrants within five years, under Trump-style deportation plans.

Lib Dems home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson said the "UK can only restore order, control and fairness by joining the EU migration and asylum pact", which increases the number of irregular migrants returned to their home countries and spreads responsibility for asylum seekers across the EU.