Nigel Farage, who leads Reform UK, is expected on Monday to put forward a proposal that would halt new asylum applications for the duration of a full parliamentary term and render any cases currently under consideration null and void. The plan envisions closing down asylum tribunals, along with the official channels through which refugees gain legal recognition and resettlement support.
Analysts projecting a Reform government's asylum policy have estimated that roughly 90,000 pending appeals — covering both asylum and humanitarian protection cases — would be bypassed rather than adjudicated, with those claimants facing removal from the country instead.
Under Reform UK's stated plans, the resettlement schemes that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced would be reopened would instead face immediate closure — schemes through which, according to estimates, roughly a quarter of those admitted are projected to come from Palestinian communities and from Afghan women and girls. The party contends that no popular mandate exists for the programmes, and has stated that anyone who entered under their terms will face deportation.
Under the proposals, those who received asylum protection at any point during the preceding five years would face a fresh examination of their cases by the Home Office. Speaking to a prominent broadcaster, Farage argued that the country faced a pressing national security challenge and that protecting citizens stood as the primary obligation of any government.
Proponents of a pause on asylum admissions have pointed to unresolved questions about the total number of undocumented residents and the nature of any associated risks as reasons to halt further intake. The party's platform, as outlined in its pledges, commits a Reform-led administration to prioritising the interests of people residing in Britain and maintaining border controls, while also proposing the use of trade tariffs as a mechanism to compel other nations to accept the return of deported individuals.
Reform UK put forward proposals earlier in the year that would bar nationals of countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Syria from obtaining UK visitor visas if those governments declined to take back individuals earmarked for deportation. Under the party's plan, nationals of Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and the other listed countries would face a halt on new visa approvals, while nations with trade ties to the UK but less exposure to that visa measure could be subject to further economic tools — including tariffs and airline bans — as additional forms of pressure.
Labour Party chairwoman Phillipson contended that the policy in question had its origins in Restore rather than Reform, a charge she levelled at a moment when Farage's party was navigating both a police investigation and pressure from a competing political movement. An unnamed source characterised Reform's stance toward people escaping conflict and persecution as a departure from a core principle that the majority of British people would find unacceptable, while Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp contended that the party's package — spanning limits on asylum applications following unauthorised entry, abolition of the immigration tribunal, and the ending of resettlement routes — bore the clear imprint of existing Conservative policy.
The party's BORDERS plan, as described in the statement, includes provisions to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, a target of removing those who enter without authorisation within seven days, and measures intended to address what the party characterises as loopholes in modern slavery claims and judicial review proceedings — areas the statement contends Reform's own proposals have not adequately covered.
