Nigel Farage says illegal migration is a 'scourge'

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has described illegal immigration as a "scourge" which is affecting the country on a "historic and unprecedented" scale.

Farage will outline his party's plans to tackle small boats crossings later on Tuesday, pledging to detain and deport people coming into the UK illegally.

He will also propose significant legal changes and question whether Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is on the side of human rights lawyers or the British people.

To make removals easier, Reform is promising to leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply international treaties like the Refugee Convention.

With four MPs, Reform UK is a small force in the Commons.

But polling suggests its popularity has grown significantly - so significantly that Farage talks in today's Daily Telegraph about what he plans to do if his party wins power at the next general election.

Farage wants to introduce a legal obligation on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to remove people who arrive illegally - an approach which was tried by the last Conservative government.

Reform also wants to ban anyone entering illegally from ever being able to claim asylum.

"Under these new plans, if you come to the UK illegally you will be ineligible for asylum. No ifs, no buts," Farage wrote in the Telegraph.

He called on politicians to put the UK first.

Labour said Reform's plans had been written on the back of a fag packet - and there was no substance on delivery.

The Tories said Reform were recycling their ideas.

Farage said the country faced "a national emergency in which uncontrolled illegal migration undermines public order".

"The scourge of illegal migration that we have seen in this country over the last five years is historic and unprecedented," he wrote.

Nearly 28,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel since the start of year.

Meanwhile, more than 50,000 migrants have come to the UK via this route in the 403 days since Labour came to power in July 2024.

The prime minister had made tackling illegal immigration and "restoring order" to the asylum system a priority for the government.

Under a new "one in, one out" pilot scheme set up between the British and French governments, some people who come into the UK in small boats will be detained and sent back to France.

Ministers are said to be ready to send more than 100 small boats arrivals back across the Channel, The Times reports.

The group are currently in detention, including some arrested over the weekend, the paper says.

Official Home Office figures show that more than 2,500 migrants crossed the Channel in the first 11 days the agreement took effect.

On Monday, Labour said it was planning an overhaul of the asylum appeals system as it tries to cut the number of migrants staying in hotels while they await a ruling.

The government has been under increasing pressure to reduce its reliance on asylum hotels, with demonstrations held across the UK over the weekend the latest in a wave of protests over the policy.