Urgent action is needed...but not this unworkable UNBRITISH mishmash

Fury at Farage bid to deport victims of war

- LIZZY BUCHAN and DAVE BURKE

IN a gimmick-ridden speech that offered up yet more division and stoked further fears of civil unrest, Nigel Farage yesterday set out Reform's immigration policy with a relish that should frighten decent Brits.

The party chief's hard right blueprint pledged mass deportations if he ever becomes PM and vowed to lock up traumatised women and kids.

And with a heartless disregard for asylum seekers risking their lives to flee war and persecution, he claimed he would happily send them back to the deadly regimes they escaped from countries such as Afghanistan or Iran.

The Taliban last night said it was "prepared to work" with him on the issue, sparking dread among those who could again be in the clutches of a repressive outfit known for torture, execution and banning rights for females.

Mr Farage also warned Britain could leave the European Convention on Human Rights to make deportation easier, pull out of the Refugee Convention and the UN Convention Against Torture as well as the Council of Europe's anti-trafficking convention. Critics pointed out quitting the ECHR, which Sir Winston Churchill helped to set up, could put everyone's rights at risk, threaten the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland and place us in the company of pariah states such as Russia and Belarus. It would also go against British values.

But Mr Farage's Operation Restoring Justice policies were light on detail and he dodged a string of questions about how they would work in practice. He claimed 600,000 people could be detained and removed from the UK over five years with him in power by detaining them in former RAF bases and boosting flights.

Mr Farage refused to name a single airfield, or say where jets could leave from.