Outrage as Farage threatens mass deportation of legal immigrants

Reform leader's proposals on UK settlement labelled 'desperate and despicable'

- Eleni Courea

Nigel Farage was facing cross-party condemnation last night after threatening hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants with deportation by pledging to abolish the main route towards permanent settlement in the UK.

The Reform UK leader was criticised over both the principle and practicality of his proposals, with Labour figures accusing him of seeking to “break up families” and “foster division”.

At a tetchy press conference yesterday, Farage claimed the policy was aimed at stopping 800,000 people becoming eligible for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) between 2026 and 2030. Farage said this group - which he branded the “Boriswave” because they arrived under post-Brexit reforms made by Boris Johnson - tended to be young and low-skilled and were “going to be a huge burden on the state” by claiming benefits.

Speaking alongside his policy chief, Zia Yusuf, Farage pledged to abolish ILR and instead force migrants to reapply for visas every five years with stringent salary and English language requirements and tougher rules around bringing dependents.

He left open the possibility that families in the UK could be broken up and that Ukrainians and Hongkongers who moved here using special resettlement routes could have their rights to remain revoked.

In response, Downing Street said the UK was at a crossroads between “national renewal” under Keir Starmer and “the path of division and decline which Reform wants to put the country on”.

The remarks came as Starmer prepares to make a speech pledging to take the fight to Farage and proposing that the UK will reject division and hate fuelled by the far right.