Farage accused of 'ugly' populism over plans for mass deportations

Reform leader threatens to pay Taliban and other regimes to take refugees

- Haroon Siddique Aletha Adu Jessica Elgot

Nigel Farage was accused of "ugly" and "destructive" rhetoric yesterday after announcing plans to deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers and pledging to pay despotic regimes such as the Taliban to take them back.

Unveiling Reform UK's "Operation Restoring Justice" at a combative press conference in Oxford, Farage said he would rip up the UK's postwar human rights commitments, contained in a range of international conventions, to deport "absolutely anyone" - including women and children - arriving by small boat.

Branding asylum seekers as a threat to national security and to British women, he claimed his plans would stop Channel crossings "within days" and "save tens and possibly hundreds of billions of pounds".

Downing Street accused Farage of not being serious about his plans but in a sign of how Reform has set the tone for public debate, the prime minister's spokesperson refused to criticise his references to irregular migration as an "invasion" and a "scourge", or his prediction that Britain is "not far away from major civil disorder".

Pushed on whether it would be a good idea to sign a returns deal with Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, as Farage had proposed, the spokesperson said the government was "not going to take anything off the table".

The Conservatives merely accused Reform UK of "reheating and recycling" Tory plans.

The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said: "We really are through the looking glass now. Nigel Farage pretending to be patriotic while pledging to rip up Britain's proud record of leading the world on human rights. As we've seen across history, his populist playbook is ugly, powerful and incredibly destructive. We know where it will lead if we don't stop it."