'Women will be deported under Reform proposal'

SINGLE women arriving in the UK illegally will be deported under a Reform UK government, Nigel Farage has said after he appeared to soften plans for “mass deportations”.

- CHRISTOPHER McKEON

The Reform UK leader gave conflicting answers on whether women and children would be deported under his proposal to remove up to 600,000 people from the country.

Mr Farage announced the policy at a press conference on Tuesday, saying anyone arriving in the UK illegally would be detained and deported, along with those already in the country with no right to remain.

Asked whether this would include women and children, he told reporters: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival, will be detained”.

He added he accepted that “how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue”, while senior Reform figure Zia Yusuf said “phase one” would focus on adults and unaccompanied children would be sent back “towards the latter half of that five years”.

At a subsequent press conference in West Lothian yesterday, he appeared to backtrack, saying press reports of the previous day’s event had been “wrong, wrong, wrong” and insisting his party was “not even discussing women and children at this stage.