Nigel Farage’s ‘mass deportation’ plan is doomed to fail

Nigel Farage is like a chatbot trained on social media posts. “It’s perfectly simple,” they begin. “Send them back to France”, or “Detain them all and deport them.” If it was so easy, why do these armchair gold commanders think that three prime ministers who knew that their survival depended on it have so far failed to stop the boats?

- John Rentoul, The Independent

The one thing that ought to be obvious from the start is that the solution to the problem is not obvious. Therefore, the test of Farage’s proposals today is whether they are creative and rigorous enough to meet and overcome the legal and logistical complexity of the challenge. Let me explain why the Reform UK plans fail this test. The main proposal is to detain and deport everyone who arrives by small boat, and to refuse to consider them for asylum — which is essentially what Rishi Sunak proposed and indeed legislated for, but never put into practice.