Farage's deportation plans unworkable, say experts

Care industry warns of huge labour shortages under proposal

- MILLIE COOKE ARCHIE MITCHELL

Tens of thousands of people who have legally settled in Britain could be at risk of deportation under plans by Reform UK to scrap the main route towards British citizenship - a policy that was immediately dismissed as “an unworkable stunt based on dodgy maths”.

Nigel Farage said the current option of indefinite leave to remain - open to those who have lived and worked in Britain for five years - has “betrayed democracy” and vowed to abolish it.

The plans were condemned by migration charities and think tanks, as well as the care industry, which warned of crippling labour shortages.

Doubt was also cast over Mr Farage’s claim that savings from the policy would be “considerably larger” than the £230bn once suggested by the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), despite the think tank having since said its figure should no longer be used.

And despite the Reform leader’s claims the proposals would cut Britain’s welfare bill, it has emerged that EU citizens would be exempted from plans to ban all migrants from receiving benefits. This means only 2.7 per cent of universal credit claimants would be affected by Reform’s clampdown.

Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, head of advocacy at charity Praxis, warned the proposals would “tank our already-struggling economy, by disrupting the lives of millions of people who’ve been living and working legally in the UK for many years”.

Ben Brindle, a researcher at the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, questioned Mr Farage’s statement that half of those who have migrated to the UK are not working.