Farage unveils plan to review five years of asylum grants and remove approved refugees

Reform UK has moved beyond promising tougher action on future Channel crossings and is now saying a government led by Nigel Farage would revisit successful asylum claims from the past five years.

In a press conference on Monday, the party said people who entered the UK illegally, overstayed a visa before claiming asylum, or in some cases came from countries it considers safe, could have their leave to remain revoked and face deportation. The Times reported that Reform believes around 400,000 people could fall within scope, with “the majority” eventually removed.

That is what makes this more than another routine anti-migration press conference. Reform is not only arguing for harsher treatment of future arrivals. It proposes reopening protections already granted by the British state. Reporting on the announcement also suggests the plan could affect dependents in some cases.

Farage and Reform chairman Zia Yusuf also made clear that the proposal depends on a much larger legal rupture. Reform says it would leave the European Convention on Human Rights and pursue wider changes to Britain’s refugee-law framework as part of the plan. The proposal sits within its broader “Operation Restoring Justice” agenda, centred on a new UK Deportation Command and removals on a far larger scale than the UK currently carries out.

That is also where the proposal becomes hardest to separate from political theatre. Researchers at Oxford’s COMPAS say the practical hurdles are logistical and diplomatic, noting that UK detention capacity stood at about 2,200 in mid-2024, while Reform has talked about expanding that to 24,000. They also note that the UK’s current removals system operates at only a fraction of the scale Reform envisages.

Critics responded quickly to Reform’s announcement. The Refugee Council said reopening and reassessing hundreds of thousands of decisions would overwhelm a system already under severe pressure, tie up the courts for years and cost taxpayers tens of billions.

“Reopening and reassessing hundreds of thousands of asylum decisions would overwhelm the system which is already struggling, tie up the courts for years, and cost taxpayers tens of billions.”

The Green Party co-deputy leader Rachel Millward called the announcement cruel and superficial.

“We do not want to see people risking their lives crossing the channel in small boats. What we need is strong international cooperation to address the reasons that people are having to seek asylum in the first place: war, poverty and the climate crisis, and to provide safe and managed routes that would offer a real alternative to people smugglers.

“We must remember our basic humanity. Many of those seeking asylum have endured horrendous trauma. They include mothers and children. We have a duty to offer compassion and sanctuary, not insecurity, fear and intimidation.”

The sharpest way to frame the story, then, is not simply that Farage wants tougher borders. It is that Reform is asking voters to accept that refugee protection already granted by the UK should be reopened and potentially revoked on a mass scale. That is a serious argument about state power, legal certainty, and the meaning of asylum itself.

GOING FURTHER

• Nigel Farage vows to deport small boat migrants who were granted asylum | THE TIMES

• Reform pledges to send 400,000 asylum seekers home | THE TELEGRAPH

• The Most Radical Part of Reform’s Deportation Plans | COMPAS

• How many people are detained or returned? | GOV.UK

• Briefing: Immigration Detention in the UK | THE MIGRATION OBSERVATORY

• Briefing: the sorry state of the UK asylum system | FREE MOVEMENT

• Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum | THE GUARDIAN

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in Europeans TODAY on 21 April 2026.

▪ Cover: Dreamstime/Fred Duval.