Farage opens the British political year with the promise of "mass deportations"

LondonNew boom-boom-boom against migrants. Trumpism and the far right are advancing at a forced pace in the United Kingdom. Looking at US policies, Reform Party leader Nigel Farage took another step Tuesday in blaming all the country's ills on the people who arrive on the islands by boat and without documentation across the English Channel.

With a giant British flag behind her, and from inside a hangar at Oxford Airport, Farage promised to launch a "massive deportation campaign" to combat what he called the "scourge of illegal immigration." Deportations to countries like Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Iran, or expulsions to countries like Rwanda and Albania, with which agreements should be reached in exchange for economic incentives.

The boats, he said, cause "a genuine national emergency" that he intends to remedy if he comes to power in the next general elections, scheduled for 2029. Amid laughter from the audience, Farage hinted that the premier, Keir Starmer will not be able to complete his term, and the current direction of the Labour government will force him to call them sooner.

Ten days before Parliament reconvenes after the summer recess, Farage has opened the political year with his favorite topic: foreigners and how to get them out.

In the hypothetical first five years of his term, the number of deportees could reach 600,000, with the aim of an annual maximum of 288,000. However, these are figures that Peter Walsh, researcher at the Migration Observatory and professor at Oxford, considers to be "much easier to enumerate than to achieve."

Be that as it may, if they conquer Downing Street, the Reform Party would launch Operation Restore Justice., a five-year plan to "track, detain, and deport all illegal immigrants." The UK Deportation Command would also be created to carry out the plan, and centers like military bases would be set up to detain, prison-like, up to 24,000 people at a time.

In an apocalyptic tone, the populist leader insisted that the boats "threaten national security" and that the arrival of migrants could cause "civil disorder" on the islands, since many of the people entering are young people without papers. "They come from countries where women have no rights and could represent a cultural and terrorism risk," a way of insinuating that all migrants are potential rapists or potential jihadists. "If this is not remedied right now, we don't know what this country will be like in ten years," he even said.

Difference with the traditional parties

In his parliament, Farage has accused the Conservative governments of not having done anything effective since 2018, when a progressive increase in the arrival of migrants across the English Channel began to be detected, and of failing in plans like Rwanda, where the Tories wanted to send asylum seekers. And he has also criticized both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer for not addressing the legal obstacles that prevent deportations. Farage has argued that the "invasion" can be stopped not only with "immediate detentions and removals", but also with the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the international human rights treaties that, in his opinion, provide legal coverage for migrants.

But these legislative changes would not happen "overnight", Walsh reminded the BBC: "There is a lot of legal work to do first before repealing the 1951 Refugee Convention and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, which is deeply embedded."

The party's number two, Zia Yusuf, who also intervened to detail the series of measures that would implement what is a cleaning plan, said that "while it is impossible to count the uncountable, there are at least one million illegal immigrants" in the United Kingdom. The party also denounced the fact that migrants are "rewarded" with hotel accommodation, free meals, and even "cinema or safari tickets," while "human rights lawyers prevent even convicted criminals from being deported."

The plan would cost £10 billion over five years, but the Reform Party says it will generate net savings of £17 billion over the same period and return these resources to "working families, schools, and the National Health Service (NHS)," Yusuf said. A promise reminiscent of the £350 million a week boost to the National Health Service that was supposed to result from Brexit and never materialized. Nine years after the referendum, Farage and his henchman have revived the old slogan to bolster their campaign: "total control of the borders" is needed.

The Oxford specialist sees, in addition to legal problems, logistical issues that would complicate the planned mass expulsion. "The key question is whether countries like Afghanistan, Eritrea, and Iran would accept the return of their own citizens."

Campaign against crime

Farage's new push against migrants has taken advantage of a heated summer of protests in various towns on the islands against the aforementioned presence of new arrivals awaiting the resolution of their asylum applications in hotels, which, according to official statistics, has an annual cost of 7 billion pounds. In mid-July, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales issued an interim order that the Bell Hotel in Epping, on the outskirts of London, could not accommodate asylum seekers, and that they should be evicted by September 12.

The decision was prompted by a legal appeal by the district council, after residents reported insecurity leading to one of the migrants staying there being prosecuted for allegedly sexually abusing a teenage girl. Since then, there have been other protests in different cities on the islands, where the English flag has been seen and chants such as "England for the English" have been heard.

Farage's populist party currently has four MPs in the Commons. But Farage leads the polls, and in the English local elections in early May It dealt a severe blow to both the Labour Party and the Conservatives.

Immigration is seen by Farage as an electoral asset, as a scapegoat for the country's structural problems, which are very difficult to resolve, such as a lack of productivity and low wages, continued inflation, an endemic housing shortage and extremely high rents that are impossible for young people to afford, a lack of infrastructure, and tax increases in the autumn to, among other things, address the military spending that both the United Kingdom and Europe have embarked on.

The only topic Farage talks about, however, is the small boats. The media and social networks amplify his message, and if he doesn't act, the Labour Party and, by extension, the other traditional parties may see how the British system mutates. Farage has said that "public order is threatened" by the small boats, but what his rhetoric does is pit the weakest sectors of society against each other and pose a direct threat to British democracy. Trumpism has a dangerous bridgehead in the United Kingdom.