Reform UK have reached for a desperate new anti-migrant policy by announcing they would shut down the asylum system for up to five years if they got into power.
As the party continue to fall further behind a resurgent Labour in pretty much every way, they’re trying to cook up ways to wrestle back some momentum.
But instead of offering any sort of vision of hope or optimism for Brits, it seems all they have is yet more anti-migrant rhetoric, which they keep pushing further in an apparent bid to win back the most right-wing voters who have been swayed by Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.
The latest example of this has been the announcement that, if they won the next general election, Reform would shut down the asylum system for a full parliamentary term.
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The plans would see a ban implemented on migrants being granted asylum and the immediate deportation of some 90,000 applicants.
All asylum tribunals, legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes would be suspended as part of efforts to tackle what Nigel Farage has called a “national security emergency.”
Refugees who had been granted asylum in the last five years would also have their cases reviewed by the Home Office.
The asylum system plans have been slammed by Reform’s political opponents, with Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson labelling them a “clear sign of desperation and weakness.”
“Nigel Farage is casting around for more and more extreme policies as he tries to deal with scandals, police investigations and a growing challenge from Restore — this is a carbon copy of their policy,” she said.
“Running away from basic decency by entirely abandoning those escaping war and persecution might look to Reform like a way of winning a bidding war with other parties on the right, but the vast majority of British people will reject it as an assault on our common values.”
On the right, Tory shadow minister Chris Philp accused Farage of replicating a Conservative Party announcement last year.
“Banning asylum claims by illegal immigrants, abolishing the immigration tribunal and ending Labour’s resettlement routes are all existing Conservative policy,” Philp said.
Meanwhile, commentators reckon the policy proposal is a sign that Reform have “run out of road.”
Mail on Sunday columnist Dan Hodges wondered where Reform would go next now that there is “essentially no-one left to exclude from, or throw out of, the country.”
The Mirror’s Kevin Maguire also described the idea as “desperate”, adding that Farage was “letting Rupert Lowe pull his strings.”