LONDON: The leader of Britain’s anti-migration Reform UK party, Nigel Farage, announced a plan on Tuesday to repeal human rights laws to allow for mass deportations of asylum seekers and reverse what he called an “invasion” that threatened national security.
Farage said his party, which is leading in national opinion polls, would remove Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights, repeal the Human Rights Act and disapply other international treaties that have been used to block the forced deportation of asylum seekers.
“The mood in the country around this issue is a mix between total despair and rising anger,” Farage said at a press conference. “It is an invasion, as these young men illegally break into our country.”
The announcement comes against the backdrop of sustained, small-scale protests in recent weeks outside hotels housing asylum seekers, in response to concerns about public safety after some individuals were charged with sexual assault.
Opinion polls show that immigration has overtaken the economy as British voters’ biggest concern. Reform UK – which has just four members of parliament but is ahead in every survey of voting intentions – is putting Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer under growing pressure to tackle the issue.
In 2024, Britain received a record 108,100 asylum applicants, almost 20 percent more than a year earlier. Individuals from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Bangladesh made up the largest number of applicants for asylum last year.
Much of the focus has been on those who arrive on small boats across the Channel, with record numbers arriving this year.
Starmer’s government and its predecessors have been wrestling for years with how to deal with undocumented migrants entering the country.
The plans by Reform are the most radical yet and would involve signing deals with Afghanistan, Eritrea and other countries to repatriate their nationals who arrived in Britain illegally.
Without action, Farage said “anger will grow, in fact I think there is now, as a result of this, a genuine threat to public order, and that is the very last thing we want.”
Starmer’s government has a plan to “smash” the gangs which smuggle people to Britain by reforming the asylum appeals process and hiring more enforcement officials.
The previous Conservative government planned to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, but the policy was ruled unlawful by Britain’s top court.
UK’s Farage unveils plan to repeal rights laws and deport asylum seekers
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UK’s Farage unveils plan to repeal rights laws and deport asylum seekers
- Nigel Farage said his party, which is leading in national opinion polls, would remove Britain from the European Convention on Human Rights
Trump says Zelensky ‘isn’t ready’ yet to accept US-authored proposal to end Russia-Ukraine war
- Trump said he was “disappointed” and suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward
- He also claimed Russia is “fine with it” even though Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable
KYIV, Ukraine: President Donald Trump on Sunday claimed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “isn’t ready” to sign off on a US-authored peace proposal aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine war.
Trump was critical of Zelensky after US and Ukrainian negotiators completed three days of talks on Saturday aimed at trying to narrow differences on the US administration’s proposal. But in an exchange with reporters on Sunday night, Trump suggested that the Ukrainian leader is holding up the talks from moving forward.
“I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelensky hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago. His people love it, but he hasn’t,” Trump claimed in an exchange with reporters before taking part in the Kennedy Center Honors. The president added, “Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelensky’s fine with it. His people love it it. But he isn’t ready.”
To be certain, Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t publicly expressed approval for the White House plan. In fact, Putin last week had said that aspects of Trump’s proposal were unworkable, even though the original draft heavily favored Moscow.
Trump has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Zelensky since riding into a second White House term insisting that the war was a waste of US taxpayer money. Trump has also repeatedly urged the Ukrainians to cede land to Russia to bring an end to a now nearly four-year conflict he says has cost far too many lives.
Zelensky said Saturday he had a “substantive phone call” with the American officials engaged in the talks with a Ukrainian delegation in Florida. He said he had been given an update over the phone by US and Ukrainian officials at the talks.
“Ukraine is determined to keep working in good faith with the American side to genuinely achieve peace,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
Trump’s criticism of Zelensky came as Russia on Sunday welcomed the Trump administration’s new national security strategy in comments by the Kremlin spokesman published by Russia’s Tass news agency.
Dmitry Peskov said the updated strategic document, which spells out the administration’s core foreign policy interests, was largely in line with Moscow’s vision.
“There are statements there against confrontation and in favor of dialogue and building good relations,” he said, adding that Russia hopes this would lead to “further constructive cooperation with Washington on the Ukrainian settlement.”
The document released Friday by the White House said the US wants to improve its relationship with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core US interest to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.”
Speaking on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum, Trump’s outgoing Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, said efforts to end the war were in “the last 10 meters.”
He said a deal depended on the two outstanding issues of “terrain, primarily the Donbas,” and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
Russia controls most of Donbas, its name for the Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk regions, which, along with two southern regions, it illegally annexed three years ago. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in an area that has been under Russian control since early in Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine and is not in service. It needs reliable power to cool its six shutdown reactors and spent fuel, to avoid any catastrophic nuclear incidents.
Kellogg, who is due to leave his post in January, was not present at the talks in Florida.
Separately, officials said the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany would participate in a meeting with Zelensky in London on Monday.
As the three days of talks wrapped up, Russian missile, drone and shelling attacks overnight and Sunday killed at least four people in Ukraine.
A man was killed in a drone attack on Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region Saturday night, local officials said, while a combined missile and drone attack on infrastructure in the central city of Kremenchuk caused power and water outages. Kremenchuk is home to one of Ukraine’s biggest oil refineries and is an industrial hub.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia is trying to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water for a fourth consecutive winter, in what Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing” the cold.
Three people were killed and 10 others wounded Sunday in shelling by Russian troops in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
