Farage to pledge to suspend asylum system for five years

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is set to announce his party’s pledge to suspend the asylum system if Reform were elected (Gary Oakley/PA)PA WireHelen Corbett4 minutes agoNews Briefings

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Nigel Farage is set to announce a pledge to ban anyone from being granted asylum for five years if Reform were elected.

The Reform UK leader will announce a plan on Monday to suspend the asylum system for a full parliamentary term and declare void any applications in progress.

All asylum tribunals, legal refugee routes and resettlement schemes will be scrapped.

A Reform government would not hear the around 90,000 outstanding asylum and humanitarian protection appeals and instead deport the claimants.

The party would immediately close resettlement schemes that Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood recently said would reopen, with around a quarter of those admitted to the UK expected to be Palestinians and women and girls from Afghanistan.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed that the country was facing a ‘national security emergency’ (Gary Oakley/PA)PA WireReform says there is “no mandate” for such schemes and that anyone who has arrived under them would be deported.

Any refugees granted asylum in the last five years would have their cases reviewed by the Home Office under the plans.

Mr Farage told The Telegraph: “The country is currently facing a national security emergency and the first duty of government is to protect its citizens.

“We cannot accept more asylum seekers while we still have no idea how many people are in the country illegally and the threat they pose.

“A Reform government will always put British people first and protect our borders.”

The party earlier announced plans to impose ‘visa freezes’ on those wanting to visit legally from certain countries (Dominic Lipinski/PA)PA WireThe party will also pledge to use tariffs to force countries to take back migrants.

It comes after plans unveiled earlier this year to impose “visa freezes” on those wanting to visit the UK legally from countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria if they do not accept deportees.

These would halt any new visas for nationals of those countries – as well as Eritrea, Sudan and Somalia – which the party would target due to having significant levels of visas issued to the UK.

When it comes to other countries that would not be greatly affected by such a measure but have trade with the UK, the party is now saying it would go further with sanctions such as tariffs and airline bans to apply more pressure.