The Conservative party has unveiled a sweeping, Trump-style deportation plan at the start of its annual conference, pledging to task officials with removing 750,000 illegal immigrants within five years. The plans represent a profound overhaul of the UK’s border and asylum systems, including an end to UK membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The ‘Removals Force’ and Five-Fold Increase
Central to the proposals is the re-establishment of the Home Office’s immigration enforcement unit as a strengthened “Removals Force.” The party plans to double the unit’s budget with an extra £820 million per year—funded by the closure of asylum hotels—bringing the total annual budget to £1.6 billion.
This force would be given a strict mandate to deport a minimum of 150,000 people each year, totaling 750,000 over the lifetime of a five-year Parliament. This goal is approximately a five-fold increase from the 35,000 migrants removed from the UK in the last year, the majority of whom departed voluntarily. The target includes current illegal residents, future illegal arrivals, and foreign nationals convicted of all but minor driving offences.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch defended the proposals in an interview, insisting illegal migrants must “go back to where they came from” or another country deemed safe. When pressed on the practicalities of identifying receiving countries, she branded the question “irrelevant,” stating:
“I’m tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions about where should they go… That is basically inviting every single person across the world to our shores because we don’t know where they would go after. That is a defeatist attitude and I will not have that.”
Overhauling Asylum and the Judiciary
The plan targets the legal mechanisms currently used to challenge deportation decisions. Key pledges include:
- Asylum Ban: Individuals who enter the UK without permission would be permanently banned from ever claiming asylum.
- Abolishing the Tribunal: The party plans to abolish the Immigration Tribunal, which currently hears challenges to failed asylum claims. Instead, appeals would be handled by Home Office officials.
- Restricting Legal Aid: Taxpayer-funded legal aid for immigration cases would be abolished, with the party arguing that there will be “no need for lawyers” once claims are “fairly assessed against the criteria.”
- ECHR Withdrawal: Crucially, the Conservatives have already pledged to end the UK’s 75-year membership of the ECHR to thwart further asylum appeals and legal challenges.
International Pressure and New Police Powers
To achieve the removal targets, the party says it will negotiate returns agreements with other nations and threaten to withhold aid spending and visas from countries that decline to cooperate. They plan to deport people to their home country or to a “safe” third country that agrees to accept them.
Domestically, the proposals also instruct police forces to check the details of every person they arrest against biometric borders data and would permit the use of facial recognition technology in public spaces without prior public notification. The party also plans to expand detention facilities to hold between 1,000 and 2,000 people ahead of removal.
The announcement comes as the Conservatives seek to counter poor poll ratings and the growing electoral threat posed by Reform UK, which has made similar pledges to deport large numbers of illegal migrants and leave the ECHR.
Source: BBC
