Plans by Reform to deal with, what it has termed, the “state of emergency” of asylum seekers entering Britain have previously been ruled out by Home Office officials, or dropped due to spending concerns.
As part of a headline-grabbing interview with The Times, Farage touted plans to potentially re-open the Rwanda deal, explore a similar arrangement to Albania, open offshore processing centres in British overseas territories and create tens of thousands of new places in detention centres.
Farage also pledged to remove the UK from several international treaties, including the UN’s refugee and torture conventions, as well as the Council of Europe’s trafficking convention.
The plans amount to some of the most concrete policies Reform has offered so far on immigration issues, but many have been dropped or disregarded by previous governments.
One of the most notable policies is the idea that asylum seekers could be sent for processing on British Overseas Territories, away from mainland Britain.
Farage cited Ascension Island, a 34-square-mile island located 960 miles off the west coast of Africa.
A similar plan was previously touted by former Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel, before being ruled out by Foreign Office officials.
Less than 1,000 people live on the volcanic island, which hosts both a UK and US airbase.
In 2020, a member of the Ascension Island Council described the plans as a “logistical nightmare” and “prohibitive” due to the security concerns. A Home Office source also told The Guardian that the plan was “implausible” for the same reasons.
In The Times interview, Farage described the plan as a “backstop”. He said: “It’s a long, long way and it would be expensive…it’s symbolism.”
An interim injunction by the European Court of Human Rights stopped ministers’ first attempt to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda in 2022 (Photo: Henry Nicholls/Reuters)Mass detention centres
The Reform UK leader also pledged to build detention centres capable of holding 24,000 people, to combat small boat crossings.
This would mark a considerable increase in capacity, with only 2,192 beds currently available in detention centres across the UK.
Operating these centres costs the Government between £100m and £150m a year. To increase the capacity to levels Reform are suggesting, the yearly running costs would likely enter the billions, before considering the price of construction.
Reform is also expected to announce plans to use prefabricated buildings, built on sites such as disused military bases, with canteens and medical facilities on site, to save as much taxpayer money as possible for detention centres and asylum accommodation.
However, court documents previously revealed by The i Paper detailed how the cost of similar prefabricated accommodation varied between £115 and £167 a night. In contrast, hotel accommodation costs an estimated £142 a night, meaning that Farage’s plan would only save money if the speed of deportations and removals increased.
One of the most striking elements of the plans is a pledge to launch five deportation flights every day under new emergency legislation known as the Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill.
But past efforts suggest such a programme would face significant challenges. The Rwanda deportation scheme, championed by Priti Patel and later by Rishi Sunak, promised regular flights “indefinitely” to remove asylum seekers.
Yet despite ministers spending more than £50m on preparations, not a single plane left the runway before Labour scrapped the scheme last year.
Currently, the Home Office spends around £12m a year on charter flights, with each one costing between £175,000 and £200,000. About 60 such flights take place annually, often with only a handful of passengers, pushing the per-person cost close to £9,000.
The system has also been prone to disruption: between 2015 and 2022, cancelled flights cost the government £12.4m.
Angela Eagle, Labour’s border security minister, dismissed Reform’s numbers, saying: “Nigel Farage is simply plucking numbers out of the air, another pie in the sky policy from a party that will say anything for a headline.”
Migrant families clamber onto a small boat on August 12, 2025 in Gravelines, France. More than 50000 small boat migrants have now crossed the English Channel since Labour came to power last July (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)Restarting the Rwanda plan
Reform is also considering whether to revive the Rwandan deportation scheme, which was branded a “gimmick” by Labour and scrapped when the party came into power.
Farage said he was considering reopening the plan and entering a similar agreement with other countries, including Albania.
However, Albania has already previously distanced itself from entering any similar arrangement with the UK.
If Farage revived the Rwanda deal, it would likely require special ministerial sign-off.
When initially entered into by former Home Secretary Priti Patel, special approval was required to overrule civil servants’ concerns over cost.
Scrapping the Human Rights Act
Farage has pledged to repeal the Human Rights Act, withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, and replace them with a British Bill of Rights focused solely on citizens. Reform has said the new legislation would not refer to “human rights” but instead use terms such as liberty and free speech.
Farage told The Times the bill would enshrine “the freedom to do everything, unless there’s a law that says you can’t”, contrasting it with what he called the “concept of human rights, which are state-given”.
However, similar ideas have been raised repeatedly by governments over the past decade but have consistently stalled.
The Coalition government launched inquiries into replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights in 2010 and 2012, but the review panels warned the change risked weakening protections.
The Conservatives renewed the pledge in their 2015 manifesto, yet ministers were unable to secure a consensus within the party or with devolved administrations, which argued such reforms would undermine the UK’s constitutional settlement.
In 2022, Dominic Raab introduced a Bill of Rights Bill intended to curb the influence of the European Court of Human Rights, but it was criticised by lawyers, campaign groups and senior Conservatives for creating fresh legal uncertainty.
The measure was officially abandoned in June 2023, when Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said the government would not proceed.
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