Two of Reform UK’s core five pledges are to do with migration. The party says it would freeze non-essential immigration, but concedes there would be exceptions with work in healthcare considered essential.
It plans to ban students from bringing partners and children to the UK and employers would have to pay 20% National Insurance on foreign workers (compared to 13.8% for British citizens), though there would be exceptions for the health and social care sector and very small businesses.
On the thorny issue of small boats smuggling migrants across the Channel, the party says it would “pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France”. But it does not explain how it would persuade France to accept that.
It says “zero illegal migrants” would be resettled in the UK. Asylum seekers arriving illegally would be processed rapidly and “offshore” if necessary. Those rejected would be “returned”. These are quite aspirational policies as some would be very hard to implement. Successive administrations have found it very difficult to find places to send failed asylum seekers to and negotiations with France have often got bogged down quickly.
A promise to deport foreign prisoners “immediately” after their release is already government policy, but has proved hard to implement with countries that are reluctant to help.
These policies all apply to the UK as a whole.
