At a press conference in Dover, Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s spokesperson on immigration, policing, and national security, launched the party’s mass deportation proposal. He described the UK as“invaded”by migrants and said the plan would be the largest deportation programme in British history. Reform has stated it woulddeport morethan 600,000 people in its first term, using a dedicated unit to track down, detain, and remove those in the country illegally, at a rate of up to 288,000 per year.
Yusuf was born in October 1986 in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, the son of Sri Lankan Muslim immigrants who came to the UK in the early 1980s. His father is a doctor and his mother a nurse, both working for the National Health Service (NHS). A Muslim son of immigrants leading a party strongly associated with anti-immigration politics, Yusuf nonetheless shares many concerns familiar to American conservatives.
Reform UK’s platform addressesillegal immigration, welfare dependency among foreign nationals, and terminating a permanent residency system that gives non-citizens lifetime access to benefits and the right to bring unlimited family members into the country. The party also demands that legal migrants be net contributors to the economy and speak English.
On security, Yusuf argues that Islamist extremism, the dominant share of MI5’s caseload, has gone unaddressed by a government that has preferred to promote right-wing extremism as the primary threat. He links that same culture of avoidance to the grooming gang scandal, in which organized child sexual exploitation by men of Pakistani heritage was covered up for decades by authorities unwilling to confront it. When warnings were ignored and attacks occurred, no one in government was fired and no one was held accountable.
His Reform Party also wants to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, which has been used to block deportations of foreign nationals, including convicted criminals, and which British voters have no power to override.
On legal migrants, Yusuf drew a clear line between tolerance and subsidy. Those in the country on a legal visa, he said, are expected “to pay your way, i.e. be a net contributor to the economy and not be a burden on the taxpayer, to speak English and to not commit crime.” Reform also plans to abolish permanent residency, replacing it with a system requiring visa renewal every five years or a defined path to citizenship.
“This country can ill afford to continue to be a food bank for the world,” he said, pointing to the £9 billion ($12 billion) spent on universal credit (the UK’s main welfare program) for foreign nationals in the previous year alone. He warned that figure would grow as the 3.8 million people who entered under Boris Johnson become eligible for permanent residency (indefinite leave to remain), at which point they gain lifetime access to the welfare system and the right to bring unlimited dependents into the country.
“It’s totally unfair to expect them to foot that bill,” he said of British taxpayers, “and even worse to brand them racist.” Just like in the US, anyone who speaks out against open borders risks being called racist, except that in the UK it can land you in jail. Over 12,000 people were arrested in 2023 alone for social media posts under UK communications laws, a number that had more thandoubled since 2017. In one case, Luke Yarwood received an 18-month sentence for anti-immigration posts on X that had been viewedjust 33 times.
Yusuf has also argued that British citizens’ rights are being placed“beneath thoseof criminals” under the European Convention on Human Rights, and Reform has pledged to leave the treaty. More broadly, he has described current immigration levels as“unsustainable”for public services.
Yusuf told reporters that the majority of MI5’s caseload is “Islamist terrorism, so that is a fact,” and accused the government of performing “the most extraordinary gymnastics in order to not actually address the problem.” He pointed to official language in a recent report that used the word “alleged” when describing grooming gang crimes, despite hundreds of convictions.
Source: The Gateway Pundit
