Up to 6,000 illegal migrants will be deported every week under a Reform UK government, Zia Yusuf has announced. Nigel Farage’s home affairs chief says 600,000 people will be removed over five years, a move he insists will end the small boats “invasion”.
In a hard-hitting speech, he said bluntly that the UK is being “invaded”. And he pledged: “When Nigel Farage becomes our Prime minister, gone are the days when your rights are trampled in the service of foreign citizens.
“Never again will British people be second-class citizens in their own country.”
Mr Yusuf will set out his radical masterplan – Operation Restoring Justice – in a major speech in Dover. His Trump-style proposals include sweeping legislative changes, including leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), mass deportations, and a zero-tolerance approach to knife crime and Islamist extremism.
Reform’s Zia Yusuf in Huge Immigration Announcement – “Our Country Is Being Invaded”
Reform UK has placed immigration at the centre of its political strategy, with home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf unveiling a series of proposals that would fundamentally change the way Britain handles illegal migration.
Speaking about the party’s plans, Yusuf used highly forceful language, declaring that “our country is being invaded” and promising that a Reform government would reverse what he described as years of failed immigration policy.
The remarks were made as Reform expanded its proposals for mass deportations, tougher border enforcement and the use of military resources to prevent small boats from reaching Britain. The party says its objective is to end illegal Channel crossings and remove people who have no legal right to remain in the United Kingdom.
The description of migration as an “invasion” is Yusuf’s political characterization. Reform argues that the scale of irregular migration represents a national-security emergency, while the government and critics of Reform’s approach dispute the language and question whether some of the proposed measures could be implemented as presented. Reuters reported in February that Reform had described illegal migration as an “invasion” while unveiling plans for a dedicated deportation agency.
A proposed UK Deportation Command
At the heart of Yusuf’s immigration announcement is the creation of a new organisation called the UK Deportation Command.
Reform says the body would be responsible for identifying, detaining and deporting people who are in Britain illegally. The proposal has been compared by several news organisations with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, although the British organisation proposed by Reform would operate within a different legal and political system.
The scale of the proposed operation is considerable.
Reform has said that it wants to deport up to 288,000 people a year, with five deportation flights operating each day. The party has also said it expects to remove more than 600,000 people during a first parliamentary term.
Yusuf has described the deportation programme as a central priority for a future Reform government.
The proposal would require a major expansion of detention facilities, enforcement personnel and transportation capacity. It would also depend heavily on cooperation from countries of origin and, in some circumstances, third countries.
Reform’s argument over illegal migration
Yusuf’s argument is built around the distinction between legal and illegal migration.
Reform does not simply oppose all immigration. Instead, the party says Britain should have much greater control over who enters the country and who is allowed to remain.
The party argues that successive governments have failed to enforce existing immigration rules effectively enough.
In its own policy material, Reform says that more than 200,000 people have arrived in Britain by small boats over the past eight years. The party uses this figure as evidence that the existing system has failed to deter dangerous Channel crossings.
The government’s response is that enforcement has increased and that removals of people without a legal right to remain have also risen.
That disagreement illustrates the wider political divide. Reform focuses on the continued arrival of small boats and the need for stronger deterrence, while the government points to enforcement operations, returns and measures targeting smuggling networks.
Operation Fortress
Another major element of Yusuf’s announcement is Reform’s proposed “Operation Fortress”.
The policy would involve using the Royal Navy to intercept small boats in the English Channel and return people attempting to cross to France or Belgium.
Reform has described this as potentially the largest military operation in the Channel since the Second World War.
Yusuf has argued that the policy would stop people reaching British shores in the first place. Reform says that anyone attempting to enter Britain illegally by small boat would be intercepted and returned.
The proposal has generated questions about its practical and legal implementation.
ITV reported that Reform intended to use the Royal Navy to intercept migrant boats and return them to France or Belgium, while the party said it believed the plan could be operated consistently with international law.
The Standard reported that Yusuf argued France would have to accept migrants picked up by British forces. A former Royal Navy commander questioned whether the Royal Navy possessed the necessary ships and resources for the scale of operation Reform was describing.
This demonstrates one of the central difficulties surrounding the proposal: stopping boats is not simply a question of deploying vessels. It also involves decisions about where people are taken, which country is responsible for receiving them and what legal procedures apply.
Yusuf’s rhetoric has become increasingly prominent
The language surrounding Reform’s immigration policies has become an important part of the political debate.
In August, Yusuf wrote that “Britain is being invaded” while promoting Operation Fortress. Reform’s official material has repeatedly used similar language to describe illegal migration.
During a visit to Piddington in Oxfordshire, Yusuf described the area as “ground zero for the invasion of Britain” while criticising plans to accommodate up to 1,250 asylum seekers at a former Ministry of Defence site.
He argued that the local community was being asked to accommodate a number of migrants several times larger than the village’s existing population.
The language has attracted criticism because opponents argue that describing migrants as an invading force risks presenting a complex immigration and asylum issue as a military conflict.
Reform, however, maintains that its terminology reflects what it regards as a serious failure of border control rather than hostility towards migrants as individuals.
The numbers behind the debate
The political argument is also shaped by the scale of Channel crossings.
According to figures cited by Reform, more than 200,000 people have crossed the Channel in small boats over an eight-year period. The party argues that such numbers demonstrate why a fundamentally different approach is required.
The government and other political parties place greater emphasis on the distinction between illegal entry, asylum claims and people who ultimately have a legal right to remain.
That distinction matters because people arriving irregularly can subsequently make asylum claims. Their legal position is then determined through the asylum process.
Reform’s proposal would seek to change that system substantially.
The party has proposed legislation intended to accelerate removals and reduce the ability of courts to prevent deportations. It has also proposed leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and repealing the Human Rights Act.
These proposals would represent major changes to Britain’s legal framework.
Mass deportation and the five-year plan
Yusuf’s earlier immigration announcement included a five-year programme under which Reform says all people living in Britain illegally would be identified, detained and removed.
The party has said that the programme would require thousands of additional detention places and a large expansion of enforcement infrastructure.
The Guardian reported that Reform intended to create an ICE-style agency capable of deporting hundreds of thousands of people and to review the immigration status of people with indefinite leave to remain.
The scale of the proposal means that questions about resources are unavoidable.
If 288,000 people were removed in a year, that would represent an average of almost 5,540 removals every week.
Maintaining that pace would require a substantial administrative system involving caseworkers, immigration officers, detention centres, escorts, aircraft and international agreements.
It would also require a large number of deportation cases to survive legal scrutiny.
Relations with other countries
International cooperation would be another major test.
Britain cannot simply deport every person it wishes to remove without arrangements with the destination country.
Reform has proposed using diplomatic and economic pressure on countries that refuse to accept their nationals. The party has discussed measures including visa restrictions against countries that do not cooperate with removals.
Such an approach could create diplomatic disputes.
The effectiveness of visa sanctions would depend on how much leverage Britain has over the countries concerned and whether those governments are prepared to accept the consequences of refusing returns.
This means that the success of Reform’s deportation strategy would depend partly on negotiations beyond Britain’s borders.
The political response
The Labour government has argued that it is already taking action against illegal migration.
Reuters reported that the government said it had removed nearly 60,000 people with no legal right to remain since Labour entered office in 2024. At the same time, the government has pointed to enforcement against people-smuggling gangs and efforts to prevent small-boat departures.
Reform argues that such measures do not go far enough.
Yusuf’s position is that Britain needs a much more aggressive deterrence strategy and that the government should prioritise the removal of people who have no legal right to remain.
This difference is likely to remain one of the most important dividing lines in British politics.
A broader debate about asylum
The controversy also reflects a wider disagreement over the asylum system.
Supporters of stronger enforcement argue that uncontrolled or irregular entry undermines confidence in Britain’s borders and places financial pressure on the state.
Opponents of Reform’s approach argue that people seeking asylum may have legitimate protection needs and that Britain remains bound by domestic and international legal obligations.
These two arguments are not mutually exclusive in the sense that a government can seek to enforce immigration law while maintaining an asylum process.
The disagreement is over how that balance should be achieved.
Reform’s programme would move the balance significantly towards enforcement and rapid removal.
What Yusuf’s announcement means for Reform
Immigration has long been central to Reform UK’s political identity, and Yusuf’s proposals give that position a detailed institutional framework.
Rather than simply promising to “stop the boats”, Reform has outlined a combination of military interception, expanded detention, mass deportation and legislative changes.
Operation Fortress would focus on preventing arrivals.
The UK Deportation Command would focus on people already in Britain without legal status.
Together, the policies represent Reform’s attempt to create a complete immigration-enforcement system rather than a single policy aimed only at Channel crossings.
The scale of the proposals is what makes them politically significant.
Reform is not proposing a marginal adjustment to Britain’s immigration policy. It is proposing a fundamental restructuring of how the state manages irregular migration and asylum.
The questions that remain
The most important questions concern implementation.
Can Britain operate the proposed number of deportation flights?
Can sufficient detention capacity be built?
Will France or other countries accept people intercepted at sea?
Will countries of origin cooperate with large-scale removals?
How would courts respond to the proposed legislation?
And what would the programme cost over several years?
Reform has provided its political answers to these questions, but many of the practical details would only be tested if the party were actually responsible for implementing the programme.
For now, Yusuf’s declaration that “our country is being invaded” remains a political description of the situation, not an established factual classification of migration.
What is beyond dispute is that immigration has become one of the defining issues of Reform UK’s political platform.
With Operation Fortress, the proposed UK Deportation Command and a target of hundreds of thousands of removals, Zia Yusuf has placed immigration enforcement at the centre of the party’s vision for government.
The debate that follows will therefore be about more than rhetoric. It will concern the balance between border control, asylum obligations, international cooperation, military resources, deportation capacity and the rule of law.
For Reform UK, Yusuf’s announcement is intended to demonstrate that the party has a detailed plan for immigration.
For its critics, the same proposals raise questions about legality, cost, practicality and the consequences of describing migration in the language of invasion.
Those competing interpretations are likely to remain central to Britain’s immigration debate as Reform continues to campaign on one of the most politically divisive issues in the country.