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Nigel Farage has rowed back on plans to deport children as part of Reform UK’s strategy to tackle illegal migration.
The Reform leader had pledged on Tuesday to detain and deport up to 600,000 people with no right to be in the UK, including anyone who arrived in Britain after crossing the Channel in a small boat.
Asked if this number would include women and children, Mr Farage said: “Yes, women and children, everybody on arrival, will be detained.”
Mr Farage said he accepted that “how we deal with children is a much more complicated and difficult issue” and acknowledged that those protesting across the UK were not doing so “because of the few children coming”, but added that the “only way we will stop the boats is by detaining and deporting absolutely anyone” who crosses the Channel.
“If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay, period. That is our big message from today,” he said.
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Meanwhile, senior Reform figure Zia Yusuf said “phase one” would focus on adults, and unaccompanied children would be sent back “towards the latter half of that five years”.
Farage was questioned during a press conference in Scotland(PA Wire)
But on Wednesday, Mr Farage insisted at a press conference in Broxburn, West Lothian that he had been “very, very clear” that the party was focused on “illegal males” and “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
He added: “The news reports that said that after my conference yesterday were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.”
Pressed on whether he now meant women and children would be “exempt”, he said: “I didn’t say exempt forever, but at this stage it’s not part of our plan for the next five years.”
Mr Farage later sought to clarify his comments, saying there had been a “slight confusion” and he had not understood the “context” of the question.
He told broadcasters: “Deporting children is a very difficult thing to do. Who do they go to, what are the wards of care? Women and children, intimating families that have been here illegally for some years, are they top of our list? No.”
Asked again if women and children would be deported, he said: “If a single woman etc comes to Britain, they will be detained and deported. If a woman comes with children, we will work out the best thing to do.”
Labour MP Gareth Snell said: “Surprise, surprise: Reform’s supposed ‘plan’ on illegal migration is completely falling apart just 24 hours after being announced. It’s not good enough to just shout from the sidelines. The British people deserve better than this shoddy plan, which fails every conceivable practical, legal and ethical test.”
Liberal Democrats said the U-turn showed Mr Farage had “taken as much time reading his own plan as he does his constituents’ emails”. A spokesperson added: “Reform’s plans do not even stand up to the scrutiny of their own leader. His band of plastic patriots are taking the country for fools.”
Mr Farage’s plan was met with condemnation from charities who accused him of “dehumanising people who have fled war and persecution”.
Care4Calais’s chief executive, Steve Smith, said the majority of people “don’t want to see women and children placed in detention centres, denied their rights to safety”.
Meanwhile, Jon Featonby, chief policy analyst at the Refugee Council, added: “Detaining children en masse was never workable. It would have breached long-standing safeguarding protections and carried serious legal, diplomatic and moral consequences. No amount of tough talk will solve the challenges in our asylum system.”
Reform UK has pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and bring forward legislation to make everyone who arrives illegally ineligible for asylum.
The party claims its plans – which would require the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights – will cost ￡10bn to implement but save ￡7bn currently spent on illegal migration during the first five years.
But an analysis by The Independent, based on the latest cost estimates, found that it could mean spending ￡6.3bn each year on deportation flights alone and ￡3.6bn a year on converting detention facilities, as well as the unknown costs of a deal with third-party countries that agree to take in migrants deported from the UK.
Reform’s plans would also see Mr Farage attempt to strike returns deals with Iran and Taliban-governed Afghanistan.
Labour has so far focused its criticism on the practicality of the proposals, with Downing Street refusing to rule out seeking return agreements with autocratic regimes.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds declined on Wednesday to criticise Mr Farage for describing small boat crossings as an “invasion”.
He told an event in Westminster hosted by The Spectator: “We can all talk about language, but I don’t think it is about particular words we want to use, or particular slogans we want to use, or indeed about offering empty solutions, which is what Nigel Farage was doing yesterday, that’s going to solve this.”
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The government’s reluctance to question Mr Farage’s language around the issue has brought criticism from some figures on the left, including independent MP Diane Abbott.
Ms Abbott, who lost the Labour whip for the second time in July, said it was “unsurprising” and accused the prime minister of “trying to copy Farage all summer”.