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Monday, October 12, 2026
UK’s hard-right Reform vows to pause asylum system if elected
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British hard-right firebrand Nigel Farage vows to suspend the country’s asylum system for five years if his Reform UK party is voted into power.
Reform UK surged in the polls on the back of a wave of anti-immigration sentiment, although Farage has lost momentum in recent months over a series of donations scandals this year.
“We will end the asylum system for up to five years … Because we’re in the most terrible mess as a country,” Farage says in a speech from Kent in southern England.
“We have to end this asylum scam, and we have to end this racket,” claims the pro-Brexit figurehead.
The next general election is not due until 2029.
Seeking asylum is a legal right enshrined in the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights although governments have a right not to grant it.
Immigration is a political hot potato in the UK. Thousands of people seeking asylum began crossing the Channel from France to England on small boats each year starting around 2020, when the government introduced a new post-Brexit immigration system and accounting method.
But small-boat crossings are now the lowest they have been in years — down some 40 percent year-on-year as of Sunday — after a series of measures by successive governments.
Last month, UK interior minister Shabana Mahmood announced the reopening of a scheme for refugees to settle in the UK after pushback over policies tightening rules for migrants arriving via legal routes.
The Times of Israel Community.