Reform UK plans to impose visa bans on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria if those countries refuse to take back illegal migrants.
The warning, which is part of the party’s aim to achieve “net emigration” for the UK, will be given by Zia Yusuf in Dover on Monday.
Reform’s recently appointed home affairs spokesman will say that his Trump-style proposal to remove 600,000 people over five years, which he will call Operation Restoring Justice, will mean that more people leave Britain than arrive — if the party wins the next general election.
The plans could dramatically increase the number of people being removed from the UK. Some 58,500 illegal migrants and foreign criminals have left since Labour won the 2024 election, most of them voluntarily.
Critics are likely to point out that Britain is already on course for zero net migration. Preliminary figures indicate that the migration surplus fell to just 204,000 last year.
Yusuf’s speech is expected to include new policies on what Reform describes as “protecting British culture” and a “zero-tolerance” approach to Islamist extremism, building on its recent announcement that it would proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood.
In November, as part of Labour’s crackdown on illegal migration, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, warned Angola, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo that the UK would deny their people entry unless they rapidly improved co-operation on taking back deportees.
Shabana Mahmood has said that 58,500 illegal migrants and foreign criminals have left Britain since 2024
HOUSE OF COMMONS/PA
While those countries have since agreed to co-operate, Yusuf will accuse Labour of threatening visa bans on only a “handful of African countries responsible for only a minuscule proportion of illegal migrants”.
He will say that Reform would go further and target countries with larger illegal migrant populations, citing Pakistan, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria, Afghanistan and Sudan. Data suggests that Pakistanis are among the most likely people to overstay their visa period.
Before his speech, Yusuf said on Saturday: “As home secretary I will use every instrument of state to deport all illegal migrants in Britain, including visa bans on countries that refuse to take back their illegals.
“Further countries will be announced soon. Reform will do what it takes to finally secure our borders, uphold the rule of law and put the British people first.”
In an attack on Labour and the Conservatives, he will argue in his speech against the “cosy consensus” that Britain needs immigration to maintain economic growth. He will say that improving productivity, rather than using cheap unskilled labour, is fundamental to increasing GDP.
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He will cite the example of President Trump and his plan for mass deportations which has led to a significant drop in net migration in 2025 while the US economy has continued to grow strongly.
Before Yusuf’s appointment to the home affairs brief last week, Nigel Farage set out his proposals to tackle illegal migration. He said these would include taking the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights treaty as well as disapplying several UN conventions and replacing the Human Rights Act with a British bill of rights.
Reform would also establish a unit called UK Deportation Command, and asylum seekers would be offered £2,500 to board flights back to where they came from or to third-party nations such as Rwanda or Albania.
Under the party’s plan, migrants would be housed in former military bases before deportation. Reform says these would hold 24,000 people within 18 months at a cost of £2.5 billion.
Critics have branded Reform’s intentions as divisive and unworkable but Yusuf is expected to argue that other countries have much stricter visa requirements than the UK. He will talk about his experience as a visa holder in the US before entering politics, and how he was subject to much stricter rules than those in a similar situation in the UK.