New laws should be brought in to prevent churches being turned into mosques or places of worship for other faiths, Yusuf said, citing a need to protect British culture.<\/p>\n
Asked whether he supported a burka ban at the press conference, Yusuf said he backs a ban on “all face coverings in public” – a shift in stance from when Yusuf briefly quit the party last year, describing a question to the prime minister about a ban on burkas as “dumb”.<\/p>\n
He told the press conference: “I personally support a ban on all face coverings in public… that’s actually a piece of legislation that has multiple bonuses to it because it’s going to aid integration, it’s also going to help people feel safe.”<\/p>\n
On BBC Politics Live, Yusuf went into more detail on plans to ringfence welfare payments for British citizens, saying “we’ve got to put the British people first”.<\/p>\n
He said: “It is totally ridiculous the British spent \u00a315bn on universal credit payments over the last 18 months alone.”<\/p>\n
Labour Party chair Anna Turley dismissed Reform’s plans for mass deportations as “a direct attack on settled families and fundamentally un-British”.<\/p>\n
She said: “The British people are right to expect firm control of our borders – with clear rules about who can come here and swift action against those with no right to be here – alongside action to make our country safe – and that is what Labour is delivering.<\/p>\n
“Since taking office, Labour has removed nearly 60,000 people with no legal right to remain. <\/p>\n
“Alongside firm enforcement and the removal of incentives that draw illegal migrants, we are also opening capped safe and legal routes to provide sanctuary to those fleeing war, in a way that is orderly and controlled.”<\/p>\n
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp accused Yusuf of “copying and pasting Conservative plans”.<\/p>\n
“Only the Conservatives have a credible plan to control our borders through leaving the ECHR, deporting all illegal immigrants within a week and banning asylum claims from illegal entrants.”<\/p>\n
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Max Wilkinson compared Reform’s plans to the US immigration body ICE, saying it would bring disorder.<\/p>\n
“It’s nonsense to claim that ripping up the European Convention on Human Rights \u2013 a largely British creation \u2013 will bring more control. <\/p>\n
“It will undermine the cooperation we need to tackle the problem, and deprive British people of hard-won rights and freedoms too.”<\/p>\n
The Green Party was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New laws should be brought in to prevent churches being turned into mosques or places of worship for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-441555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}