Closing Summary
Unveiling Reform UK’s “Operation Restoring Justice” at a press conference this morning, Nigel Farage revealed a five-year plan to detain and deport all migrants who arrive in the UK illegally and suggested 600,000 people could be sent back over five years.
The Reform party leader confirmed that women and children would also be detained under the plans. He was thin on details and was unable to name a single RAF base to be converted into secure detention facilities, despite this forming a central part of his party’s deportation policy.
Farage warned of a “genuine threat to public order” without action to tackle illegal migration, which he has described as a “scourge” on the country.
Reform pledged to scale up detention capacity for asylum seekers to 24,000 and secure deals with countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Iran to return migrants to their countries.
Reform said it would repeal the Human Rights Act, leave the European convention on human rights (ECHR), and disapply the 1951 refugee convention and UN convention against torture.
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said Reform UK’s plan does not stand up to scrutiny and accused Farage of “ripping up” human rights laws with his proposals.
A Reform UK government would pay the Taliban to accept the return of migrants who entered Britain illegally, senior party figure Zia Yusuf said.
Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch accused Reform of “copying our homework” with its illegal immigration proposals. Badenoch said the only workable parts of Farage’s pledges had come from Conservative policy but that Reform was “not doing the thinking” required to deliver.
A screening tool used to assess the support needs of domestic violence victims has “obvious problems”, Jess Phillips, minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said earlier, adding she was reviewing systems to support victims.
Peers could be forced to resign if they do not contribute enough to the House of Lords, under reforms ministers hope to make.
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Domestic violence screening tool should be replaced, Jess Phillips says
Caroline Davies is a writer for the Guardian
The main screening tool used to determine which domestic violence victims need support has “obvious problems” and should be replaced, the UK safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has said.
Phillips is reviewing systems, including the Dash (domestic abuse, stalking, harassment and “honour-based” violence) questionnaire, largely relied on by police, social services and healthcare workers across the UK since 2009 to assess risk.
Academics and others working in the sector have raised concerns about the 27-question tool, which assesses answers to decide which respondents are deemed high risk so they can be referred to specialist care.
Phillips told the BBC’s File on 4 that she was reviewing the entire system supporting victims but said it would not change overnight.
“My instinct is that the tool doesn’t work, but until I can replace it with something that does, we have to make the very best of the system that we have,” Phillips said.
Any risk assessment tool was “only as good as the person who is using it” and people had been killed even when deemed to be at high risk, she said.
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