❓WHAT HAPPENED: Nigel Farage’s Reform Party has announced plans to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants currently holding indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the United Kingdom.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, Reform policy chief Zia Yusuf, and immigrants in the United Kingdom.
📍WHEN & WHERE: The policy was announced on Monday morning in Britain.
💬KEY QUOTE: “These changes will lead to hundreds of thousands of people having to apply and ultimately losing their settled status in the UK.” – Zia Yusuf
🎯IMPACT: The proposed policy could reverse the unprecedented influx of legal immigrants under former British prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, should Farage’s party win the next British general election.
Nigel Farage’s Reform Party has pledged to scrap the Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) immigration system, which allows immigrants to settle in the United Kingdom permanently after just five years, to stop the “Boriswave” migrant influx under former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak from becoming irreversible. Instead, Farage proposes a temporary visa system where immigrants must renew their permission to stay every five years.
The ILR reforms are to be paired with changes to the British welfare system, so that only British citizens are eligible for government support. Reform believes this will save taxpayers around £234 billion (~$316 billion) and encourage many migrants who are dependent on state handouts to self-deport.
LIVE: Reform UK announces plan to abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain and avert the Boriswave. 🚨 https://t.co/qiI3ykCGgR
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) September 22, 2025
Reform policy chief Zia Yusuf confirmed the immigration reforms will mean “hundreds of thousands of people having to apply and ultimately losing their settled status in the United Kingdom, which will be done on a staggered and orderly basis to allow businesses to train British workers to replace them.” He added that many immigrants who rely on welfare should leave on their own, while those who do not could face deportation.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan, of Britain’s governing, far-left Labour Party, called Reform’s plans “unacceptable,” insisting that migrants with ILR are valuable “friends, neighbours, and colleagues.”
According to 2021 Census data, at least 40 percent of London’s population is foreign-born, and an even higher percentage of residents have a recent migration background, with only 36.8 percent falling under the ‘White British’ category. Many immigrant groups in the city are heavily dependent on welfare; for instance, 74 percent of Somalis live in public housing.
Reform has been polling in first place consistently, with the government required to hold another general election at some point between the present day and 2029 at the latest.
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