Reform's Mask Slips - Deportation For The Crime Of Not Having Fair, Straight Hair

If it was not already abundantly clear, Reform UK’s pledge to abolish Indefinite Leave to Remain status (ILR) confirms their stance on immigration was never about the law. In his public appearances, Nigel Farage has always been very careful to capitalise on a certain sense of injustice felt by a growing proportion of Brits against ‘illegal immigrants’ and the supposed ‘comforts’ they receive at the expense of the taxpayer. The announcement of Reform UK’s intent to abolish ILR for individuals legally settled in in the UK marks a clear break from the party’s rhetoric thus far, and one that could cost them their current meteoric rise to popularity.

To be clear, it was evident for anyone in tune with Nigel Farage’s position on the immigration issue that the legal status of immigrants in the UK was never the reason behind his decision to persecute them. If that were the case, Reform UK would not have included a pledge to exit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in their manifesto, which grants refugees a legal right to claim asylum within the borders of its signatories. Similarly, Farage would have not had an issue with the changing demographics of large cities around Britain, given that these figures only point to a moderate change in the ethnic makeup of an otherwise law-abiding, tax-paying workforce.

During the press conference announcing the new policy, Farage and his party colleagues laid out many of the mistruths they have been fine-tuning over the past several years. One of these mistruths was the now-cliché argument that most migrants rely on benefits, and thus should not be granted ILR status - lest they be a permanent burden on the state. In an attempt to justify this position, Farage claimed, with ‘research backing it up’, that more than 50% of the people due to become eligible for ILR in the next few years ‘are not working, have not worked and in all probability will never, ever work.’

Despite the fact that migrants in the UK have a higher employment rate than those born on the isles, it is also categorically untrue that most migrants concerned will be a burden on the state, as applicants must also be able to prove that they have the income and access to funds to financially support themselves and any dependents in the UK without relying on public spending, according to the Home Office.

Ironically, while making his announcement Farage held up a booklet with ‘Prioritising UK Citizens’ on the front cover. Leaving aside the observation that the term ‘UK Citizen’ no longer has any meaning for Reform, seeing as their definition keeps changing depending on who they wish to scapegoat at any one time, this policy would still harm even the British citizens Farage does not reject. 

According to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, there were 430,000 non-EU citizens with ILR at the end of 2024. It is important to make the distinction between EU and non-EU citizens here as Zia Yusuf, former Chairman of Reform UK, announced that the policy to strip away ILR from those with the status and force them to reapply for visas under stricter regulation, would not apply to EU citizens. The justification being, according to Yusuf, that French, Swedish, and Finnish people are less likely to apply for ILR and ultimately citizenship in the UK than people from India, Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Why is a legal, employed migrant from Sweden any different from a legal, employed migrant from Pakistan? I’ll leave that to your imagination.

Returning to the issue at hand, the potential loss of 430,000 employed taxpayers from Britain would be a major loss to the UK economy. Not to mention of course, the human cost of losing 430,000 friends, partners, neighbours, and colleagues, as London Mayor Sadiq Khan pointed out in response to Reform UK’s policy proposal.

I acknowledge that the racism underlying the Reform UK movement has always been thinly veiled by an agglomeration of euphemisms and tactful redirection towards a more palatable debate on fairness and taxpayer’s money. What is scandalous is that the party now feels comfortable saying what it has always believed out loud; ‘we do not care what piece of paper you have, you are not welcome in this country.’ Today it is those with ILR, tomorrow, those who are ‘foreign-born’ regardless of the time they have spent in the UK. As my mum, a Spanish woman who had her British passport approved 5 years ago, wrote in the family group chat, ‘it’s getting a little scary.’

This time however, they may have gone one step too far. Despite what was made of the ‘Unite the Kingdom' march and ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, Britain’s growing animosity towards ‘immigration’ is not strictly an animosity towards immigrants who are working and contributing to society. Despite the misinformation circulating online and radicalising subsets of the population, most British people, when asked, have nothing against immigrants who work, pay their taxes, and do not disturb the peace. If Reform are not careful, they might halt their momentum 4 years too early. Despite Nigel Farage’s malign influence on the political discourse, Britain is far behind him on the issue of deporting migrants whose only crime is not having fair, straight hair.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Z979

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