No going back: Nigel Farage’s immigration plan

Politics Weekly UK

The Guardian

News, Politics

4.0 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

In a major speech this week, Reform UK set out how it would lower immigration. With controversial plans to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and scrap key human rights protections, Nigel Farage described immigration as a ‘scourge’ and an ‘invasion’. Was this a watershed moment in the way politicians talk about small boat crossings? And what is Labour’s response? The Guardian’s policy editor Kiran Stacey asks the deputy political editor Jessica Elgot. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/politicspod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:10.5	A summer of protests outside asylum hotels.
0:14.6	Small boat crossings up and now an intervention that goes further than ever before.
0:20.5	If you come to the UK illegally, you will be detained and deported and never, ever allowed to stay.
0:28.7	Period.
0:30.2	Migration is back, dominating the headlines.
0:33.3	And so is Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage.
0:37.3	The government seems torn over what to do about its leader Nigel Farage. The government seems torn over what to do about that.
0:40.9	Nigel Farage wants written to fail.
0:44.1	His model of politics depends on it.
0:48.2	After the reform leader described irregular migration as an invasion,
0:51.7	and asylum seekers as being of fighting age, have we now
0:56.0	cross the Rubicon, where politicians can say almost anything about small boat crossings?
1:02.2	I'm Kieran Stacey, and you're listening to Politics Weekly for the Guardian.
1:06.9	Hello, and welcome back to Politics Weekly.
1:09.8	It's been a while. I hope you've all had a good summer,
1:12.3	but I'm back here in the broom cupboard talking about politics once more. And in what's become an
1:18.6	almost annual trend over the summer, coverage of small boat crossings to the UK have dominated
1:24.1	headlines for weeks. This, coupled with a wave of protest outside hotels,
1:29.0	housing asylum seekers, has put the government under renewed pressure to drastically reduce the number
1:34.0	of irregular migrants coming to the UK. And not one to be left out of the conversation on Tuesday
1:39.9	this week, Nigel Farage gave a major speech outlining Reform UK's migration plans if they succeed
	...

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